Can you wire a Tri LED to a MR Vader Saber??

[Thousandlegends]

Hello all....
I have an old Master Replicas ANH Vader FX Saber that broke, is it possible to wire a luxeon or Cree tri led to that saber's board? Would it have enough power to run three LEDs?

I am thinking of putting a red/red orange/white or a royal blue/red/white tri LED or something like that... I want either a red-orange color or maybe a purple, don't something interesting like that.

I would also be using a lithium 3.7v batter pack with that which I already have.

Anyways let me know what guys think... If this would even be possible or not to do :)

~ edit ~
Found an answer....
I believe I can as long as it's in parallel. What I'm not sure about is whether or not the Vader can take the 3.7v input source or not... Truthfully I don't know much about these boards?

[Bcarp100]

You could always run a Buck Puck on it just to be safe.

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

You could always run a Buck Puck on it just to be safe.

not quite. A buck puck need at least 5V to run properly.

[Thousandlegends]

Yea I figured the buck wouldn't work...
I run a 3.7v lithium in my mace conversion saber without a problem and am running a soule p4 in it.
I wasn't sure about the voltage of the Vader but suppose I could look at the battery pack to be sure

I am going to rebuild the hilt of the Vader since it's all messed up and hope to run a tri Cree in it.

I want to order the led from this week hopefull from TCCS but wanna make sure it runs or wasted money, we'll never wasted as I will use it but still.

[Thousandlegends]

Here is a pic of the battery box open as much as I can without destroying it.
It looks as though it may be a 4.5v source... You can see the orange wire connecting the (+) and (-) of battery 1 and 2 and then you have the yellow wire connecting to the (+) of battery 3 going down to what looks like the contact of battery 2 on the (-) Red wire which is coming off the (+) battery source and the black wire coming off what seems like the (-) source and then brown wire which is either the ground or it has to do with the speaker in the rear of the box, which is what I would assume.

It just depends on whether they wired the speaker directly to battery source or not, but there are three contacts on the battery box so I would assume one has to do with the speaker and the other two are battery... So my assumption is that the brown wire goes to the speaker (-) and the yellow is also connected to the battery and speaker positive or something like that.

let me know what you guys think and I can post more pics if needed.



12051


~ edit ~
I may just take it apart further as I don't think I will need the battery box anymore so if I don't then I will just break it apart like I did with the mace box ;)

~ edit ~ (2)
alright so it looks to be a 4.5v source it is as I said the orange wire is connecting the (+) and (-) of battery 1 and 2 and there is an orange wire connecting 2 and and 3 also and the (+) and (-) the black wire connects to the (-) of 2 and the rtes wire to the (+) of 3 the yellow and brown wire are the speaker, brown (-) and the yellow (-) being wired into the (+) of the battery. That about covers it so there you go, it appears to be 3 batteries wired in series.

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

IT sounds to me like it's the same setup that they have basically used in the past, so it's really only going to power 1 die fully.

[Thousandlegends]

Ok sounds good...
just to clarify, so your saying that the most likely the board won't have enough power to run 3-LEDs even in parallel?

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

Ok sounds good...
just to clarify, so your saying that the most likely the board won't have enough power to run 3-LEDs even in parallel?

Could they run 3 in parallel? Technically, yes, but they would be incredibly dim. You would only be able to run 1 die at fll power (and not use the other 2).

[Don Se Wion]

Like FJK said, with the stock setup it will be able to properly drive only one LED.

However, if you want to pick up the challenge and rebuild the internals from scratch, you may have this solution to run the three dices.

- replace the stock battery holder with a single 18650 lithium battery
- replace the six transistors on the MR board driving the LEDs with a single high power transistor
(it`s just the same approach used to convert the Hasbro economy boards)

You can find some detailed info in this old post Pyros, a custom "Dual-Phase" Mace Windu conversion (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?14052-Pyros-a-custom-quot-Dual-Phase-quot-Mace-Windu-conversion&highlight=pyros)

With that setup I was able to feed the LEDs with only 1600mA, but the limitation was coming from the NiMh batteries I had to use.
Using a good 18650 Li-Ion battery you won't have this limitation and you may be able to feed up to 1000mA for each die.

[Thousandlegends]

Hey thanks I'll definitely read that...

I also have a Mace saber that I could do the same with as well so maybe I'll think about converting that one, but we'll have to see.

I am actually already running the 3.7v battery packs in my MR sabers I converted the mace one a while ago and am doing the same with the vader I was just trying to figure out the LED situation so I will have to try our method and see if it works for me or not.

thanks, I appreciate it :)

[Thousandlegends]

Like FJK said, with the stock setup it will be able to properly drive only one LED.

However, if you want to pick up the challenge and rebuild the internals from scratch, you may have this solution to run the three dices.

- replace the stock battery holder with a single 18650 lithium battery
- replace the six transistors on the MR board driving the LEDs with a single high power transistor
(it`s just the same approach used to convert the Hasbro economy boards)

You can find some detailed info in this old post Pyros, a custom "Dual-Phase" Mace Windu conversion (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?14052-Pyros-a-custom-quot-Dual-Phase-quot-Mace-Windu-conversion&highlight=pyros)

With that setup I was able to feed the LEDs with only 1600mA, but the limitation was coming from the NiMh batteries I had to use.
Using a good 18650 Li-Ion battery you won't have this limitation and you may be able to feed up to 1000mA for each die.

So I read your over your post and I mostly understand what it is you did... a couple of things though first what if I don't want the switch, do I just connect the green, yellow and orange wire together?
Also I can see there is blue wire that I would assume is connected to blue and to the transistor I would also assume, but where does the red/purple wire go to?

I posted some pics of my board as it is slightly different than the mace one.

12073

[Don Se Wion]

That blue wire goes to the Blue die in the LedEngin. Basically in that saber the Blue die was always lit and the slider switch was used to select either Red or Green dies to make the two available colors of the blade, purple and sky blue.

In the photo, the yellow wire you see on the top is connected to the transistor (like the blue one) and will go to the middle connector of the slider switch. Green and orange wires are connected to the Green and Red dies and will go to the remaining connectors of the slider switch.

With your board I would remove the molex connector and all 6 transistors for a clean conversion.
I suppose the stock transistors are the same as mine so you should be able to replace them with a TIP41C, but I would double check them to be sure before wiring everything together.

I would wire the TIP41C to replace the first transistor on the bottom of your picture (the one near resistor R3) to sync sound and light effects.

There is a chance you may need to remove the resistor directly connected to the base through-hole (probably R3) to increase the TIP41C power output.
If needed, just identify the proper resistor following the trace on your board and replace it with a piece of wire.

On a side note, and you probably already know about it, you need to install a clash sensor between Hit and VDD through-holes since it is normally located inside the blade assembly in most of the MR/Hasbro sabers and you are going to loose it with the conversion. You can find the clash sensor in the store (http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/Clash-Sensor-SW-18020P-P485.aspx).

[Thousandlegends]

Awesome thanks :)
you are right about the clash sensor, though I still have rhone that is in the blade so can I use the original clash sensor or will that not wire correctly?

forgive me my understanding of wiring is basic and I am working learning more about all that.

[Don Se Wion]

The one in the blade is just fine.
It might be a little tricky to reuse it since the leads are for sure trimmed very short, but with patience and steady hand it can be done.
Perhaps a good solution could be soldering short wires to the clash sensor leads and then solder these wires to the board.