Replacing a competitors innards

[archreptile]

Hello all,
First post here. I know certain things and companies are not discussed here but I have a question and a small amount of background is essential. I made the (now apparently obvious) mistake of participating in a certain crowdfunding saber campaign and waited an age for 2 sabers. One failed to work at all out of the box and the other has failed after being turned on and off about 30 times and no duelling. I have since discovered that quality control is an issue and while I bitterly regret what I did it has driven me to decide to fix these on my own and start building further sabers on my own which I'm not unhappy about.
I understand that these sabers are not MHS compatible and I plan to order the basic parts listed under the noobs getting started thread and build a basic saber. What I wanted to know is whether the switches, LED's, chassis', soundcards and speakers sold via TCSS could be made to fit into the hilts that I now have which are basically useless?
I'm really hoping this can be done so that I can salvage 2 hilts that I quite like once I have started soldering and have built a basic saber or 2.
Any advice appreciated.
Cheers,
D

[TheCheeker]

It's pretty likely that everything will fit inside it. The one problematic thing I can think of is proper placement of the LED/lens/heatsink combo. I've only built MHS sabers before so I can't lend any expertise in that area.

[Silver Serpent]

You can certainly replace the innards. We've been doing it for years with all manner of sabers. From the store-bought FX/Hasbro sabers, to hardware sinktube sabers, to Graflex conversions, to sabers from unmentioned competitors, they can all be gutted and redone. The TCSS chassis discs are unlikely to work without modification, since the ID of your saber is probably not the same as MHS parts. Mounting the LED and heatsink would likely be the most difficult part of the conversion in my opinion.

Good luck with your sabers! It's a rewarding feeling when you fix them yourself (doubly so when you've built the saber from scratch!)

[IINerfII]

Hi there! Yes, all of the major components from TCSS will fit in those hilts. If I'm not mistaken, the ID of the body sections is ~1.125" or something like that, so skip on the chassis disks. You'll need a 1" LED module (which you may already have), a 12mm momentary AV switch (or two, depending on your sound card selection. Also double check that the one you have isn't latching), a 28mm speaker, and a battery. You can use a wired 18650 with recharge port or just the removable pack. I suppose that depends entirely on whether your body section is long enough to support the removable battery or not. If you're going to use a recharge port, that is somewhat tricky. That company uses these odd 12mm faced ports that have the 2.1mm plug slot in them. You can find them on eBay somewhere. I would not recommend using anything but a Nano Biscotte v3 for those hilts, as the other plecter boards may be too tight of a fit with their respective batteries. Don't quote me on that though. Hope that helps!

[archreptile]

Thanks all. At least I know its doable!

[girot]

Inner diameter should be about 1.11". You can get chassis on Shapeways for your current sabers in that size (search GOTH or DarthKylo).

I suggest against using the led modules you recicieved. TCSS makes a 1" OD heat sink that should work just fine. The emitters your working with should have set screws to hold them in place. If not they're easily added.