Removable Blade wiring help

[Wong Yoon Wei]

I am currently attempting a luxeon conversion on my removable blade anakin. Most of the steps are the same as the fixed blade version but I hit a little snag with the wiring.

Here are two pics of the base of the blade.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f355/noisetrigger/DSC02762.jpg
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f355/noisetrigger/DSC02764.jpg

There wires are labeled this way on the pcb.

1- brown
2- red
3- orange
4- yellow
5- green
6- blue
Ground- Grey
Impact- white

I figure out 1 to 6 are the negative wires so does that make the ground wire positive?

Also, I know one wire is supposed to go to the clash sensor but where is the other wire from the clash sensor to the led? I couldn't figure out where it it is for the life of me.

This is the last step I need to figure out before I proceed to wire everything up. Thanks.

[dgdve]

Well correct me if I'm wrong but you only actually need the clash sensor from that mess... so you could just replace it, if you cant figure it out.. great to see inside one of the new blades TYTY and yeah (I'm thinking the green thing is the clash sensor), but since I've yet to get one of those in house I think we need some more discussion on this.

[Wong Yoon Wei]

Well correct me if I'm wrong but you only actually need the clash sensor from that mess... so you could just replace it, if you cant figure it out.. great to see inside one of the new blades TYTY and yeah (I'm thinking the green thing is the clash sensor), but since I've yet to get one of those in house I think we need some more discussion on this.
Well, the actual wiring will not be from this side, I will be using the wires from the soundboard section.

I guess I can either

i) desolder the clash sensor and reuse it or

ii) leave the clash sensor on the board, cut a piece of the board out for support but still need to figure out how to wire it.

[dgdve]

The wire I think were both looking for is the one that comes FROM the clash and is merged with the positive off the board and continues on to the main LED.. Id just try to desolder it and wire it in BUT as I've said I have never seen this board before so I'm just goin with some basic MR/Hfx board type set up. Keep us posted

[Wong Yoon Wei]

Some updates, I made quite a bit off progress yesterday, all credit to Rhyen Skytracker of course, for without his guidance and him patiently answering all my noob questions I wouldn't ever dare to attempt this conversion myself. I can never thank him enough for taking time off his other stuff to verify things for me.

I guess I should have posted this pic of the soundboard itself in the beginning. (this pic was taken by Rhyen Skytracker)

http://i416.photobucket.com/albums/pp242/wadeh13/Tutorials/2010%20Anakin%20FX%20with%20removable%20blade/DSCN0445.jpg

Basically for this board, the polarity is reverse. 1-6 are positive now. That makes gnd negative. Also, the purple wire is for the blade presence sound. I initially wired 1-6 to the positive of the led and impact + ground to the negative of the LED. It didn't power on. I thought I screwed up the board or something. While checking for bad wiring, the purple wire accidentally touch the negative and ground wire and it powered up!!! What a happy accident. :D

I guess it makes sense, by not wiring the presence wire, the board will think that the blade is not plugged in. By wiring it, the board now believes there is a blade in the hilt.

One last hurdle, I still haven't figure out how to wire the clash sensor yet. I manage to trace the impact wire from the board to the thinner leg of the sensor. The other leg looks like it's either going positive or ground, I am not so sure, cause some hot glue are obscuring the board circuit and I can't tell for sure.

Anyone can chime in on this? If the impact wire goes to the skinny leg of the sensor, which is the most logical wiring for the fat leg?

[dgdve]

Wow for a board that looks so similar thats a mouthful of differences you just noticed... Great Job to you and to your padawan this "Rhyen Skytracker" (lol)

[Wong Yoon Wei]

No no no, Rhyen Skytracker is a member here with lots of experience in building lightsaber, he was the first I believe to gut out the removable blade soundboard for use hence it is only natural for me to consult him on the electronics section.

Another update....I got it to work!!!!! Clash sensor and all. Basically the wiring is exactly the same as the old boards with a few exceptions.

Firstly, wires 1 to 6 are positive now and hence goes to the positive part of the LED. The purple blade presense wire needs to be wired with ground and connected to the negative part of the led. For the clash sensor, One leg to impact and negative and one leg to positive.

Now I have one last hurdle, the Anakin blade holder I got here doesn't fit. I have been sanding for hours and I am still not anywhere near in getting it in. I read the reviews saying that it needed a lot of sanding but I have no idea it needs this much.

Also, the blue rebel I got looks a lot more cyan and blue. Is a p4 blue a darker blue? Maybe I will try that next time.

[Azmaria Dei]

Also, the blue rebel I got looks a lot more cyan and blue. Is a p4 blue a darker blue? Maybe I will try that next time.

that happens... the P4 blues that i have are a nice happy medium blue - close to "true blue".

[RevengeoftheSeth]

The clash sensors and motion sensors that we use are not concerned with polarity.

[dgdve]

No no no, Rhyen Skytracker is a member here with lots of experience in building lightsaber

You speak so highly of this padawan learner... (LOL) No No its ok Rhyen is VERY well known and respected, I was just trying to mess with him(joke)

[cardcollector]

^^^^^
Joke made me laugh. :)

[PhoenixReborn]

The Rebel Royal Blue is what you want. Royal Blue = Deep blue like Anakin. Blue = Sky Blue/Bluish Cyan.

[Wong Yoon Wei]

I did it!!! It's alive. I must have done the world's first removable blade luxeon conversion. It's so cool. Really bright and puts the stock blade to shame. Now I know why everyone is doing this conversion.

Basically, the whole process is the same as the fixed blade version. There is only an additional blade presence wire that needs to be wired with the ground wire.

[Azmaria Dei]

excellent! congrats and thanks for doing this. do you have pictures of everything?

[Wong Yoon Wei]

Here are pics of the converted blade.

With slight daylight through the window
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f355/noisetrigger/DSC02781.jpg

Total darkness
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f355/noisetrigger/DSC02784.jpg

As for the process, I was so into completing this that I totally forgot to take any pictures of the progress. But fear not, the steps are almost exactly the same as the fixed blade version. If you can remove the fixed blade version, you can remove this one.

I can however tell you how to wire everything. Here is a pic of the board (picture credit to Rhyen Skytracker)
http://i416.photobucket.com/albums/pp242/wadeh13/Tutorials/2010%20Anakin%20FX%20with%20removable%20blade/DSCN0445.jpg

1- brown
2- red
3- orange
4- yellow
5- green
6- blue
Ground- Grey
Impact- white
Presence- Purple

1-6 goes to positive of LED. Ground and presence goes to clash sensor and negative of LED. Impact goes to clash sensor.

Like the fixed blade version, you need to cut a spacer for the gap when using this blade holder. I use those plastic tube that comes with film.

Reinstalling the blade is the same.

However, here are a few minor difference so everything doesn't exactly line up properly,

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f355/noisetrigger/DSC02782.jpg

As you can can see in this pic, I have to forgo the graflex thumbscrew button cause it wouldn't fit without some serious filing. Not a big problem, just need to find something else to cover it up.

You do not need to drill a bigger hole if you use one of those allen head screw like me. The hole on this removable blade version is already big enough though it doesn't quite line up properly.

http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f355/noisetrigger/DSC02783.jpg

[dgdve]

very impressive my friend, Happy Holidays!!!

[Azmaria Dei]

that is beautiful! ^_^ thanks for all your hard work and happy holidays!

[Rhyen Skytracker]

The clash sensor is not concerned with the polarity but the sound board sure is. LOL Ok, I will go over how to wire this board and the differences between this one and the ones with the fixed blades.

Fixed Blade FX Board:
6 negative wires go to LED -
Clash sensor is wired between Hit and board positive (VCC or VDD, I can't remember) and "Y" split to LED +
Blade Presence (not used) Blade Presence is wired between Gnd and Presence

Removable Blade FX Board
6 positive wires go to LED +
Clash sensor is wired between Gnd and Impact and "Y" split to LED -
Blade Presence is wired between Gnd and Presence


The first thing I did was take ALL of the wires and hot glue off and rewire it myself. I didn't want to use the blade presence function so I soldered a jumper between the presence and gnd on the board. I also pretinned about a 2" piece of wire and made a solder bridge between all of the L1 - L6 pads (looks kinda like a snake pattern, I will take pics later) on the board and soldered a wire on the L1 to go to the LED +. I did plan on doing a tutorial on this but haven't had the time to yet. I also removed all of the switch, power and speaker wires and hot glue from the board too and resoldered them myself for a more secure and professional look.

These are some very different wiring solutions and you must be careful not to wire the removable blade boards like you wired the old fixed blade ones.

[Xzhar_seatreader]

if we could get pictures up that would be swell

[jedimastergarcia87]

Nice to see a possible first conversion of the new removable blade fx sabers. What blade did you use or did you use the stock fx blade and customize it? How does the Anakin sound? The Obi-wan removeable blade sounds pretty sweet, not sure about the Darth Vader one yet though.

[Wong Yoon Wei]

I use a transparent one inch thickwalled blade with about 6 feet of gift wrap inside. The Anakin soundboard is really loud and clear. The sound is actually quite similar to the fixed blade darth vader sound. Very bassy hum.