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gsterley
11-19-2009, 10:31 PM
So I am back to build my second saber. I did a sink tube saber a good while back and am ready to take it up a notch with an MHS saber this time.

I prepared this rendering in preparation. Now it may not be 100% mechanically accurate in the cutaways, but everything is to scale. The only thing missing from the drawing would be some detail on mounting the MR sound board. I am in the air about mounting it integral to the battery pack or on its own, perhaps in a film canister.

Anyway, please have a look and let me know what you think.

http://img35.imageshack.us/img35/3475/saberdiagram.jpg

astromech_kuhns
11-20-2009, 12:14 AM
as far as i can tell your circuit looks fine. only thing im not sure on is the speaker. you have the positive coming right from the battery and the negative from the board.

now, your battery pack is packed with foam, but not your board. and that is important. you dont want any shorts. or especially components braking. but to pack it all in foam makes it harder to take out and switch batteries.

you could use a chasis. it is a sled for your electronic components. put them in it and slide it out from the saber.

Jedi-Loreen
11-20-2009, 01:16 AM
Some MR boards use the positive from the battery, ak.


You don't have much space at all for the speaker to resonate. It would sound better, and louder if you did.

MR, and now Hasbro, got it wrong when they put the speaker at the end of the battery back right at the very end of the pommel. Some space in front of and a little behind the speaker will work wonders.

I don't know if you can work that into your design, with that set up, but try some experimenting and you'll see what I mean.

gsterley
11-20-2009, 06:04 AM
now, your battery pack is packed with foam, but not your board. and that is important. you dont want any shorts. or especially components braking. but to pack it all in foam makes it harder to take out and switch batteries.

you could use a chasis. it is a sled for your electronic components. put them in it and slide it out from the saber.

I agree 100%. I am still hammering out the details of mounting the board. I am leaning towards the sled idea as I have no recharge port and sliding out one assembly to change the batteries seems best. I will work on that today. Thanks.


Some MR boards use the positive from the battery, ak.


You don't have much space at all for the speaker to resonate. It would sound better, and louder if you did.

MR, and now Hasbro, got it wrong when they put the speaker at the end of the battery back right at the very end of the pommel. Some space in front of and a little behind the speaker will work wonders.

I don't know if you can work that into your design, with that set up, but try some experimenting and you'll see what I mean.

Great, thats good to know. I may be able to mount the board on top of the battery holder. This should let me move the whole assembly up a good ways and allow some space for the speaker to resonate. If all goes well the battery pack should become a nice chassis to build off of.

I will work on creating Version 2.1 today. Thanks!

Lord Dottore Matto
11-20-2009, 02:01 PM
The wiring is perfect. No need to put the board into a chassis unless you want to. Just a poly-C sleeve or heatshrink on the board will be perfectly fine.

FenderBender
11-20-2009, 04:58 PM
One thing I notice: The speaker mount does not fit "into" the pommel like you pictured. If you are using the TCSS speaker mount, the pommel sandwhiches it to the hilt at the bottom of the threads. So this may not work lengthwise with your design. UNLESS, you mount the sound board onto the battery pack, which I would only recommend if it is a permanant/rechargable battery set-up.

Also as a suggestion, don't rigidly affix your clash sensor anywhere, it makes it less sensitive. I usually solder it inline with the main LED leads and let it hang out in the choke. This way it gets maximum impact registration from blade vibrations.

gsterley
11-20-2009, 11:26 PM
Thanks so much, I would have never thought about the inside diameter of the threaded portion of the pommel getting in the way. I guess that takes care of some of the resonance concern.

Because of pommel/speaker situation I decided to stack the board on the battery pack. I really had no other option due to space. (It will of course be covered in non-conductive material when its all said and done)

It was said that "Most sound boards can be stacked on top of the battery holder" in the product description of the MHS speaker mount v3. Since I do not have my Vader board here just yet, and I am unable to find a definitive answer as to the thickness of that Vader board. I am going to keep my fingers crossed for now, and hope that it fits.

Please see the latest revision and keep me posted if anything throws up a red flag.
http://img252.imageshack.us/img252/3475/saberdiagram.jpg

Invisas1979
11-21-2009, 08:31 AM
I doubt you'll be able to get the MR board to sit on top of the battery solution, they are quite wide.

For this saber I would go with the 4 cell power solution tim sells, have the MR board in front of that and then the switch.

Otherwise, like the design would have pommel 4 personally.

Jay-gon Jinn
11-21-2009, 10:18 AM
Man, that saber looks familiar:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Chrome%20Saber%2015/103_4873.jpg
Nice design!

I managed to do a simlar battery/soundboard set up in that saber, but I used an Ultrasound 2.1 instead of the MR. The MR board's are 1" wide, just like an Ultrasound, so it may fit on top of the battery holder just fine, so long as it isn't too tall. The transistors on the board may not clear the sidewalls of the hilt.

Jedi-Loreen
11-21-2009, 10:29 AM
2" wide? That's gotta be a typo, since the OD of most sabers is around 1.5". :p

Jay-gon Jinn
11-21-2009, 10:39 AM
2" wide? That's gotta be a typo, since the OD of most sabers is around 1.5". :p
Yup, ya got me! It's 2" long, 1" wide. fixed it. ;)

gsterley
11-21-2009, 11:00 AM
Thats one handsome saber Jay-gon!

I found a nice set of dimensions for length and width of the board, but the height I am not certain of. Truth will be told once all the parts come in.

In the mean time if anyone has an 05 Vader board sitting around... and can post side shots of it, it would be extremely helpful. Otherwise, I will be sure post some once mine gets here.

Invisas1979
11-22-2009, 12:20 PM
The transistors on the board may not clear the sidewalls of the hilt.

This was exactly what I meant to say, just didn't come out right.

I think you're talking 7-8mm in height. The thing is, the battery solution will take up a lot of the " height" space you have. Before you even get to the MR board.

Because of the transistors the MR baords are a few mm more in height than a US or CF board. And no where near as easy to fit in a saber.

gsterley
11-30-2009, 08:14 PM
Okay, now I know that the inside diameter of a graflex is more that the MHS (just under your normal 1.5" sink tube). But this gives me hope for my battery pack solution. It looks like the MR board fits into that sized hilt on top of the batteries. Fingers still crossed for mine.

I am still waiting for another 2 days for parts to come in. I will get the height of the Vader board posted once I get it. Feel free to beat me to it.

http://www.clanriotsquad.com/images/starwars/graflex7.jpg
http://www.clanriotsquad.com/images/starwars/graflex8.jpg
http://www.clanriotsquad.com/images/starwars/graflex9.jpg

gsterley
12-03-2009, 09:50 PM
Well, bad news. I can definitively say that the Vader board does not fit comfortably on top of a AA batter holder and into the MHS.

I did manage to get it to fit, and I was even left with resonance chamber. So it is doable, just not in the way I had intended.

cardcollector
12-05-2009, 12:24 PM
You will find that electronics rarely fit like they were intended.;)

Jedi-Loreen
12-06-2009, 12:42 AM
As intended, or expected? ;)

cardcollector
12-07-2009, 12:28 PM
Yes...;):rolleyes:

gsterley
12-07-2009, 01:06 PM
The MR Vader board was 3/8" tall, and it was nearly that tall all the way to the edges.

I am planning on switching to a (2)AA Li-ion battery pack and working on a chassis system. Now that it is working and I can satisfy my need to play with the saber, I really want to polish the look of the inside of my hilt.

I have access to laser cut acrylic pretty cheap from work so I am going to have a full chassis cut out of clear acrylic once I finish the dimensions and design.

Going with Li-ion's I will be at 7.2v. I understand 6v is as much as you want to feed a MR board though. I'm gonna need to find a good way to control the voltage. PCB?