Modding Classic Light Guns

Repairs, shells, CRT-to-LCD conversions and modern internals in classic guns.

Firearms

Modding Classic Light Guns · Deep Dive

Modding Classic Light Guns

What owners did when their guns outlived their screens.

Repairs, shells, CRT-to-LCD conversions and modern internals in classic guns.

Photo: A Namco GunCon 2 converted to OpenFIRE, open, with an IR camera and fisheye at the muzzle and a Pico in the grip by The Opponent (theo.minuspoint.com) · CC0

Search every volume:

?

How to search

sten gun
pages with both words
"sten gun"
the words together, as a phrase
sten OR sterling
either one (| works too)
sten -replica
leave out pages that mention “replica”

Without quotes, the last word also matches longer words that start with it (sten finds Stenophylla), and close word forms count (rifle finds rifles). Tick Exact words to match whole words only.

Whole deep dives are listed first, then the pages inside them.

    Volumes

    1. Vol 1 Before the Screwdriver — What Is Inside a Classic Light Gun, What Breaks, and What Is Not a Fault at All Four kinds of classic gun sorted by where the aiming really happens; a Zapper and a GunCon opened part by part from a published teardown and a community component list; the failures each design invites; and the triage that saves opening a gun that was never broken
    2. Vol 2 Repairs at the Bench — Test Methods, Switches, Cables, Sensors, Batteries and Missing Parts A test ROM that tells a dead Zapper from a dead console port, a GunCon that reports its own faults, the nine-wire cable by colour, why the Zapper's sensor is fixed with a donor board and not a part, replacement GunCon 3 markers from a CC0 schematic, and two adaptors that make a gun work on a console it was not sold for
    3. Vol 3 Shells as Hosts — Which Classic Gun to Gut, What Goes In, and Where the Camera Sits Why a GunCon shell became the default home for a modern IR gun, the carrier boards made for it and how OpenFIRE already knows their pin maps, the other shells weighed one by one, the rules for putting a camera behind a barrel, and the choice for this build with its reasons
    4. Vol 4 The GunCon 2 With OpenFIRE — Michael's Fallback Build at Bench Depth A published, photographed, reversible conversion followed board by board: what comes out, the two plastic tabs that are cut, the three IC pins that are lifted, the camera in a printed coupler behind a phone fisheye, the seven-way ribbon by pin, every GunCon 2 control mapped to OpenFIRE's Pico preset, and where this build departs from the source and why
    5. Vol 5 Classic Guns on Flat Panels — What Works, What Does Not, and the Claims Weighed Against the Evidence Three kinds of console expectation and the three different rescues they allow; a Zapper board that sees DC and a cartridge that waits for the television; a Raspberry Pi that becomes a GunCon; what RetroTINK, OSSC and HDMI mods really do for a light gun; and a table of claims with the evidence each rests on
    6. Vol 6 Adding Kick and Rumble to Guns That Never Had Them What the console guns offered and what the conversion kits add; where a solenoid and a rumble motor go in a GunCon 2, a GunCon and the slimmer shells; why a classic pistol shell gives a tap and not a slide; and the driver, supply and cable for the fallback gun, each with the reasons for and against