Let's not fry this board!

[Silverwing]

Okay everyone, I had a thought. i dont know about other versions, but MY Luke ROTJ Force FX ran off of SIX AA's. By my count, that means that the Stock Luke ROTJ was powered by 9 volts, versus the others which ran on 4.5V. my thinking is, if 9 ran fine, my 7.2 Li-ion pack would not fry it if it were not regulated or resisted down. Am I correct in this?

[Dark Helmet]

most likely it's 4.5v... just 2x 4.5v packs in parallel. if you have a volt meter you could just check the leads from the battery/speaker housing out of the hilt, but I'm pretty sure the increase in batteries is set up just to increase mah, not voltage.

EDIT: you can get a 7805 5v regulator from radioshack, it's dirt cheap, very tiny and with that you can use your 7.2 on it!

[Silverwing]

well... i hacked it up and the battery module has five wires to it, marked GND, VA, VB, SPK+, and SPK... obviously the SPK's are pos and neg for the speaker, but what is VA and VB? GND is ground... would that refer to toward the neg end of the battery in the circuit? so VA and VB would be the two run in parallel eh?

edit- my MR board looks very different from the ones pictured in the Corbin wiring diagrams.

[Dark Helmet]

ok, i'm i little stumped there, but if it were series i see no reason for the extra + connection, since it would got to the - of the other pack...but this may cause the need for 2 regulators, or just jumping 1 lead to the other. the GND is the def the - end.... there was another thread that said that saber had 2 boards in some models too, that could be the reason for 2+ leads

[Silverwing]

Okay then. that said, I have another question- is it necessary to use two different clash sensors If I'm running corbin's board in conjuction with the Luke MR board or is there a way for me to have them both use the same clash sensor?

[Dark Helmet]

it's fine to use 1, just split the wires to each board.. it's probably better that way, if one fails to clash you wont get the clash effect from the other board, this can get annoying when you have a sensor that will barely activate for whatever reason...so you get a flash with no sound etc

[Arm on Fire]

I think i remember reading somewhere that there are a couple MR sabers that run off (2) 4.5 v packs in parallel. Im pretty sure MR boards cant handle anything more than 6 volts without frying them.

[xwingband]

If you ran it on a 9V battery and not say 6AA which is 9V... there's your answer. 9V's can't draw very many amps so it's likely that you can get away with that because the wattage is low.

A good 7.2V li-ion pack will fry the board though.

ALSO, the reason for two sensors is that the Obi/Ani/Vader boards have power going through their clash sensor. It's bad for Corbin's. He fried a couple boards that way. The other MR boards are safe to use one sensor though. I've also heard you can solder directly to the sensor and not the wires, but I personally haven't done it so two is the safe way.

[Novastar]

In case there is still any confusion... *NO*, MR packs that touted 6AA were NOT wired for 9v... they were 4.5v and gained double the autonomy as Erv puts it... meaning twice the runtime, meaning doubled the mah.

A Force FX board can (relatively safely) handle up to 6v. You might get away with 6.5v for a bit... but I'm not advocating it, and what's the point.

If you're trying to feed/drive a Luxeon in a better fashion, or one which requires more voltage:

* CF
* Ultraboard
* Ok, you can't afford 'em, or they are n/a... use two circuits: 1 for MR sound, 1 for resistor + light
* Relay

In my thinking, there is a huge advantage over the 2 circuits vs. the relay, but... that is just me.

[Silverwing]

Okay, thanks all! i'll be posting about my first Saber's internals very soon

EDIT- Alright folks, my journey is well on its way to completion. Here's a pic of my first configuration. Yes I know the wire color coding is backwards on the LED. That has been rectified since i took this photo.

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g151/silverwing259/Corbinsimplecorewithkillswitch.jpg

I'll post again with the photo taken after I added the Force FX board.