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Hi everyone, here is a full log of my first ever build. This only costed me 26$. After seeing the force awakens, I was inspired to build an Anakin/Luke/Finn/Rey saber. I wanted to post this to address some of the problems/difficulties/mishaps I hit along the way, in hopes of helping a few poeple thinking about building their first saber but are overwhelmed by the scale of the project. Anyone else: please enjoy!
So to start:
I wanted a very cheap build. I am a freshman in college (18 years old), so I dont exactly have a gold mine of cash. While the physical saber only costed me 26$, I ended up spending a bit more on it than that, but ill explain all of that later.
First, I went to my grandparents house and had my grandfather cut me a piece of steel pipe about 10-11 inches long. I then used a dremel with a cuttoff wheel and cut out the shape in the top of hilt. This was designed to look like the Anakin hilt. Attachment 13506
As you can see in the background, there is a bag of LEDs (blue) =12$, a polycarbonate tube =9$, an AA battery holder (first big mistake) =5$, the hilt, foam, resistors (useless), and the start of the LED string.
I continued work on the saber hilt with my dremel. The little black bars on the end were to be made of cut up pvc pipe. I polished the steel surface with a dremel buffing wheel and buffing compound. Attachment 13508
Since I was only home for a weekend, I did not have time to complete it. Here is as far as I got in the 2 days that I had: Attachment 13509
I am trying to prove that you do not need a lot of fancy equipment to make a decent hilt here.
After that weekend, I took my supplies back to my dorm room: The bag of 100 LEDs, some wire, solder, soldering iron, flux, wire cutters, needle nose pliers, the AA battery pack, and a button cell battery (for quick testing my chains of leds).
I began work on the chain of LEDs, I used the makoto tsai method of bending and linking them (you all should be able to find tutorials for this on youtube and here).
Here is the beginnings of the chain. Attachment 13510
Here is about a week's progess: Attachment 13511
Again, this thread is to show any intimidated newcomers that a saber can be cheap and effective if done well. I did all of the electric work in my dorm room desk, not exactly the best atmosphere for work of this nature!
After about 2 weeks, the chain was done. For some reason, I ordered a bag of 100 blue straw hat leds, and the bag included 114.... but im not complaining. In the end, I used 110 LEDs to achieve 32 inches of light.
Here is the chain: Attachment 13512
Here it is powered by that button cell for testing purposes: Attachment 13513
Here it is powered with the AA pack: Attachment 13514
Now this may seem impressive, BUT READ AHEAD ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE A BEGINNER
These pictures are probably impressive, but the camera is fooled easily by brightness. The first picture looks very bright, but in real life is so dim that only pitch blackness makes it look good. The second one is visible well enough in daylight, but completely blinds the camera. Cameras make the blade seem much more bright than real life.
Now I will explain the realization of the flaws in the AA pack. I asked the community here several times about why the AA pack would not due. I kept getting the same answer: if I am using blue LEDs (3.4V 20mAh), then AAs will not supply enough voltage to make them glow at full brighness. A single AA battery has 1.5V, so 2 of them in series=3V. Obviously 3V does not equal 3.4V ,and the leds were not as bright as they could be. So I bought a 18650 power bank to supply the proper voltage, along with 2 1ohm 5W resistors.
The pics in your last post aren't working. I really want to see how it turned out.
yea I'm figuring that out rn, but thank you!
Where did you get your LEDs from
As someone looking to replace my OEM FX removable blades saber with my own chain LED string, I'm eagerly awaiting the pics to be fixed and your outcome.
If I use red, would the original 3 AAA battery pack that powers the FX saber work fine?