"PONDERA RECIDIVUS" by Cannibal869

[cannibal869]

HELLO SABERLAND!!!

NUCLEAR JEDI SABERS is proud to present to you PONDERA RECIDIVUS!
You know how you just can't keep a good jedi or sabersmith down? Well, to make a long story short, I have recovered about 90% function after my herniated disc. I still have some numbness in my left thigh, but the doctors say that it should improve over time. For the time being, I'm grateful to have my mobility back. I'm also incredibly grateful to my wife for taking care of me over the last month, while I was recovering. We got married a few weeks ago, and luckily, the nerve inflammation was controlled enough that we were able to get through our first dance and I was even able to stand and sit for most of the night. For that reason I dedicate this saber to my beautiful wife! As I have found my function restored and better balance in my mobility, so too does the saber name reflect the fact that now I have "balance restored".

So.... this saber was an interesting and fun build for me. It's actually been sitting near completion for the past week - I was waiting for a shipment of slow change RGB LEDs and then realized this morning that I already had one on hand that I could scavenge. So I worked on the saber today since I had the day off and am very pleased with the results. I also figured that since I actually do make a lot of sabers - with a handful of padawan sabers that have gone to my friends' kids - that I should start my own "label" as it were... hence I proudly present NUCLEAR JEDI SABERS. Kinda fitting considering my line of work (in real life - yes, I deal with radiation).

Well, enough jibber jabber... onto the specs:

MHS based saber with custom sink tube shroud
Grooves powder coated in "purple starlight"
Sink tube shroud powder coated in "solar rain"
10W RGBA LedEngin main LED with blue and red driven by
TCSS 3W LED Driver and
Amber CLASH FLASH (via NPN transistor) <***NO CF BOARD!!!***>
5V regulator powering Hasbro 2010 Electronic Lightsaber Obi-Wan board
5mm RGB slow change accent LED beneath the bubble strip
5mm purple accent LED beneath the "faux crystal slit"
Momentary activation switch
2 latching switches (one for the master power and one for the amber die)
2 Trustfires
30 in. TCSS heavy white blade tube with 5-6 ft of polypropylene and bullet tip

The saber itself has some Anakin and Mace influence and a part of me feels that some of the inspiration also comes from watching ROTJ where Vader is finally redeemed through Luke (and balance is finally restored to the force, as was prophesized in Ep. I). I decided to have a little bit of a "fire" motif in certain parts of the saber. For instance, the metal around the "crystal slit" has been burnished so that it has a bit of a flame-like look to it. I also decided to use the amber as a clash flash accent to showcase two things - the fire and pain that Anakin / Vader lived through, and my own pain from the herniated disc (which often felt like a deep searing pain in my thigh along my L2 nerve distribution). That and the green for some reason didn't want to play nice with the wiring setup I was using.

Onto the glams!

http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Ponderaw.jpg (http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Ponderaw.jpg)
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera2w.jpg (http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera2w.jpg)
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera6w.jpg (http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera6w.jpg)
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera1w.jpg (http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera1w.jpg)
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera8w.jpg (http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera8w.jpg)
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera9w.jpg (http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera9w.jpg)
http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera10w.jpg (http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/Pondera10w.jpg)

And of course, the obligatory video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7k_g9io80A

Enjoy!!
-C

[Rafalema]

Beautiful saber!

Not maybe my style, but it's still a beauty!


And now sir, would be the time to share the clash flash PNP transistor diagram :D

[Crystal Chambers]

Nice job!

Glad to hear you're feeling better. Congrats on getting hitched!

Aesthetically I like some things while others bother me but more importantly FOC!!! Very impressive!
And of course we'd all like see a wiring diagram for sure.

[JamoUp]

Very nice electronics work. not my style aesthetically, but i might have to take some notes on your Flash/Clash!

[Shadar Al'Niende]

I have (halfway) followed the thread on FoC with this PnP thing. I was then and am now intrigued as others have expressed. Good work and way to go pioneering this stuff!

Finally congrats on the recovery and the balance restored to your life, good to see more sabers coming outta ya! ;)

[jin starkiller]

very cool looking saber ..not my style but still looks cool

[Sunrider]

Pretty saber, looks great. And there are some fancy features you've got there.:cool:

Glad to hear you are better.

[cannibal869]

Thanks guys for all the comments - in the words of Robert Downey Jr., "It's good to be back!" :D

I'll try to post up a wiring schematic but it should be fairly similar to this thread...
http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?t=10274&highlight=flash+hasbro

As for the saber itself - it's surprisingly comfortable to hold - I made sure the activation box is in the least obtrusive place (for a right-hander).

-C

[Darth Midian]

Congrats on getting married, & glad to hear you back is better. I know that lower back pain sucks!!!. 10 years ago I went to pick up an empty box. Yes, empty. I don't know what I did, but I hit the floor & couldn't move. That was not fun. Anyway, cool looking saber. I really like the yellow accent clash on flash. That's a good idea. That's also a great purple.

[Sairon]

Very nice saber looks awesome, and congrats on getting hitched.

[Kastor]

Great stuff! What a creative Idea for the clash, I really like how these new boards deal with it... adding that sizzle/flicker after the initial clash and it looks awesome with your flash system!

[cannibal869]

OK here's the wiring schematic I used....

a few notes: it's not terribly elegant... and I never did quite figure out how to get rid of the accent LED latching switch. The master power switch can be replaced with a kill key type system if you wish.
Oh and apparently, Tim no longer sells the 3W LED driver V2 in the store - probably cause he's busy trying to design something better.

If you'll notice, I have the activation momentary switch located right next to the accent latching switch, so it's actually not all that hard to turn on both one after the other. Again, not terribly elegant and for that I apologize.

One last thing, the tactile momentary switches that Tim sells in the store can actually turn on both the hasbro board and the LED driver board at the same time - just have to get the wires correct (I think it only works one way). Also, you don't need the clash sensor on the driver board since you now have the accent LED going through the NPN.


http://i882.photobucket.com/albums/ac29/cannibal869/Lightsabers/ponderawiring.jpg

[Crystal Chambers]

so...is this still a more elegant weapon then a blaster? lol

This is so simple. I can't see why it wasn't done long long ago in this galaxy..jk. Totally over my head I wouldn't know where to start. With a diagram I could manage to wire this up though. The only thing that I'm wondering is the latching switches referring to one switch?

The only reason I'd be hesitant to try this is the swing on this board has horrible response time. The sound quality and clash sensing is really really good for a cheapy though.

[cannibal869]

Oh I forgot to post this on this thread - I've actually done this before and it works...

I took two of the MR swing sensors (which Tim has in the store) and oriented them at 90 degrees to each other - making a sort of "L" shape. I soldered the ends together so that now it kinda looks like a triangle with two bare wire "prongs" sticking out.

Then I took out the stock hasbro swing sensor (monkey head looking thing) and soldered the modded MR swing sensor into the hasbro board.
Ta da... MR swing responsiveness on a hasbro board for around a buck or two. :cool:

Of course, it's NOWHERE near as good as an accelerometer switch, but it *is* a bit better than the monkey head...

And no, there are TWO latching switches on this saber - one is the master power switch (so the batteries don't get drained out while the saber is sitting in the stand) and the second is specifically to turn on the clash feature. Again, not the most elegant of solutions and I'm hoping that one of the other electronics wizards here can take a look at the diagram and come up with a better cost effective solution.

-C

[Ari-Jaq Xulden]

I think this (http://www.play-hookey.com/digital/experiments/ttl_inverter.html) is the circuit we were looking for but I never tried it.

[DarthPawley]

Sorry for the thread necromancy;
I have a question about the purple colour from the LEDEngin.
Your circuit diagram shows you're driving the Red and Blue dice in series using the 3W driver - am I correctly interpreting that the 3W driver is passing 5 V to the 2 dice in series using the 7805 to reduce the voltage? Now that the 3W driver is gone from the store I can't check the specs directly but the TaskLED page leads me to believe that the driver is not regulating current or voltage, just doing PWM direct drive - if that's true, what current are the dice getting?
I agree with earlier comments about the Amber FOC - I think that the amber is a great choice with the purple. Your work here has been inspirational...
Cheers,
Dave

[cannibal869]

Sorry for the thread necromancy;
I have a question about the purple colour from the LEDEngin.
Your circuit diagram shows you're driving the Red and Blue dice in series using the 3W driver - am I correctly interpreting that the 3W driver is passing 5 V to the 2 dice in series using the 7805 to reduce the voltage? Now that the 3W driver is gone from the store I can't check the specs directly but the TaskLED page leads me to believe that the driver is not regulating current or voltage, just doing PWM direct drive - if that's true, what current are the dice getting?
I agree with earlier comments about the Amber FOC - I think that the amber is a great choice with the purple. Your work here has been inspirational...
Cheers,
Dave

If you look at the wiring diagram, it shows that I'm driving both in series. No resistor on the red. And no, the 3W driver is actually getting the full 7.4V (actually more like 8V when fully charged)...
This is because the minimum input voltage for the LED driver is 6V (according to the spec page). I wasn't entirely sure if it would be safe to try to drive both the red and blue in parallel with a resistor on the red and these LedEngins are kinda expensive... I had already done another saber with red and blue in series (see my sig pic), and I was happy with the color blending of that attempt, so the shade of purple doesn't bother me quite as much. It's not OSPP, but it'll do.

Only the soundboard is being voltage restricted to 5V.