A Quick Way To Build Your Belt Gizmo™ 

By: Kevin Kemarly, CEO & Staff Advisor

If you want to build one yourself, here's a quick and dirty tutorial which I am sure you will have tons of questions about.

Circuit chips template.

Here is the image (above) I made, now the box outlines are the templates for the circuit chips. The ones on the left I used 1/16th plastic, for the bottom I used a 1/8th thick wood strip.

Playschool2000's real circuit.

This is playschool2000's circuit (above) that I sized up based on online measurements of the Minolta calulator.

The first thing to do is read this all the way, because I doubt it will be very organized.

Second, print out the template at 300 resolution using the lowest quality to make sure the thing will fit in your pouch. If it doesnt use an editing program to adjust accordingly. Use the quick print for the templates of cutting out the chips, then flip the image horizontaly and print on printer transperancy paper on a high quality setting. Tip: Flipping makes the glossy side the front. Cut out the circuit and 8's. Watch out so you dont get fingerprints on the transperancy!
Using the quick printout from earlier, cut out a base for the circuit board out of 1/16 in material. I used plastic but wood will do. Make sure the surface is smooth and then paint using rustoleum metalic gold. Once the paint is dry, lightly spray it with spray adhesive and attach the transperancy with the gloss side outward.

The small chips I painted flat black. Since I used white plastic for the big chips I didnt have to paint them.

Then I took the picture of playschools to Radio Shack and picked up the capacitors, resistors, and the metal housing. I thought it looked cool.

Now for the nixies.

For the nixie bodies I bought an aquarium gravel vacuum. The clear tub on it had an inner diameter of 1/4". I cut eight sections of it and stuffed the cut 8 in each one. Then I bought some 18 gauge red and green wire that I cut and hotglued into the bottom. For the caps I took some old Christmas lights and pulled off the top that houses the bulb. I seperated the green part from the bulb and painted it flat black. Once dry I shoved it into the top of the tube and bingo eight nixies.

For the black box part I took an empty Cannon ink cartridge and cut off the front of the top and painted flat black.

When its all together, it'll look something like this.