Let the battle begin...

[Reith]

Well first off I'd like to say hello to everyone. My name's Dave (Reith) and i've been checking out custom made lightsabers for quite some time now. Ever since the first time I saw Star Wars I've been incredibly fascinated with the Lightsaber. By far my favorite fantasy weapon, other than plain old magic of course. Haha. I got an FX Saber a couple years ago and that satisfied my curiosity for a while, but I needed more!! It wasn't till about a month ago that I stumbled upon this site and it DEFINITELY sparked that curiosity again! Whether that's a good thing or bad, well I guess we'll see in time. Haha.

So now the question is, where do I start? Well, I'm a mechanical engineer so i'm familiar with many different types of machining tools. The only problem is I pretty much failed all of my circuits classes! (Dang you electricity and your mystical black magic!!!! :mad:) Though I'm not very good at circuits, that's one of the most exciting parts of all this. I'm really hoping to get a better understanding of circuits with hands on experience.

After checking out hundreds of threads and getting a basic understanding of how the process works, i've got a few ideas lurking around in my head. But first I would really like to start out with just a basic saber to introduce me to all this. I've got a list of most of the stuff I need and I think I'm gonna start off with a PVC hilt, a thick polycarbonate blade, then just an LED and switch with no sound. We'll see what happens after that.

So that's great and all, but where's this battle? Well it's inside me! I have yet to decide......light.....or dark? My heart tells me light because of my morals, yet my head tells me dark because I understand the POWER! Whatever happens....I'm sure it'll be an amazing journey!!! :grin:

[Lord Dottore Matto]

Welcome, and THANK YOU for reading! I started in the dark and was saved by my love of BIN1 Cyan LED's (after all a sith cannot weild such a pristine colored blade with such a dark soul...or can he...muuuuuahahahahahha...)

Crap, Preston is going to force lightening me again!

[Reith]

Ah yes, i too am in love with the color Cyan!!! It makes an amazing blade. I think I'll save that one for a more advance saber later on though. And I wouldn't worry too much about that lighting, from what I can recall, jedi should have some pretty powerful healing spells! ;)

[VeggieJedi]

spells?? and jedi???
hehe welcome to the forum dude! :D

[Reith]

haha yea sorry my bad, force abilities!

[Lord Preston]

Welcome! But as we know, there is no power in the darkness only light. About the electronics. It's pretty easy once you get the hang of it, and it catches on pretty quickly, so I'm sure you'll figure it out soon enough. And as for you, Dottore Matto, I will spare you this once.... just once.:twisted:

[Jedi-Loreen]

"Once you get the han of it"? lol Han Solo didn't believe in hokey religions and ancient weapons. ;)


I'm kidding, I know you mean "hang of it", but I could make a Star Wars related joke about it, so I did. :p

[Lord Preston]

"Once you get the han of it"? lol Han Solo didn't believe in hokey religions and ancient weapons. ;)


I'm kidding, I know you mean "hang of it", but I could make a Star Wars related joke about it, so I did. :p

You caught it! I got one in there.

[Lord Dottore Matto]

You caught it! I got one in there.

Force lightening please!:lol:

[Lord Preston]

Force lightening please!:lol:

You'll get some soon enough.

[samurai_rob]

MMMHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The Sith will RISE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:evil:

[Lord Preston]

MMMHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! The Sith will RISE AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:evil:

Sith lost. Get over it.;)

[FenderBender]

Heh, since you're doing a PVC saber first i suggest a Red Orange Lux III. It's impressive as all hell and it'll wet your appetite for more saber madness.

[Reith]

Well I still have a few questions here and there, but I decided to just jump right in. I find things much easier to understand with actual hands on experience. Here's a list of things I've purchased so far:

1 - 1" thick walled PC tube cut to 36"
1 - 40" blade diffuser
1 - Build your own Lexon III Kit which gives me a Green LED, a switch, 4AA battery pack, the lens and lens holder, and a 2.2 ohm 5w resistor
1 - 1" blade tip with aluminum adhesive disk
1 - copper heat sink
4 - nylon screws

I think that should take care of pretty much everything except the hilt and blade holder. I plan on making those out of PVC just because I want to see what I come up with. If you've got any advice I'd love to hear it. I'll keep you posted on how it goes and try to get some pictures.

[Obi-Dar Ke-Gnomie]

If you're using the 1" ID PVC, the 4AA battery pack won't fit. You would have to find an inline 4AAA holder. One that had the batteries arranged like this: "=="

[Reith]

oh yea I figured the battery pack wouldn't fit inside the tube. I was planning on modifying the hilt to fit it into the bottom. Maybe make it look something like this:

.__
|__|\\\\\\\|__\===================D

(ok the picture's not working quite as well as I thought it would, but hopefully you get the idea)
I didn't really wanna go with AAA's cause I figure they'd die a lot faster, although I'm sure it's probably not that noticable of a difference, but that's all apart of the experimentation and fun. Is there really a difference when it comes to AAA and AA?

[Obi-Dar Ke-Gnomie]

With the Duracell NiMH's I use, the AAA's have 1000mAh capacity, and the AA's are 2650mAh. In theory, that means that you could draw 1A from the AAA's for an hour, or 2.65 hours from the AA's.

[FenderBender]

Or you could do like I did and find a cylindrical aaa holder for 3 aaa's for 4.5 volts.

[Reith]

That might not be a bad idea. I've already checked out the local radio shack and they've got most of the electrical stuff I would need. So I'm sure in time I'll test out an array of different ideas. :)

[MoonDragn]

Try this for the 3 battery holder:

http://www.mouser.com/catalog/specsheets/EPD-200478.pdf

[Reith]

Sweet, thanks for the link! I'll definitely look into that holder.

[FenderBender]

Thats the exact one that I bought. Works great but you have to solder your own leads to it then insulate them and wrap them with a velcro strap or rubberband to keep it from sliding in the hilt, or a battery coming out from dueling impact. Its worth it though.