Propmaking: Lego handlink replica

Warning: I'm going to be geeking about about science fiction to provide context for the rest of the post. Either skip to the bottom and page up a few times or close the tab. Also, the narrative is going to wander around a bit because there's a fair amount of setup.

Note: There are a couple of affiliate links.

As my handle implies I'm a sucker for time travel stories. I love the idea of seeing history as it happens and not just reading about it. I'm not that inclined to talk about fandom, so I tend to not bring it up much. Which is probably why I've never mentioned that I've been a fan of the series Quantum Leap since I was a kid. I credit this series with my fascination and study of history, as I've ranted about occasionally. I also credit Quantum Leap with my interest in building prop replicas. While most of the series tried to fit the period (costumes, props, backgrounds, music (before the DVD releases, anyway ¹)) we occasionally got brief, tantalizing glimpses of what things looked like in Sam's time. But I'll come back to that in a moment.

Last year a continuation of the original show was announced and I approached it with some skepticism, like many fans of the original Quantum Leap. Folks have their opinions, and they are welcome to and allowed to have them, and that's okay. I quite like the new series.

The original series used a fairly standard (for a 45 minute show) five act structure where almost always the whole story was told in the past. Very rarely did we as viewers get to glimpse what was going on in Sam's home time (in the charmingly futuristic year of 1999) but when we did it was depicted with an aesthetic that looked absolutely around the bend to us in the real-life late 1980's. Donald P. Bellisario deliberately scripted things so that they would look nothing like anything that existed in real life, having as few identifiable details as possible. This aesthetic is best described as randomly stuck together colored blocks with the occasional blinking light that is referred to as "a rotten pile of Gummi bears." ² Bellasario has said in interviews that this is because fen are wont to ask questions like "So, what does this random thing do in the story?" and the answers were always "The set designers put it there to look cool, please stop analyzing every last detail and just enjoy the show."

Case in point, Al Calavicci's handlink, a hand-held minicomputer-slash-communications device used to interact primarily with the project's artificial intelligence unit. In the context of the show it was the way that Al could ask Ziggy questions and get answers in a reasonably timely manner. It also served as comic relief because it wasn't the most reliable piece of technology in the world but could often be fixed with a little percussive maintenance. Most charmingly, Ziggy's remote would also emit tinny cries of pain. So, of course, many of us wanted to build replicas of Al's handlink to take to sci-fi cons and show off.

The handlink wound up being an incredibly difficult thing for any of us to build over the years. Believe me, we tried.

On BBS networks, the nacent Internet³, room parties at cons and in columns of fanzines we, as a loosely affiliated, group of nerds worked on plans, schematics, and articles about how to make our own replicas. Materials and techniques were bandied about, design sketches made on hotel notepads and napkins, and catalogs were requested from the back of Radio Electronics Magazine and pored over. And every time, something outside of anyone's control would go wrong.

Throughout the years things like the block LEDs like those used in the original prop (or very close to same) were discontinued and fell out of manufacture, usually right when a bulk order was placed. Microcontrollers for controlling the device's lighting effects became impossible to get hold of. Audio chips were promised, ordered, but turned out to never have been manufactured. For a while the casting resin suitable for making the plastic housing couldn't be purchased because it was found to be highly carcinogenic and can no longer be legally purchased in the United States. We wound up calling it the Handlink Curse.

Then the original Quantum Leap wrapped up in 1993 and fen went their separate ways, as we are wont to do. Favorite shows are missed but never forgotten, and each of us went on to other things. As far as I know, and my knowledge is spotty here because I lost touch with the fandom for many years, nobody actually managed to build a replica handlink until somewhen in 2019, when Replica Props annoucned that they were working on a screen-accurate replica built with modern parts and construction techniques. It would seem that the Handlink Curse had been broken. A lot of us have been eyeing it over the years and I don't mind saying that it looks awesome. The lights, shape of the case, every little detail, the PCB inside, the microcontroller's firmware, the sound effects.. it's top shelf. Replica Props should be working in the industry if they're not already. ⁴

There's just one problem: It's $650us.

Now don't get me wrong. They worked really hard on this replica and it shows. A lot of physical and electrical engineering went into the design, and construction process is sufficiently complex that orders typically take about 45 days to fulfill. Each is built by hand. Believe me, I'd love to own one as part of my collection. But there's no way I can reasonably afford one.

However, fen being who we are, when the new series premiered we flocked to Reddit and started talking. Then in late 2022, LeoCorReplicas posted a couple of photographs of himself in a closetplay as Al Calavicci, complete with a handlink constructed out of Legos.

Well, okay then!

Long story short (too late), in the comments he posted a link to his design on Bricklink for a rotten pileof Gummi bears handlink. I'm almost certain that I'm not the only person who descended upon that page and set about ravenously analyzing it. Leo Core Replicas tried to post a bill of materials (suitable for uploading to Rebrickable so you could buy all of the bricks in one shot) but wasn't able to for copyright reasons. He did, however, list them as comments on each step of the build. To assist other fen I did that legwork of copying them into a cut-and-pasteable list at the very bottom of this post. ⁵ Unfortunately you'll have to go through Lego's Pick-A-Brick and build your shopping list piece by piece.

In addition, Leo Core Replicas used a handful of these Lego-compatible clear 2x2 LED bricks to add the blinking lights to his handlink build. I did the same and they're one of the coolest things I've messed with in a long time. Some of the bricks glow plain white, some of them glow a single color, and some of them change colors every few seconds. They have a little switch on the side that you either can press and twist with your fingertip to turn them on or off, or if it's resting next to another brick the pressure will hold the switch closed. I don't mind saying that I love these little things and ordered an extra package just to have laying around for future Lego tinkering.

To make the prop look more like the handlink in the show I ordered two packages of totally not Lego but one-for-one compatible translucent bricks from Amazon. After I'd finished assembling the prop as documented I started swapping out the true-blue Lego bricks for matching translucent not-Lego bricks on a one-for-one basis. Two-by-three and red brick? Pop it out and install a matching two-by-three and translucent red brick. And so forth. In theory you could skip ordering the solid bricks from Lego and just buy two bags of the transparent not-Lego bricks and save yourself some money. In practice, I wish I'd kept an inventory of the clear bricks so I could tell you which ones to elide from your order. I really don't know. Maybe I'll sit down and reverse engineer mine to give you hard numbers. I will say, however, that I probably should have not purchased the little colored Lego buttons, because I don't think they add much to the finished project. You could never see anything like a control surface in the show, so I don't see why adding one to a prop replica is essential. Of course, that's just my opinion and I could be wrong.

It took a little getting used to but I found that having a couple of Lego poppers on hand made it much easier to pull the bricks apart. Especially the flate plates, which fit together so tightly that I was resorting to a razor blade to separate them. The trick to using them seems to be using the Lego popper as a lever to tilt one side of a brick up so it can then be removed by hand.

Of course, because I'm not yet used to Sigal, I took a few pictures and added them to a gallery.

Happy building, and maybe I'll run into you at a con some day.

Step 1

• 3623: Plate 1 x 3, Orange, x1
• 3020: Plate 2 x 4, Green, x2
• 3021: Plate 2 x 3, Yellow, x2
• 3023: Plate 1 x 2, Blue, x2
• 3022: Plate 2 x 2, Bright Pink, x1
• 3020: Plate 2 x 4, Yellow, x2
• 3710: Plate 1 x 4, Orange, x2
• 3021: Plate 2 x 3, Bright Pink, x1
• 3022: Plate 2 x 2, Orange, x2
• 2420: Plate 2 x 2 Corner, Green, x1
• 3021: Plate 2 x 3, Blue, x1
• 3623: Plate 1 x 3, Blue, x1
• 3022: Plate 2 x 2, Yellow, x2
• 3623: Plate 1 x 3, Bright Pink, x1
• 3020: Plate 2 x 4, Bright Pink, x1
• 3021: Plate 2 x 3, Orange, x1
• 3023: Plate 1 x 2, Bright Pink, x2
• 3031: Plate 4 x 4, Blue, x1
• 3020: Plate 2 x 4, Blue, x1
• 3023: Plate 1 x 2, Green, x1
• 3710: Plate 1 x 4, Bright Pink, x1

Step 2

• 3710: Plate 1 x 4, Light Bluish Gray, x3
• 3023: Plate 1 x 2, Light Bluish Gray, x2
• 3031: Plate 4 x 4, Light Bluish Gray, x1
• 2420: Plate 2 x 2 Corner, Light Bluish Gray, x5
• 3958: Plate 6 x 6, Light Bluish Gray, x2
• 3020: Plate 2 x 4, Light Bluish Gray, x2
• 3034: Plate 2 x 8, Light Bluish Gray, x1
• 3795: Plate 2 x 6, Light Bluish Gray, x1
• 11212: Plate 3 x 3, Light Bluish Gray, x2
• 3022: Plate 2 x 2, Light Bluish Gray, x1
• 3021: Plate 2 x 3, Light Bluish Gray, x1
• 3024: Plate 1 x 1, Light Bluish Gray, x1

Step 3

• 3020: Plate 2 x 4, Light Bluish Gray, x2
• 2420: Plate 2 x 2 Corner, Light Bluish Gray, x2
• 3024: Plate 1 x 1, Light Bluish Gray, x2
• 3795: Plate 2 x 6, Light Bluish Gray, x1
• 3035: Plate 4 x 8, Light Bluish Gray, x1
• 3022: Plate 2 x 2, Light Bluish Gray, x3
• 11212: Plate 3 x 3, Light Bluish Gray, x3
• 3958: Plate 6 x 6, Light Bluish Gray, x1
• 3021: Plate 2 x 3, Light Bluish Gray, x4
• 3623: Plate 1 x 3, Light Bluish Gray, x3
• 3031: Plate 4 x 4, Light Bluish Gray, x1

Step 4

• 3003: Brick 2 x 2, Black, x7
  • These are placeholders for LED blocks.

Step 5

• 3001: Brick 2 x 4, Green, x1
• 3004: Brick 1 x 2, Green, x2
• 3002: Brick 2 x 3, Orange, x1
• 3001: Brick 2 x 4, Bright Pink, x1
• 3001: Brick 2 x 4, Yellow, x2
• 3004: Brick 1 x 2, Orange, x4
• 3004: Brick 1 x 2, Yellow, x2
• 3004: Brick 1 x 2, Bright Pink, x3
• 3003: Brick 2 x 2, Green, x2
• 3622: Brick 1 x 3, Bright Pink, x1
• 3622: Brick 1 x 3, Blue, x3
• 2357: Brick 2 x 2 Corner, Yellow, x2
• 3005: Brick 1 x 1, Blue, x1
• 3002: Brick 2 x 3, Blue, x3
• 3003: Brick 2 x 2, Yellow, x1
• 3003: Brick 2 x 2, Orange, x1
• 2357: Brick 2 x 2 Corner, Blue, x3
• 3622: Brick 1 x 3, Orange, x1
• 3005: Brick 1 x 1, Bright Pink, x1
• 3622: Brick 1 x 3, Yellow, x1
• 2357: Brick 2 x 2 Corner, Green, x1
• 3002: Brick 2 x 3, Bright Pink, x1
• 3002: Brick 2 x 3, Yellow, x3
• 3020: Plate 2 x 4, Yellow, x1
• 3024: Plate 1 x 1, Yellow, x1
• 3024: Plate 1 x 1, Blue, x1
• 3003: Brick 2 x 2, Blue, x1
• 3003: Brick 2 x 2, Bright Pink, x1

Step 6

• 4073: Plate, Round 1 x 1, Black, x5
  • It's a button.
• 98138: Tile, Round 1 x 1, Flat Silver, x14
  • It's not quite the button, but the flat round cap.
• 4073: Plate, Round 1 x 1, Trans-Neon Yellow, x27
  • It's a button.
• 4073: Plate, Round 1 x 1, Trans-Dark Pink, x9
  • It's a button.
• 4073: Plate, Round 1 x 1, Trans-Bright Green, x6
  • It's a button.
• 3069b: Tile 1 x 2 with Groove, Trans-Neon Orange, x8
• 3022: Plate 2 x 2, Blue, x2
• 3021: Plate 2 x 3, Green, x1
• 3031: Plate 4 x 4, Bright Pink, x1
• 3022: Plate 2 x 2, Bright Pink, x1