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View Full Version : Converted a stunt saber to an FX saber



Jay-gon Jinn
05-31-2007, 10:25 PM
I got a Vader soundboard from Lord Maul earlier this week and added it to my son's saber. It went from this:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-2.jpg
To this:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-sound-mod-13.jpg
You can see all the details
http://www.saberknights.com/jgj/Aron's_Training_Saber.htm

Hasid Lafre
06-01-2007, 03:59 AM
koolness

DACOTA
06-01-2007, 06:56 AM
Thats cool.

Jedi-Loreen
06-01-2007, 07:00 AM
Very nice. What a cool dad you are! :)

supertrogdor
06-01-2007, 07:12 AM
That's grand, My boys always enjoy it when i bring out the sabers for an evening of battle on the front lawn... Too bad it doesnt get dark enough before thier bedtimes now

Jay-gon Jinn
06-01-2007, 09:10 AM
He thinks it's cool, so it was well worth the effort! I just wish I was home when he first turned it on! I have to be at work before he gets out of school, so I had to wait until this morning to see what he thought.

For some reason, the link to the webpage isn't working.... :roll: ]

Hasid Lafre
06-01-2007, 09:23 AM
The boxes under the make a post theres 4, make sure the first 2 are unchecked. then remember what they were then go to your profile and make sure there checked.

It did that to me on a different forum so I unchecked them and it all works now.

Jay-gon Jinn
06-01-2007, 09:51 AM
I did all that and it still doesn't work....oh well.

Hasid Lafre
06-01-2007, 09:53 AM
Could be just your day for the forum to mess with.

Lord Maul
06-01-2007, 02:32 PM
glad that sound board worked out for ya jay gon!
did you put on a clash sensor, or did you just leave it without?

great saber man 8)

vortextwist
06-01-2007, 02:39 PM
Very nice jay.
I don't think you can run them without a clash sensor.

Lord Maul
06-01-2007, 02:44 PM
you can :wink:

DACOTA
06-01-2007, 02:50 PM
Yeah isnt it just an interupted piece in the wiring?So just take the two wires that go into the board and hook them together.
Its like a circle of wire with a sensor, remove the sensor and re-connect the wires.

vortextwist
06-01-2007, 03:15 PM
then you would trigger the clash all the time

Lord Maul
06-01-2007, 03:37 PM
just leave out that whole wire then :wink:
you might lose a bit of brightness, but jay gon said that he thought the vader clash sound was silly because there is only one :wink:

Jay-gon Jinn
06-01-2007, 09:32 PM
I didn't use a clash sensor and it works just fine. The only difference between my custom saber that has a Vader board in it and this one is the amount of space in the pommel for the speaker to resonate. This saber is just a tad quieter.

Hasid Lafre
06-03-2007, 11:19 AM
Well all the boards have only one clash sound. the good guy boards have a blaster deflect sound and I think that sounds wrong and out of place.

Jay-gon Jinn
01-02-2009, 12:58 PM
Hey, just thought i'd post some updates on this saber, seeing as how it is featured in my Ultrasound Review video on Youtube. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9VCoCYZInpk)

I started out of course, by dismantling the saber into is basic components:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/6ae4854b.jpg
These are what would be required to install the US 2.0, but we'll get to that later....

Now, in case you didn't click the link in the first post (shame on you!! ;)) here's a little background on this saber:

It was originally a simple stunt, with no sound:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-1.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-10.jpg
That is a blue Luxeon I Star/O, a micropuck driver, and a 2-AA battery holder. It worked okay, but it wasn't fair to my padawan to have a quiet saber, while his Masters' all had sound effects. So, it went under the knife, and got fully converted to an FX model, complete with a Vader MR soundboard (coutrtesy of Lord Maul):
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-sound-mod-1.jpg
I had to modify the solid pommel so it could allow sound to pass through:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/speaker_pommel_mod_6.jpg

The saber also had to modified to accept the soundboard slightly, so I drilled new holes in the blade holder to extend it out about 1/2 an inch further:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-sound-mod-6.jpg
I added the speaker to the batterypack:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-sound-mod-7.jpg
and put it together:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-sound-mod-12.jpg
It woked pretty good, even though it had a 3/4" blade:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/arons-training-saber-sound-mod-15.jpg
It was as bright as my blue Lux III sabers, and served him well for a couple of years like that! When the US 2.0 came out, though, I decided it need to be upgraded yet again....

Jay-gon Jinn
01-02-2009, 01:59 PM
So, when the US 2.0 became available, I decided to upgrade this one again.
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/6ae4854b.jpg

Since this one had problems with internal space before, I decided to put the soundboard on top of the battery pack:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/db0faa1e.jpg
I was planning on using two Trustfire Li-Ions for this one, so I used the two-AA holder in ther TCSS store along with some double-sided foam mounting tape:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/ad3d554c.jpg
I had already changed the speaker to a premium style, also found in the TCSS store, and got it all wired up. I used a momentary versio of the guarded switch, and wired it up using a mini-QD set-up. This turned out to be unecessary, as Darth Morbius suggested to me to drill a 7/16" hole and just force -fit the switch in, instead of trying to attach it with the nut on the inside of the saber. That's a pain in the behind, believe me, so the QD set-up got removed later.

With it all wired up outside of the saber, I decided to test it out:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/0f77fa24.jpg
SUCCESS!

Before I could assemble it, I had one lat modification to do. I had to set this saber up with at leasdt a Luxeon III led, as the US 2.0 cannot run a Lux I Star/O without resisotring the led, and I thought that would be a watse anyway. So I wired up the only Lux III I had on hand, a Cyan Bin I. The only way to do that though, was by modifiying an old aluminum MHS heatsink I had:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/c76899ca.jpg
I had to grind the edge down enough to allow it to fit inside the I.D. of the saber. With that done, I drilled two mounting holes in the heatsink, and two corresponding holes in the blade holder:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/794bff2e.jpg
The holes in the blade holder were tapped for 4-40 threads. The only other thing I had to do to get this to fit was carve out clearance for the led mounting screws. I used my rotary tool and the carbide cutting bit for that. You can see the cut outs in the above pic. with all of that done, it was time to re-assemble it:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/dc3e28ec.jpg
This was actually my pre-wire set-up to make sure it all fit...that's why there's no wires on the soundboard here. It all went to gether pretty smoothly, and I then used it in my Ultrasaber Ultrasound 2.0 Review Video!

Jay-gon Jinn
01-02-2009, 02:27 PM
After I had it finished, a couple of days later I modified it again. I got tired of removing the battery pack to reset the board, so I installed a recharge port in the pommel:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/bc1abe1e.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/d4a00abc.jpg
The kill key is a small plastic holow wall anchor, modified slightly to fit in the recharge port. It works, but can be easy to lose....

Here's how it was wired:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/3d5fe3dd.jpg
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Arons%20training%20saber%20sound%20mods/1f2524a1.jpg
I had to cut a notch in the edge of the pommel after I took these pics, to allow for a pass-through for the wires, and it works very well! I don't recharge the batteries in the saber, as it is not recommended to leave the Trustfires in the saber for an extended period. The spring tension from the battery holder could damage the pcb protection circuits, causing the batteries to fail.

sekrogue1985
01-02-2009, 07:36 PM
nice nice neato

CybKnight
01-04-2009, 03:21 AM
Looks like a tough job. Nice conversion though. Clearly masterly craftmanship.

Novastar
01-04-2009, 04:22 AM
...I don't recharge the batteries in the saber, as it is not recommended to leave the Trustfires in the saber for an extended period. The spring tension from the battery holder could damage the pcb protection circuits, causing the batteries to fail.Nice work Jay! But... really? Is this true regarding the spring tension and the PCBs on the trustfires? I've never heard of such a thing.

I'm not saying this is untrue... I'm just curious. I personally have never used (nor had the need for) Trustfire Li-Ion cells.

Jay-gon Jinn
01-04-2009, 03:35 PM
Nice work Jay! But... really? Is this true regarding the spring tension and the PCBs on the trustfires? I've never heard of such a thing.

I'm not saying this is untrue... I'm just curious. I personally have never used (nor had the need for) Trustfire Li-Ion cells.

I heard it from xwing, so I'd guess it's safe to assume it's true...I may try it on this saber, though...getting to the batteries requires a wrench...and I'm lazy...

BTW......



IT'S ALIIIVE!!!!!