Building 2 budget Sabers and need some help

[Harblar]

Hey all! My first post here, though I've been lurking in the shadows for sometime. :-)

I recently put together my first saber. I did a full sound, custom sinktube/copper plumbing saber. Cree red/orange LED, PC 3.5, and numerous 3d printed parts to tie it all together. So... With the addiction fully seated, I've decided to make a couple of budget sabers with sound provided by some old cheap hasbro toy sabers I happen to have lying around.

I'm heading to Star Wars Celebration in a month and plan on surprising a couple of friends with these two sabers when I get out there.

So, onto my question! For the most part I've got the wiring figured out, though I'm slightly sketchy on a couple points.

First off, the cheapy sabers are a 1999 qui-gon jinn saber and a 2001 Luke Skywalker ANH/ESB saber. The wiring looks fairly close to one another. I plan on using a li-ion pack, Cree LED, and recharge port on each. I'm currently using the schematic from this post (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?8589-Cheapy-Hasbro-Wiring-Diagrams&p=143785&viewfull=1#post143785) as a reference. The sabers themselves run off from a couple of C sized batteries run in serial, so, my initial thought would be to use a 3.7v single cell 18650 pack. Correct?

But then I get confused because the schematic doesn't provide much info on the LED end of things. Resistor? (Obviously, I would think) I'm going to be using a Royal Blue and a Green Cree. Is a single Cell 3.7v going to be enough? To get the full rated power out of the Cree will I need to use a buck puck? And if so, won't I need to go to a 7.4v pack? And if that's the case wouldn't I probably need to put a resistor between the pack and the board?

So to sum it up...
Cheap hasbro board
Cree LED
Recharge port

Based on the above what would I need below?

Buck puck/resistor?
Battery?
Anything else I'm missing?

Thanks! :-)

[Sevinzol]

ok that'll learn me to read and not skim a post before replying (d'oh).

If you plan on using the 7.v battery pack you can use a relay to power to board. I had a diagram somewhere but I can't find it. sorry

[Harblar]

There was a schematic with a relay in the same thread (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?8589-Cheapy-Hasbro-Wiring-Diagrams&p=139563&viewfull=1#post139563) I linked to, though it wasn't labelled all that well as far as the pin outs on the actual board were concerned. I can make an educated guess, but a little clarification on it would help. And maybe a recommendation on an actual relay to use?

I'm not married to a 7.4v battery. I've got one spare 7.4v on hand right now and two 3.7v enroute.

So, would you be saying I'll need to be using a 7.4 volt/buck puck/relay combination to drive the Cree, or are you saying it's just one possible option?

[Harblar]

Ok, so... Anybody help me out here? Most of my parts showed up today (awesome service/shipping, btw. Just ordered late Thursday night!) and I'd like to get the electronics squared away before I get the hilts printed/smoothed/painted. I already had to reprint my blade holder on one due to being a bit off on a couple measurements I was guesstimating off from my first saber. (Not a big deal, but it could be with other parts down the road as time becomes a factor.)

The more I look at it the more I'm thinking I'll need the buck puck to get the most out of these Cree LEDs. Ok, that's no problem, but why would I need to use a relay? When I look at the board and how it was put together it shows the positive wire for the incandescent lamp coming directly from the battery positive pole and the negative going to a lamp gnd on the board. Is there a possibility of frying the board even though the forward voltage on the Crees is only around 3-3.5v at 1000ma? The way I see it, I would only need to put a resistor going from the battery to the board... That's probably not right but I'm having trouble seeing it.

I also ran into another potential issue. The cheap saber speaker is too big (diameter wise) to fit, without making a really goofy sized pommel (fat bottomed sabers Do Not make the Rockin world go round! Haha). The current speaker is .25W at 8ohms. Would I be able to swap in one of the store's 20/28mm speakers without any other modifications?

Those are about my two biggest issues atm.

Just thought of one more thing. I got lighted momentary switches to use. How and where would they tie in with a buck puck so they came on at the same time the Cree did?