Diamond Comic Distributors Star Trek: The Original Series: Communicator

I bought this for my eight-year-old son, who is quite the fan of the original Star Trek series. First off, you won't find a better original series communicator for the price. My son loves it - it looks cool and worked great right out of the box. Nice loud, clear sounds. Durability? Well...one slight issue is that the gold aluminum cover narrows down to two small strips at the hinges (true to the original design). This proved to be a problem when my son repeatedly flipped the thing open somewhat forcefully (as kids would do). The cover reaches its stopping point and the inertia of the whole cover would slightly bend the connecting strips. After a while, the bending causes the cover to not want to completely seat back down in the closed position. It's a simple matter to "re-bend" things so that it closes again, but I fear too much of this might eventually cause the strips to break. A lesson to my son about his "technique" and he can now open it without stressing the lid. Also, when you open the lid, a small protrusion on the hinge assembly pushes an internal wire to make a connection which activates everything. At one point our communicator stayed activated constantly - whether open or closed (basically, it wouldn't shut off). I opened everything up and found that whoever assembled it at the factory didn't quite position the internal wire correctly. A little tweaking with a small jewler's screwdriver fixed that problem, but I must detract a star for "durability." One other small complaint from my son was that the motor which drives the moire is fairly noisy, and the moire itself is hard to see unless you're in outside in daylight. But hey, it's around 35 bucks and it really does look great (nice lights, details, etc). I feel that it's worth the money, even with the few fixes which I find are becoming more and more typical of toys like these made overseas. Do I recommend this communicator toy? Yes I do.

My first one was only partially functional: one of the buttons didn't work & the swirly-thing didn't go round. Returned it and, thanks to Amazon's Customer Service, I received a replacement very quickly. Everything works on this one, so... cool! Yes, it's made out of plastic. For this kind of money did you expect more?? If you want a higher-end level of tech and craftsmanship, you're going to have to pay for it big-time. So what if it's cheap & cheerful... it's very fun and entertaining. Well worth the modest price. As a casual cosplay or party prop, or for kids of all ages (especially those who watched the first broadcasts of TOS), this is perfect and pretty much guaranteed to bring a smile to your face the first time you flip it open and hear that CHHRRRPPPP!

Excellent recreation of the classic series communicator! Features were more than I expected with the recordings, the lights, the hailing function...just a blast to use. Out of the package there was only one recording working which was the Captain Kirk voice. I think it was stuck in the 'Try me' mode recording even after I removed the plastic strip. I unscrewed the back to change the batteries and that didn't help. I then unscrewed the under covering and removed the small circuit board. I made sure the leads in the 'Try me' slot were making contact with the board and it all worked as soon as I reassembled it. Hopefully this was just a quirk on mine - I'm very happy with it.

It rivals my Master Replicas model and was only $24!!!!!! There's two versions (standard and exclusive). I've had the exclusive version on pre-order for awhile but still ended up breaking down and also buying the standard version since the price was so low. Since the "exclusive" version was a few bucks more and the description on the exclusive was much more detailed, I expected this standard version to be made almost entirely of plastic. Well, it's more metal than plastic. It's identical in size, shape and almost weight to my Master Replicas Communicator. The moire looks and runs just like the MR version (only it's a bit louder). It has the feature that allows you to set it up to beep you somewhat like the MR only the AA version continues to beep you until to open it. It has sound clips of the original cast instead of the MR's static/interference sound. Putting it up next the MR version, they absolutely look identical! I still have the exclusive version coming but had I known this I'd of just gone with the standard!!! Still, for the low price, why not have both??? I can't get over the quality of this item and the super low price. You just don't see stuff like this any more! You gotta get one!!!!

I did get all the Diamond toys items (tricorder, phaser and communicator), and so far this is the best of the 3. The quality is solid; it is one single piece; with just the top lid moving. I am a bit disappointed that the lid is not metal but plastic, but it is OK, still feel decently solid and not super flimsy. To operate it, you flip it open. It will make the iconic comm sound, and then the moire effect part in the middle will start to rotate and buzz; which will go on for minutes, or unless you flip it closed again There are 2 buttons; one is used to trigger events, so you push it and close the lid, then wait for the call. Open the lid and you will get one of the pre-made scenario dialogues. The second play the sentences from Captain Kirk, in sequence. In the end it is plain and simple, but this is the beauty of it; not much to do wrong; feel solid, fun to show around.

My Communicator didn't work, no lights, no motor, no phrases, no functions, only one voice with the right handside button. The functionality is inhibited by the so called "try me tab" that prevents an electrical connection of the leads to the board. Supposedly, when you remove the Tab, the leads must close onto the board and make the necessary connection for the device to work. but that didn't happen, for some reason the leads were contaminated probably by the plastic Tab, and contaminated leads dont make good contact. So, what I did is to put a small drop of contact cleaner at the tip on both sides of the plastic Tab, and inserted it in its original place and move it carefully back and forth and that fixed the problem for my device. You probably want to try that, without diassembly the device, but if it does not work try to dissasemble the device , have it open to show the batteries then remove a second cover to expose a small printed circuit board, remove the board and do the avobe referred cleaning while pressing gently the leads onto the board. It worked for me I hope it Works for you. Regarding the appearence, yes, it looks a Little bit cheap, but for the Price is OK. All of the avobe is forgotten when you see the device working, it is wonderfull, the rotary display is fantastic the blinking lights and the phrases are great and the call back function too! I am sure in the Factory they know what is happening and I wish they make an effort to help the customers.

Very nice quality. The motor for the moire does make a little noise but its trivial. The sound quality of the effects and voices is excellent. Here's a hypothetical scenario for work..... (Open antenna "chirp chirp chirp" (press right button) "Spock here Captain." (You) "Mr Spock, my boss is being a jerk and may require intervention." (Press middle button and red LED lights up. close antenna. Set communicator on desk by office mates) "beep beep...." you are being haled) "chirp chirp chirp" "Spock here captain. Shall I beam down an armed shore party." (you "No not yet but keep one on standby with phasers set to stun." I hope you get the idea....

What a huge let down. I bought one of these for my Trekkie wife a few years back. It had a gold chrome flip up screen, did all the sound effects, and had a fairly quite little motor inside that made a "moire" effect (shimmering light pattern) on the round screen. For $30 bucks, pretty cool, and dagnabbit, it LOOOKS just like the real prop. Even has the 4 screws on the back like the prop (watch TOS in Hi def--you'll see them!). I just recently bought two--one was sent back--and boy did Diamond Select mess this toy up big time. First, the gold chrome screen has been replaced by a dull gold colored plastic that looks like crap. Look at the pictures, you can see the shiny gold chrome and the ugly gold colored plastic. But far, far worse than that, BOTH units did not work when the demo tab was pulled out. The two pieces of metal that are supposed to close the circuit held apart by the "pull me" tab never closed. So, I jammed a screwdriver in there and bent them enough to make contact. Now it worked. And things really went south!! Recall the quiet little motor that makes the moire effect wheel spin? Well as soon as I got the unit out of demo mode and the motor started, there was a hideous grinding noise audible from across the room. Both units had exactly the same problem. Now, if you look at the two close up picture attached, you will see what the problem is. The motor drives a worm gear (seen in the side by side picture) that makes the gear wheel move. This clever gearing is to make a fast spinning motor slow down for a gentle moire effect. But after looking at my wife's unit, I saw the yellow wire was connected to the + terminal, the brown to the -. On my unit, the wires are reversed. Reversing the +/- polarity (a true Star trek term!) on a DC motor reverses the direction. So, the worm gear went from quietly pulling the ring gear to jerkily, and with great grinding noise, pushing the ring gear on the new units. Realizing I was probably going to get another lemon, I took the one I'm keeping apart and switched the two wires so yellow now goes to + like on my wife's unit. Problem almost solved. Another cheap redesign popped up. On my wife's unit, they mounted the motor with hot glue. This helps dampen vibrations even more by acting as a shock absorber and keeping the humming motor off the plastic slab where it would be like a sounding board. The new model has plastic tabs molded in to wedge the motor in place. And they work wonderfully to amplify every buzz, gear misstep, and hideous grinding noise the backwards running motor made. So, I popped off the tabs, found the best, quietest position for the motor, and hot glued it in place. Now it hums just like it should, with a noticeable but faint and not unpleasant motor noise. In summary, if you don't mind tearing it apart, rewiring the motor to spin the right way, and hot gluing the motor in place, and what the heck, painting the gold screen part while it is all disassembled, this is the toy for you. If, on the other hand, you are a normal person who expects the darn thing to not stink out of the box run--don't walk--away from this junk. BTW--The original shiny chrome unit showed copyright CBS, 2009. The new, messed up beyond belief units have a copyright 2016 stamp on the back.

This collectible item is a must have for any fan of Star Trek The Original Series.

Es un jugete bastante fiel al original. Ya sea por frikada, coleccionismo o juegos. Recomendado, para cosplayers y coleccionistas. Genial

Fantastic - I love this thing. My only complaint would be the plastic grill, but for the money it can't be beat.

It's fine. A bit noisy, the motor that give the display effect is loud. The LEDs lights up and the various voices are original and random when pressing the buttons. And the sale price made it a real bargain. So I'm satisfied with the purchase.

Absolutely star trek perfect. Size, feel, sounds.