Saber Builders Concession

[CET]

I bought a few of the new Saber Builders toys and stepped them for the sound cards. Hey, $15 sound cards, can't beat that with a stick! Now I'm just trying to figure out how to wire then up. The toy took 3 AA batteries, so that's 4.5v. The blade LED and speaker were wired straight to the board with no resistors.

I want to run a tri-cree (white, royal blue, red), a premium speaker and an illuminated switch. I'd prefer to use a LiOn battery, because recharging is better than buying and replacing batteries. I was thinking that I might run an 18650 pack, but I'm concerned that 7.4v might be too much and fry my board. But will a single cell at 3.7v be enough?

Any suggestions for parts and set up?

[TrypWyr]

If it's anything like the previous "econo" boards, 3.7 is probably the way to go if you want Li-ion. Otherwise, use Ni-MH rechargeables (4 x 1.2v) or alkalines (3 x 1.5v). Beyond that, if you choose to use a 2-cell Li-ion pack you will probably need a 5v regulator, not the most efficient way of doing things. At least, the old boards worked like that... Not sure about these new ones, so I may be speaking out of turn.

How do they sound? I've heard the Kylo Ren version (actually pretty cool) but not the others.

[CET]

Will the one cell have enough to drive everything? I'm largely thinking about the tri-cree.

They sound OK. The RotJ Luke, RotS Obi Wan, and ANH Darth Vader all have the same sound font, the only difference is the LED color. It's a heck of a deal for the money though!

[Silver Serpent]

I've run the old 2010 econo boards on a single li-ion cell with no problems. If you want to power all the dice of a Tri-Cree, definitely get one of the higher capacity 18650 cells.

[CET]

I've run the old 2010 econo boards on a single li-ion cell with no problems. If you want to power all the dice of a Tri-Cree, definitely get one of the higher capacity 18650 cells.

Absolutely, it's all about the mAh!

[Silver Serpent]

Absolutely, it's all about the mAh!

Well, the mAh is important, but I was more concerned about having a battery that's capable of supporting a 3A draw without popping the protection circuit board.

[JediCarpet]

CET, I did this with a couple boards and I'd like to share some of what I learned. Some of them power off after a minute automatically if no clash is sensed...just something to be aware of. The LEDs are wired in with resistors, they're probably just the really tiny ones that are soldered to the board and are in line with the circuits from the "brain" to the LEDs.
You may also find that you need another part to go in to get the brightness you want from the LEDs while maintaining the flicker effects...a PNP Transistor. Check out this thread for help: http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?10288-2010-Electronic-Lightsaber-w-DVD-Tutorial

Also, depending on what parts are used in the original build, you may want to look into a new clash/swing sensor from the shop here to replace the existing ones. One of my boards had a giant spring that I couldn't mount properly in my new build, so changing that with the new clash sensor made things a lot better for me.

Definitely go with 3.7 V battery. 7.4V will likely fry the board. Someone told me those boards have a 5V max back when I was looking into it.

[CET]

Lots of great stuff, thank you!

I've looked at the link and seen those diagrams before. I had those in mind when I was pondering how to wire this board up. The original set of batteries were pushing 4.5v, so that's why I was asking about using a 7.4v cell with a 5v regulator.

I'm still new to this and I'm not familiar with PNP transistor and what they do.

[Silver Serpent]

Think of the transistor as an electronic switch. When it gets a signal, it opens the door and lets the electricity flow through.

[CET]

Got it. So how would a PNP transistor help with brightness and FoC flickering?

[Silver Serpent]

Depends on how it's wired. Typically you use the transistor to feed more power to your main LED than the board will output. Some people use the speaker to send the control signal to the transistor, and they'll get a neat flickering effect with the saber. It tends to be a lot more dim if you do it that way, but it looks really neat.