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simon_lewis
03-22-2006, 08:30 AM
Hi there.

I'm about to buy an EL blade kit and the Graflex adaptor when it comes in and I was wondering about the 1/4" jack plug that you use here. I used to have a Parks EL saber and that had a stereo jack plug rather than a mono one. Why was that? was it a safety thing to stop you shorting out the inverter (leaving the middle ring un-connected) if the blade wasn't fastened in properly or was Jeff just being different?

Cheers all,

Simon.

Cheers,

Simon.

xwingband
03-22-2006, 08:33 AM
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by simon_lewis
Jeff just being different?
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Just about.[:D] Same as he uses sheet instead of wire... makes you buy blades through him.[;)]

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Strydur
03-22-2006, 08:46 AM
I have never seen a parks blade in person so not sure how he wires it up. I can tell you my blades work fine in a parks saber though.

Tim
The Custom Saber Shop

xwingband
03-22-2006, 08:58 AM
Ah... yes, it was lighttech that made the screwy ones that were very compatible.

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LAN-ED-TUL
03-22-2006, 09:35 AM
yea, my first one is a green lightech inverter and blade. it wont even run any of tims blades at all. and its not very bright either, tims stuff is far brighter than lighttechs, older setups.

You dont know the POWER, of the dark side...

simon_lewis
03-22-2006, 09:44 AM
Thought so. If memory serves only the tip and bottom ring were used. I wasn't overly impressed with Parks' EL sheet blade - I'm looking forward to buying my aqua CSS kit!

Cheers,

Simon.

Cheers,

Simon.

LAN-ED-TUL
03-23-2006, 01:50 AM
the lightech blade i have he put a plug of what kinda looks like hotglue or something like it in the tip. so its flat not round like tims tips. if i slap tims blade in the handle thats got LT's inverter in it, it barely lights up the blade. so maybe that inverter is even less than the ones tim used to have, the 2mhz ones. maybe its a 1 mhz, i dunno, but tims stuff is way better, and thats all that matters, and price, i paid 125 for complete setup. and you wont come close to that with tims. tims stuff, is better, cheaper, and far superior in every way. now, the only thing i see LT has got, is that sound module thingy. can work with a system like the old mr. microphone used to. over a radio using a irock system. thats cool, but its almost as expensive as his complete blade setups.

You dont know the POWER, of the dark side...

Jedi-Loreen
05-07-2006, 12:12 PM
<font color="blue"><font size="3">I'm just reading this thread for the first time.

Parks blades supposedly have some sort of special ground inside the hilt, which is why his blades use the stereo plugs. The blades will work in other sabers, if they have an inverter that will power them.

For my first hardware saber, I used a Lightech blade kit, though I now think that the blades themselves are crap, I think the inverter is very good. I've never had any problems powering any kind of EL wire blade with it, (though I've never gotten it to power my Parks blades) and I've been making my own EL wire blades since before Tim started this great site.

However, I have never gotten then Lightech blade to run on another inverter that I've tried, though I haven't tried it with Tim's 4khz inverter.

Lightech blades use double core EL wire, which means that there are 2 phosphorus coated wires instead of 1. Theoretically, it should be brighter than regular EL wire, but I did not find it so, when I started making my own blades using the regular EL wire.

And now, the HB wire is much brighter than the double core wire used in the Lightech blades. The HB wire just has a thicker coating of phosphorus covering it.

And because of the paper diffuser used in these blades, there is a lot of room inside them and the EL wire really rattles around horribly. This also due to the fact that Lightech blades are made using only the 1/16" walled polycarb tubes, so they are very "whippy". I've also seen the silicone plug at the end of the blade (held in place by a small set screw) come out during dueling, taking the EL wire with it out the end of the blade. [:0]

What's the point of my post? To say that, while the Lightech blades aren't that good, I still think the inverters are good, I have helped several friends build hardware EL sabers in the past 3 years using these and they seem to preform quite well.</font id="size3"></font id="blue">

In order to see the Light, you must sometimes risk the Dark.

Jedi Ranger
05-07-2006, 11:59 PM
<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Originally posted by LAN-ED-TUL

the lightech blade i have he put a plug of what kinda looks like hotglue or something like it in the tip. so its flat not round like tims tips. if i slap tims blade in the handle thats got LT's inverter in it, it barely lights up the blade. so maybe that inverter is even less than the ones tim used to have, the 2mhz ones. maybe its a 1 mhz, i dunno, but tims stuff is way better, and thats all that matters, and price, i paid 125 for complete setup. and you wont come close to that with tims. tims stuff, is better, cheaper, and far superior in every way. now, the only thing i see LT has got, is that sound module thingy. can work with a system like the old mr. microphone used to. over a radio using a irock system. thats cool, but its almost as expensive as his complete blade setups.

You dont know the POWER, of the dark side...
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

Actually, that would be kHz.[;)]

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james3
05-08-2006, 08:00 AM
Yeah! Nice to have some good EL discussion going. I picked up a few used EL blades of different makes and no wonder so many people bad mouth EL. I have not had the pleasure of using one of your blades Jedi-Loreen but with the other brands I have messed with it seems that there was room for improvement.
I still find Tim's blade to be as darn near perfect as you can get. With the thick polyC and the polypro fitting in there snug I have not had any of the problems with the "rattles" it really does all fit as one complete blade. The other blades with their various degree of looseness I think effects feel more then sound. I can shake it a bit and get a rattle but when smacking another blade I only here the whack.


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Von Rampart
10-13-2006, 11:22 AM
I'm just starting my first EL assembly, and the 1/4" mono plug I bought from Radio Shack doesn't fit inside the diffuser tube. I purchased my parts based on the Jedi Loreen tutorial, and I assumed the plug would go inside all three plastic blade parts (poly c, poly e, and poly p). But even with the housing off the plug, the plug is too wide to fit the diffuser. Can the diffuser and bushing be "stacked" above the plug with the poly c tube covering the whole thing, or do I need to find a plug with a smaller housing diameter?

Just for reference, the plug model is 274-1536 (Radio Shack brand).

Thanks for any help.

Jedi-Loreen
10-13-2006, 11:38 AM
If you are using the 1/8" walled polycarb tube that you can get in this store here, there is no need for a bushing like I used in the 1/16" walled polycarb. The mono plug fits just into the polycarb tube. If it's a little sloppy, just wrap a little electrical tape around it before securing it.

The diffuser tubes here are a little smaller than what I still use, but that's to avoid any problems of insertion into different lots of the 1/8" walled polycarb tube, the ID can very within the allowable tolerances.

Tim did a photo tutorial on how to make an EL blade based on my original tutorial, with some improvements that makes it much more simple.
Check it out. :wink:

Von Rampart
10-14-2006, 10:48 AM
Actually, Loreen, I read Tim's tutorial, but I'm using parts I ordered based on the blade tutorial you wrote:

3/4" OD, 5/8" ID polycarbonate tubing
1/2" OD, 3/8" ID rigid polyethylene tubing
5/8" OD, 1/2" ID polypropylene tubing

The thing is, the width of the mono plug is wider than the 3/8" polyethylene opening. It fits into the propylene just fine, so it would definitely fit in the polycarbonate. But if I use these parts as they are, the polycarb and polypro will go over the plug and the diffuser polyeth won't begin until after the plug casing ends. I don't see this as being a problem, since the diffuser will still cover all the wire (like it's supposed to), but all three layers won't cover the plug. If this would be a problem, I'd like to know, so I can reorder my plastic parts a little bigger.

Thanks for helping, Loreen.