2010 Electronic Lightsaber w/ DVD Tutorial

[Skottsaber]

No. All a power xtender does is switch a small load to a larger one (in most cases the battery voltage).

[Ayrizale]

Hello,

My first post, and I'm new to the scene, so be kind.

I've been working with my first saber (a few pieces still to arrive due to a noobish mistake in my first order), but I wanted to add the sound from one of the Ultimate FX sabers to my own creation. Seemed easy enough, but I've hit a snag that I can't seem to figure out.

The part that I'm missing is the heat sink for the LED, so at this time, the LED is not hooked up in any way.

First off, the board I'm working with is the longer blue board that comes glued and soldered to the LED string that makes up the blade as shown in the pictures by Jvidamins in his post near the end of the 6th page of http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...light=ultimate, so I've been kinda feeling my way through it.

I've been working with the wiring schematic on the first page of this thread posted courtesy of Skottsaber, which uses the speaker line to introduce a flicker to the blade.

As near as I can tell, I have everything wired correctly, but when I measure the current going to where the LED will be, I'm only reading around 400mA with no resistor between the transistor and where the LED will be. I originally had a 3.3Ohm resistor in there, but with that I was getting around 180mA.

I read the notice at the bottom of the first post of this thread about having the battery and going to the wrong leads, so I've tried swapping them and the current dropped to ~250mA, so I swapped it back.

I've tried searching from time to time on these boards for more information about these new boards, but haven't been able to find anything.

Can anyone recommend something that I might try to correct this problem? My heat sink should be arriving on Friday and I'd love to have my first working saber done that same day.

Thanks in advance for any assistance,

[jvidamins]

Hello,

My first post, and I'm new to the scene, so be kind.

I've been working with my first saber (a few pieces still to arrive due to a noobish mistake in my first order), but I wanted to add the sound from one of the Ultimate FX sabers to my own creation. Seemed easy enough, but I've hit a snag that I can't seem to figure out.

The part that I'm missing is the heat sink for the LED, so at this time, the LED is not hooked up in any way.

First off, the board I'm working with is the longer blue board that comes glued and soldered to the LED string that makes up the blade as shown in the pictures by Jvidamins in his post near the end of the 6th page of http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...light=ultimate, so I've been kinda feeling my way through it.

I've been working with the wiring schematic on the first page of this thread posted courtesy of Skottsaber, which uses the speaker line to introduce a flicker to the blade.

As near as I can tell, I have everything wired correctly, but when I measure the current going to where the LED will be, I'm only reading around 400mA with no resistor between the transistor and where the LED will be. I originally had a 3.3Ohm resistor in there, but with that I was getting around 180mA.

I read the notice at the bottom of the first post of this thread about having the battery and going to the wrong leads, so I've tried swapping them and the current dropped to ~250mA, so I swapped it back.

I've tried searching from time to time on these boards for more information about these new boards, but haven't been able to find anything.

Can anyone recommend something that I might try to correct this problem? My heat sink should be arriving on Friday and I'd love to have my first working saber done that same day.

Thanks in advance for any assistance,

What's your power source? And are you using a PNP transistor?

[Ayrizale]

Ah, yes, sorry. I'm using a 4AAA battery pack, so 6.0V, and yes, it's a PNP transistor.

[dustunite]

ive used this setup for a few sabers and they all work great! one question though, can the led leads off the board run an AV switch led w/o a resistor? sorry if this has already be addressed but there like 80
pages in this tread.

[Ayrizale]

Hello again,

An update on my situation and a question.

In an attempt to fix the clash sensor, I overheated one of the contacts on the board and it ripped off. So I went and got another Ultimate FX saber and it has the same board attached to the blade like the other two that I've bought, so it seems that my local wallyworld only stocks ones with this new board.

After getting it wired up, I got the same amp readings from the leads that would go to the LED as before, so only ~400mA. On a hunch, I soldered jumpers between the LED- contacts on the board (I believe there are 5 of them on this particular board) and then measured the current between the (now jumpered) LED- contacts and positive lead going to where the LED will be. I got a reading of 1900mA. After wiring in my 3.3Ohm resistor, I measured again and got a reading between 1100mA and 1040mA.

So if I'm understanding this correctly, I don't need the transistor and can just wire the resistor directly to the board and run the power straight from the LED contacts on the board through the LED once I get the heatsink.

Can anyone advise one way or the other? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks again,

[Ka'getsu]

@Ayrizale yes you can just use the resistor set up and you'll get a nice bright blade when using any of the led's that Tim sells in the store, besides the 10 watt RGB.

Ka'ge

[Jedi Mynock]

No. All a power xtender does is switch a small load to a larger one (in most cases the battery voltage).

but... wouldnt that solve the low power from the speaker output problem?

my setup right now is obi econo with tip42, speaker output to a p4 blue running on 2AAA (i suspect this is half my problem. need a new batt pack as i shattered my 4AA!)
brightness is currently weaker than my stock joe jedi.

maybe i should just jump on the ultimate train to awesometown...

[PaPa_FoZzY]

I recently built a saber running a seoul P4 blue and a Vader sound board using the speaker powered diagram minus the PNP and it's just as bright as it would be running it straight to the battery with no sound card, the voltage from the speaker of course fluctuates from 3.7 to 4 volts which is safely within the max voltage for that type of led. I'm using a 3.3 ohm 5watt resistor also. So what does the PNP do? I'm sorry I tried searching but I don't have the time or patience to search over 80 pages so I thought I'd just go ahead and ask lol.

[darkantonhy]

Hello. I have a problem with the power of my light on my MHS

I use this diagram to wire my saber http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1237687/TCSS...eakersetup.jpg

My part is: white soul p4 with 4AAA battery and Qui-Gon card, I use pnp transistor tip 42A http://www.onsemi.com/pub_link/Collateral/TIP41A-D.PDF.

My problem is: Everything works, but the light is low...the flicker effect is well...

Is that the Pnp tip 42''A'' problem??