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quietstarr
11-05-2015, 05:03 PM
first off, hello. ^.^

I've done a fair amount of reading and research on saber conversions. Unfortunately it seems all the ones I've been able to find revolve around the Force FX line- understandably so, the metal hilts are nicer and likely sturdier. However for a first attempt I couldn't quite justify the entry fee being quite so steep.
To that end I opted to try my hand at modding/converting an Ultimate FX saber, specifically the Kylo Ren TRU exclusive. Now I've seen people post before that they have converted UFX sabers with new blades- primarily using them as Stunt Blades/Practice Blades. However, finding information on How has been a bit trying.

At present I am about 3/4ths of the way through cracking the hilt open. This in itself has been an ordeal as Hasbro has used an excessive amount of glue on the @#$% thing.

So my question really boils down to this:

Would converting it essentially follow the same rules as converting a Force FX saber or am I dealing with a whole nother animal with the UFX line?

Any help/tips would be appreciated.

1st UPDATE:
I got the thing open! For anyone interested, here's what the innards looks like.
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closeup on the board
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and a shot including the speaker placement
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and the power button
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UPDATE!
I've thrown together a wiring diagram. Please excuse the crudity of this model, I didn't have time to draw it to scale...

12357
^- I forgot to draw in the Regulator Ground, it's set to go to the same spot as the battery.

YdurSolrac
11-06-2015, 11:00 AM
I recently cracked open the cheaper hasbro Kylo Ren saber with the intention of using a PNP transistor to power the LED but it didn't work so I used an N MOSFET instead to power the blade. Theres a video of it here in my thread: http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?18709-Cheapy-Kylo-Ren-Econo-Board-wiring-check

Jay-gon Jinn
11-06-2015, 11:12 AM
first off, hello. ^.^

I've done a fair amount of reading and research on saber conversions. Unfortunately it seems all the ones I've been able to find revolve around the Force FX line- understandably so, the metal hilts are nicer and likely sturdier. However for a first attempt I couldn't quite justify the entry fee being quite so steep.
To that end I opted to try my hand at modding/converting an Ultimate FX saber, specifically the Kylo Ren TRU exclusive. Now I've seen people post before that they have converted UFX sabers with new blades- primarily using them as Stunt Blades/Practice Blades. However, finding information on How has been a bit trying.

At present I am about 3/4ths of the way through cracking the hilt open. This in itself has been an ordeal as Hasbro has used an excessive amount of glue on the @#$% thing.

So my question really boils down to this:

Would converting it essentially follow the same rules as converting a Force FX saber or am I dealing with a whole nother animal with the UFX line?

Any help/tips would be appreciated.
The Ultimate FX line is totally different from the Force FX or Black Series FX. The Black Series are metal and considered collectibles, not like the plastic Ultimate FX's which are marketed as toys. The conversion kit pieces the store will have eventually will only work with the Black Series.

quietstarr
11-06-2015, 02:03 PM
I guess I should have clarified.

With regards to the electronics/guts; is there going to be a difference in converting?

The real issue I'm having trouble figuring out is with regards to powering it all.
I was considering using a Rebel Star (in Red) to replace the LED string. The assembled kit for that says it needs a particular buck rated for 700mA, but the buck required a minimum of 5v.

In summary, if I'm plugging 4.5 V into all that, is it still going to light up? My main concern is frying the LED and/or the board.

In a perfect world I'd want to replace the speaker with a Bass one, change the 3AAs out for 2Li-Ions, and replace the LED strip with a Rebel Star or equivilant, replace the On/Off Switch and use the stock Circuit Board.
Is that going to be possible?

I know I'm going to have to make concessions and give up some things, but the key important things I need it to do by December is replace the blade with something more to-scale, have it light up, not fall part.

klisasohn
12-29-2015, 02:31 PM
Any insight on how you got the thing apart? My son broke his light sheath, and I can order one to replace it, but I don't know how to get the darned handle apart.

Mikele
01-08-2016, 03:59 AM
Hi all,
I am interested in this conversion . In the end, you get it?
How did you do it?

FenixFire
01-08-2016, 07:32 AM
It is sonically welded together..not glues as stated...as with most toys that are not intended to ever be opened, you need to very carefully pry the pieces apart. Depending on the quality of the sonic weld you may or may not be successfully. There is a good tutorial that was posted a while back on the blade builder teardown.

quietstarr
01-28-2016, 05:27 PM
I tried everything before actually taking the dremel to it. Rubbing Alcohol, Nail polish remover. Friendly Orange, Goo-Gone. All those things did was make the plastic even more brittle.
Best way I found to open it was to dremel at key sections like you'll see in the pics on the original post.

Of Note, I did manage to force the bottom part off. If you're taking it apart I'd recommend doing that and dremeling the rest of it as above.

Some notes: TCSS 1inch blades do not fit. You might have luck with the 7/8ths but I don't own any to test. Either way you'll need to cut grooves and drill a hole into the new blade so the old LED strip will fit. You can easily use the old blade as a guide for this.

On the subject of Sonic Welding; I'm not sure about the Blade Builders one- but can confirm from the copious residue that- at the very least mine was glued. At this point I've taken apart many varied and different toy sabers. MOST of them are indeed ultrasonic welding (and I hate that)- but again, this particular one had residue.

Overall Update: I have pretty much shoved this project on the back burner till I decide what I want to do with it. I happened upon a Black Series saber a little while back. It's true what everyone says, there is NO substitute for the feel of that delicious metal hilt in your hands.
That said- I am not giving up on plastic saber conversions. I've acquired quite a few of them recently and have a lot of ideas and fortunately a lot of hilts to practice and test out stuff with.

kaye17
07-10-2016, 04:43 PM
Hi, What is the update regarding on this one?

I have a question, I'm going to replace the blade with 40" long and the LED, so how can I replace the LED with string type but achieve the same effect(light upwards and when it is off light downwards).

Thanks!

PhoenixHawk
07-10-2016, 08:27 PM
in the short...yes

kaye17
07-22-2016, 06:10 AM
in the short...yes


in the short of what? and yes for what? :D

PhoenixHawk
07-22-2016, 09:18 AM
in the short of what? and yes for what? :D

You asked if it could be replaced...


Hi, What is the update regarding on this one?

I have a question, I'm going to replace the blade with 40" long and the LED, so how can I replace the LED with string type but achieve the same effect(light upwards and when it is off light downwards).

Thanks!

That saber already has a LED string in it....quietstarr is replacing it for a Rebel Star single LED. You asked if it could be replaced with a 40" blade(not sure why you want the blade that long....you must be very tall) Anyways.. after you took it apart you would have to add to the string to fill in the extra space at the end of the blade. Witch is a lot of soldering....unless you bought two and pieced the two together to fill in the extra space of your 40" blade. And like Jay-gon Jinn said...those are made of plastic....if you did manage to get it apart without braking it... like quietstarr said...
This in itself has been an ordeal as Hasbro has used an excessive amount of glue on the @#$% thing.
I'm not sure the plastic frame could hold the weight of a 40" blade...(even if you got the thin walled blade...there still heavy at that length)

kaye17
07-27-2016, 06:52 AM
You asked if it could be replaced...



That saber already has a LED string in it....quietstarr is replacing it for a Rebel Star single LED. You asked if it could be replaced with a 40" blade(not sure why you want the blade that long....you must be very tall) Anyways.. after you took it apart you would have to add to the string to fill in the extra space at the end of the blade. Witch is a lot of soldering....unless you bought two and pieced the two together to fill in the extra space of your 40" blade. And like Jay-gon Jinn said...those are made of plastic....if you did manage to get it apart without braking it... like quietstarr said...
I'm not sure the plastic frame could hold the weight of a 40" blade...(even if you got the thin walled blade...there still heavy at that length)

ahhh I see. Thank you!. So maybe a 30 - 35 inches long would be better?. Yeah saw their work on how they opened it.
I might give it a shot and post some updates here soon if I got time. Thanks!

linuxpenguin
12-23-2022, 06:15 PM
So just in case anyone comes across this thread like I did looking to do a conversion or other work on this particular lightsaber, I have a few notes to add to things here:

1) As others have noted, this thing is really hard to get apart. There are five pieces you have to pry off: 2x side guard covers, a ring around the emitter / blade, a small cover just below the emitter ring and then the entire base of the saber (what is effectively the sound chamber). For me, everything except the sound chamber bottom was glued and I was able to just pop them off. The sound chamber appeared to be sonic welded in place and I had to cut it with a dremel (I only needed to cut half of it). This cut alone makes the whole operation pretty pointless if you want to have a decent showpiece at the end (not that it was ever particularly accurate to begin with).

2) Converting this saber to full base-lit or neopixel is extremely impractical for three reasons: The sound board area is extremely oddly shaped (like an L), the battery compartment is wildly impractical for any reasonably sized lithium battery (I guess you could use lithium AA batteries, but still) and there's really just not enough rigidity to the frame to handle a longer blade as would be common with such conversions (I suppose you could keep the stock blade length, but it is comically small).

3) If anyone is interested, the stock blade achieves the "fade in" blade ignition feat by using 5 different LED zones (each approximately 5 LEDs). The control board outputs a variable voltage (0v to VDD) to each zone sequentially to give the appearance of progression (vs the more sophisticated RGB / PIXEL blades more common now). The entire reason I even bothered opening this one up was to repair a damaged LED zone (top 4 LEDs would not light, turned out to be a broken trace in the flexible PCB that the LEDs were connected to, so I ran a separate wire for zone 5 up to the tip).

4) I was hugely not a fan of the stock blade appearance, so I heavily sanded the blade and cross guards to mask the imperfections. It doesn't really improve the diffusion much, but it makes it feel slightly less like the toy that it ultimately is.

So, while it may seem tempting to give it a whirl, I'd really recommend against trying to convert one of these. Even repairing them is pretty dicey as there is now a huge gouge in the front due to dremeling the base off (too lazy to properly fill it and repaint the whole thing).

TLDR; Unless you really enjoy breaking things with marginally little to show for it, I'd suggest not attempting to upgrade or modify these Ultimate FX sabers.