I may have FUBARed my EL saber

So the other day I was working on my EL saber, the "Agony" from RandomSabers, and was replacing the EL inverter with the one I took out of my blue EL saber that I'm converting to LED, when the wires (the red ones seen in the following pic) that attached to the eL wire in the blade broke off the inside of the hilt:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...aber_wires.jpg

I took the wires out and completely cleaned the inside of the forward grip/emiiter piece and this was what I found inside:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o..._connector.jpg

A mono-jack plug...now, this saber was supposed to have non-removeable blade, so why is that in there? And how the heck am I going to re-solder the wires??!!! I've sent an email to randomsabers asking about the costruction of this half of the saber
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o...rward_grip.jpg
to see if I can take it apart and possibly remove and replace the blade. Any suggestions you guys have would be most welcome, as well.

Hmm.. that doesn't look like a mono jack plug to me, it looks more like one of the standard DC plugs, that being the female end of it. I would suggest you give up and send it to me. That *or* you could try to push that piece out of the opposite end and re-solder there, inserting the blade from the opposite end as well, if it will fit.

If it is the back side of a male mono jack though, you may be able to pull it out with needlenose pliers and replace it.

Why were you replacing the inverter in the first place?

And why would you want a saber with a non-removable blade? :P

Yeah, that's definitely not a mono audio plug. Makes me wonder what it looks like on the blade end. Did you think that the blade was just wired right into the inverter?

I don't see any way you can fix it as it is right now, you're going to have to take out the plug and blade and see how the blade's attached to the plug and somehow replace it, since you can't solder the new inverter onto it as it is. And that makes me wonder how they wired it in the first place.

Is the blade EL film? Or EL wire with some sort of film on the inside? I wonder if there's anyway you can make it a removable blade.

It looks like you have quite a job on your hands.

If you did want to make it a removable blade, there are a few options.

If the blade was 3/4", you'd definitely have to use a mono audio plug. Of course, that means you'd need an excess of space in that section (think 1.5-2 inches).

If the blade is 1", I found that a metal-housed 3 or 4 pin XLR plug fits PERFECTLY in there. With this, it would also take substantially less room, as you can fit the majority of the male side inside the blade with about 1/2-3/4 inches in the hilt.

That's not a 1" blade, if it was, that saber would have a pretty large diameter. The "industry standard" for EL blades is 3/4" diameter.

from the pic it looks like the pointy end of an 1/4 inch jack plug.

J-Lo, I didn't commission this saber to be built, I bought pre-made from Ryan in an ebay auction 3 years ago. If I had ordered it for myself, it would have a removeable blade. I was changing the inverter because the one that was in it was loud and bigger than the one I was going to install, which would allow me to change the ugly switch that is on it to one of the ones in the store here. I'll show you:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o..._inverters.jpg
The one that I want to use is on the left, the one that was in it is on the right. The blade is also 3/4", and the diffuser material is cracked and broken in several places. I just wanted to see if there was a way to get the blade out so I could re-build it. Apparently, that isn't possible. I got a response from Ryan at Random this afternoon:

"Jason – I am afraid that there isn't any way to remove the blade…its permanently attached to the saber. You will literally have to destroy it to get it out, I am afraid.

Sorry we aren't much more help, but I am afraid that there isn't much we can do for you.

Ryan"

Looks like I may be stuck with a display saber now....I asked him how the blade was attached and that was the answer I got. I should email him again and have clarify his response. Will I have to destroy the blade or the saber?

And yes, I did think the EL wire ran into the hilt directly to the inverter, because when I bought it, the listing stated that the blade was permanently attached, and non-removeable. So I really had no reason to think otherwise.

You must also keep in mind that this was my first custom-made light-up lightsaber. Up until I got this, I was playing with Hasbro's and didn't know much about machined sabers.

That looks like the end of a mono-plug to me too:
http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/im...medium/564.jpg
http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/im...medium/569.jpg
I think I remember reading somewhere that they used to use Lightech blades in their sabers, and if so, that would be a mono-jack plug.

I say strip the poo out of it and toss the junk away and replace with nice new tcss parts.

if ya got room for 2 inverters and a butload of elwire :D

double it all.