Thinkway 2002 Lightsaber

[Shadar Al'Niende]

I will be adding pictures once i get home from work. I was recently commissioned by a customer asking to use the sound boards from a couple of old telescopic blade sabers his kids had busted, to make some new PVC sabers that would be more duel-able.

Problem is that i have never encountered this style of lightsaber. Aparently it was made by Thinkway Toys but being in 2002 they don't list it anymore. I did some googling and could find references on this besides collector lists.

Does anyone know of these or know anything about the boards? I want to know this is a usable board before i tear into them and possibly ruin the hilt...

Sorry for the crappy pictures, had to take them with my phone

[Shadar Al'Niende]

Ok, so got the hilt open and found out a little more thanks to the guts. The wiring was a MESS inside this thing, mostly globs of hot glue to keep everything inside... At the top of the first picture is a grey plunger with a spring attached. It seems to be a motion sensor of some sort. I was told that this was meant to be "a training toy, that remembers the moves you have learned."

Pictures are below:

There are 2 mom switches to "enter your jedi code" as seen in this image.



The soundboard looks a little wide but not far off from what we normally see.



This has a vibration motor and looks to run a bulb, instead of a standard led. Still nobody that has heard of these and can lend some advice eh?





I will keep forging ahead so that others may be helped later if they need it.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Oh, that's one of those "interactive training saber" things. I have one of those.

Someone was asking about those a few years ago and it was decided with all the voices and things it did, that the sound board was no good for use in other sabers.

And LEDs weren't "standard" for toy lightsabers back when these were made, that's a fairly recent development.

[Matt Thorn]

That would be me, J-Lo, back in December, 2008.
http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...ead.php?t=6770
I took mine apart, and though I was impressed by the work that went into that toy (The package itself was plugged into the saber and had its own button and flashing LEDs for the demo mode!), there's not really anything to be done with it. I don't know how much it cost new when it first came out, but it must have cost ten times what it cost to make other toy lightsabers. And it was incredibly compact. It's hard to believe it made much of a profit.


Mine is the Japanese version, as you can see. I was so impressed with the package gimmick I took some photos of it.

[Skottsaber]

Hmm... don't know anything about these, but I did see something interesting:


Is that an MR swing sensor?

[Matt Thorn]

The motion sensors used in Force FX sabers are standard, and by no means unique to lightsabers. I didn't play with mine much, so I don't remember swing sounds, but, yeah, that sure looks like a motion detector.

[KuroChou]

These do have swing sounds, very touchy ones I might add.
I actually happen to really like the overall feel of these, even if they are a little gimmicky.
The amount of clash rumble felt just right, and the sounds were pretty high quality other than the voices.

Wiring shouldn't be any different than any regular hasbro board, just clip off the lamp and run the leads to a transistor/relay.
The hard part I see, is that this isn't going to be any regular old cram job, it has dual axis motion sensors (I believe....) that need to be mounted properly....
I.E. you're going to need a pretty precise chassis.

[Darth Avenger]

I picked up this saber (Thinkway 2002 Lightsaber) today at a carboot sale. It doesn't light up or make any clashing sounds. All it does is say "Enter Jedi code" "Jedi code accepted" "lightsaber activated". Does any one know what the full range of functions should be? Any tips (other than sling it!) - thanks

[Skottsaber]

Honestly these boards are pretty useless for custom saber use.
I recommend picking up a 2010 economy hasbro saber, their use is well documented here.

[Jedi Mynock]

yeah i bought one when they came out (circa epII). just left it as a pretty nice CHROME! hasbro saber. pretty impressive. i removed the blade and it just sits in my "saber pile" lol
cool post though. nostalgic!