With the pommel all set, I began the wiring for the switch...this is pretty straight forward, but might get a bit tricky....I started by pulling the wires from the battery pack up into the hilt, and then sliding the switch nut over the wires:
I then fed the wires through the switch hole:
I pulled them out a little further so I can work on the switch easier, and then made up the main blade led connector, as well:
I had to feed those wires up through the nut:
Next, I soldered all of the negatives to the negative post for the switch led:
These all need to be connected as they all have a common ground. The switch will be interrupting the positive side of the circuit.
Then I started on the positives:
These are the positives for the led's. I attached them to the NC tab....with the ring style switches, I like to have them wired for the button to be "up" when on, since they light up better that way. This particular switch has a 12v led inside, so it is not necessary to use a resistor for it, either. I had these soldered to what I figured were the wrong terminals, though, and changed it after taking the pictures. I wound up soldering the battery positive to the Common terminal by itself, and then soldered the accent led's positive to the NC terminal with the main blade led's positive.
I thought about soldering a simple jumper wire from the switch led positive tab to the NC tab, but eventually changed my mind:
Instead, I decided to cut into the main led positive and make a "Y" connection to power the switch led from:
I added heat shrink tubing to the connection, but didn't shrink it...better test everything first:
Well, It works! Sort of....when I pushed the button to turn it off, the mechanism that latches the button down BROKE!!!! The switch essentially became a momentary and was unusable!
I looked in my parts drawer to see if I had another latching blue ring button and found none.....just latching w/green rings....and one latching blue dot:
I soldered it up just like the first switch:
And tested:
I think I like the blue dot better...it's brighter than the ring type was!
Now to assemble it......stay tuned!
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