How to light up Drossel

A step-by-step guide to make Figma Drossel light up.

We all know that the urge to light up figma Drossel is a great one indeed. Especially after being tempted by the pictures over at Mika-tan’s burogu a few months back. I searched the web for some guides to mod my very own ojou-sama and failed to find any. Maybe there were some out there, but not in the language I can decipher. So I decided to take it upon myself to figure it out. It was pretty easy after all!

early versions

I used to play with LEDs when I was young so I had a hidden stash at home. I found out that a standard 3V 5mm LED could be stuffed into Drossel’s headgear without much difficulty. Unfortunately I only had Yellow, Green and Red LEDs so I could not bring out Drossel’s pretty blue eyes.

I love the Red eyes a lot though. If I have a 2nd Drossel or when I get the Gizmo ver. I’ll place red LEDs into her eyes.
/RAGE MODE

As you can see, I had a very crude wiring system for my prototype designs.

Knowing that I needed blue or white LEDs, I decided to head down to SIM LIM TOWER the next day after I confirmed that 5mm LEDs were the way to go. It did not take me long to find the shop I was looking for. In fact I think that almost every shops sells LEDs. Afte rall, this was the place to get your electronic fix.

In case you are wondering, I went to this shop and bought 4 blue and 4 white LEDs. 2 normal and 2 wide angle ones. The lady was kind enough to give me a discount too!. Each LED has a cost price of S$1. You only need to buy 2, in fact you can get enough brightness with 1 actually.

The first thing you have to do is take out Drossel’s head. If you have never taken her head out before, It would take a bit of force. Remove any twintail/jetpack/helmet that she is wearing first. Grab the 2 black helmet connectors and gently nudge out her head.

After taking out her head you have to remove the connector. I used a pair of pliers and considerable amount of force to take the black connector out.

The shorter LED is the wide angle and the longer one is the standard 5mm LED.

I decided to test the effect of the normal blue ones first.

Soldering can wait, old school wire twisting for testing.

The blue glow is pretty much a win for me, but I am sure there are those who prefers the white ones. Up to you to choose what colors you want, the method is still the same.

I fold the excess legs of the LEDs upwards.

For testing purposes, I used a 9V battery. But it’s an overkill and I don’t recommend you to use such a power source because Drossel might explode or blast off the the far reaches of the galaxy, besides, batteries are a waste of $$$.

I recommend you to use a USB power source since it’s only 5V and most of us have our computers on perpetually.
Find an unused USB cable and chop off the other (female) end. You should get a bunch of mess and 4 distinct wires. If it was a data cable I think you’ll see some transparent wires.

Anyway the Data wires are useless. You’ll need to twist the BLACK, GREEN and WHITE cables together to form a single wire. The red wire will remain as your (+) positive power supply. The USB supply from your computer is 5V if my memory is correct, which makes it perfect for 2 Series Arrangement LEDS to be attached. (Don’t be like me and connect it in Parallel the first time and blew up my 2x Wide angle blue LEDs)

Before my 2x wide angle LEDs blew up. So pretty!

The back of Drossel looks like this. I recommend you to cut away the excess legs, solder the wires to the legs, and tape the points up. I am lazy so I did not do it. The only thing I did was to twist the cables together to form a umbilical cord. Reminds me of Evangelion :3

Drossel needs some time to get used to the brightness.

Reading in the dark now possible!

So cool!

Trivia: Which episode?

For those going to ACME this weekend, I’ll bring a cleaned up version of Drossel so you can see her in blue lights action. Would probably bring an alternate power source since I don’t intend to bring my Macbook down. So if you want to see this little baby in her full lighted up glory, do come for ACME! If you have a Drossel, and would like to mod her and is going for ACME, I still have my 4x white LEDs. Leave a comment or message me on Twitter and I’ll bring wires and what not down as well to mod your Drossel.

Excuse me now while I play with Drossel!