Introduction: How to Integrate an Ultrabright LED Into Your NERF Longshot

It allows you to have an optional night vision option on your Longshot

Project cost: around $40-$50
Longshot: $30
Electronics: 10-20
You will need:

Exactoknife
drill (optional)

1 nerf longshot (duh)
1 ultrabright 10 mm LED, forward voltage is 3.2 V (Red, Blue, White, Green)
1 9V battery
1 9V battery connector
1 330 ohm 1/4 watt resistor
connector wire.
Hot glue

solder (optional)

on/off switch (optional)

9V battery clip (optional)

Everything is available from radioshack, except for the resistor, which they will order and ship to you for free.

Radioshack staff commonly knows what to find on the list, and should assist you in finding the parts.

Step 1: Step 1: Open It Up

Open up the one-shot blaster portion of the longshot with a phillips head screwdriver. be careful not to touch anything that compromises the integrity of the firing system.

if you do not care about the firing system, skip to the wiring and just take out all of the internals foir a better fit.

for better performance: (this mod will hurt it if done wrong)
Better yet, take out the air restrictor inside the plunger. This can be accheived by drilling out the back with a 1/8 inch bit until the little crosshair is loose. pry that out with pliers.

Step 2: Step Two: Adaptive Wiring

The main problem to face with this gun is that there is NO place to run wiring. You're gonna have to cut. Whenever I cut my guns, I start crying, but this is cool, so suck it up.

The pictures show it a little easier. I'm not willing to open my gun again so this will have to do. photo credit: nerfhaven.com

All Connections can be hotglued, rather than soldered. This insures insulation AND connection

Make sure all of your connections are correct. LEDs are one-directional and will not accept a negative charge on the positive side.

Also, make sure you don't burn out your LED because without the resistor, they will burn with a puff of smoke.

make sure all connections are hot glued to the internal barrel, this shot is wrong. All connections must be routed to the barrel's exterior. The LED is hot glued into the little circle that is below the secondary barrel

Be very careful not to interfere with the plunger apparatus. It is very touchy. You will have to take it out to fit in your wiring behind it.

The plunger operates on a rail system, if you continue to have a problem with the rails sliding onto the wire, (if you do it, you will know what I mean) just cut off the tapered edges on the rails.

The entire system is very touchy. If you cannot make it shoot after the mod, just take it apart and attempt to put it back together. It took me four tries to put it together. (I didn't cut the plunger.)

But it shoots AND lights up so I must of done something right.

Step 3: Reassembly

make sure it lights up. if it lights up, continue to have it lit while you put it together. you DO NOT want something to go wrong with the wiring while you reassemble the gun. Make sure everything is mounted correctly. If it is, you should see your wiring following the outside of the barrel. This makes future mods very easy to do, such as switches or variable resistors.

Step 4: Troubleshooting

If the gun shoots and the light stays on, you've done it. Just remove the 9V battery snap to turn it off, or if you added a switch, press that. There's plenty of room to add on/off switches in the gun, so the screw-in ones are a definite maybe. If the gun does not shoot, move your wiring and make sure the plunger sits correctly on its rail.

Step 5:

Go shoot your gun at a disoriented Nerfer, trust me, this thing cuts of ALL nightvision with a Blue or White Bulb. Red does the opposite: It helps your night vision.

If find a Green 10 mm LED, then you prolly will wanna put a variable resistor in your circuit after your regular resistor, seeing that Green is not a good color to see the the dark, it hurts everyone's eyes in the vicinity, if you flash it at someone, you may irritate your own eyes because of glow.

My method of "connect the battery" is because my killswitch (that I had inside my Lightsaber that I built and tore apart to build this) broke. Wahh, you don't care. (maybe I should make an instructable for the lightsaber)