Can you wire a Tri LED to a MR Vader Saber??

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Originally Posted by Don Se Wion

Like FJK said, with the stock setup it will be able to properly drive only one LED.

However, if you want to pick up the challenge and rebuild the internals from scratch, you may have this solution to run the three dices.

- replace the stock battery holder with a single 18650 lithium battery
- replace the six transistors on the MR board driving the LEDs with a single high power transistor
(it`s just the same approach used to convert the Hasbro economy boards)

You can find some detailed info in this old post Pyros, a custom "Dual-Phase" Mace Windu conversion

With that setup I was able to feed the LEDs with only 1600mA, but the limitation was coming from the NiMh batteries I had to use.
Using a good 18650 Li-Ion battery you won't have this limitation and you may be able to feed up to 1000mA for each die.

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So I read your over your post and I mostly understand what it is you did... a couple of things though first what if I don't want the switch, do I just connect the green, yellow and orange wire together?
Also I can see there is blue wire that I would assume is connected to blue and to the transistor I would also assume, but where does the red/purple wire go to?

I posted some pics of my board as it is slightly different than the mace one.

Attachment 12073

That blue wire goes to the Blue die in the LedEngin. Basically in that saber the Blue die was always lit and the slider switch was used to select either Red or Green dies to make the two available colors of the blade, purple and sky blue.

In the photo, the yellow wire you see on the top is connected to the transistor (like the blue one) and will go to the middle connector of the slider switch. Green and orange wires are connected to the Green and Red dies and will go to the remaining connectors of the slider switch.

With your board I would remove the molex connector and all 6 transistors for a clean conversion.
I suppose the stock transistors are the same as mine so you should be able to replace them with a TIP41C, but I would double check them to be sure before wiring everything together.

I would wire the TIP41C to replace the first transistor on the bottom of your picture (the one near resistor R3) to sync sound and light effects.

There is a chance you may need to remove the resistor directly connected to the base through-hole (probably R3) to increase the TIP41C power output.
If needed, just identify the proper resistor following the trace on your board and replace it with a piece of wire.

On a side note, and you probably already know about it, you need to install a clash sensor between Hit and VDD through-holes since it is normally located inside the blade assembly in most of the MR/Hasbro sabers and you are going to loose it with the conversion. You can find the clash sensor in the store.

Awesome thanks :)
you are right about the clash sensor, though I still have rhone that is in the blade so can I use the original clash sensor or will that not wire correctly?

forgive me my understanding of wiring is basic and I am working learning more about all that.

The one in the blade is just fine.
It might be a little tricky to reuse it since the leads are for sure trimmed very short, but with patience and steady hand it can be done.
Perhaps a good solution could be soldering short wires to the clash sensor leads and then solder these wires to the board.