Battery Pack Question

[Knight Of The Republic]

I have a 4 AAA pack in my Graflex. I recently hooked up a MR Anakin sound board and I have read that they should only get 4.5 volts instead of the full 6 volts. If I take a battery out of my pack and solder a wire from the - and the other to the +, will that basically turn that pack into a 3 AAA pack? Or will it now act like it has one dead battery and not work? Or should I simply by rechargables and run it slightly over the 4.5?

Thanks.

[Jedi-Loreen]

There's plenty of threads, and posts, that say you can run MR/Hasbro FX boards on 6V (but no more than that) with no problems. Many of us do that.

[Vlad Doon]

I have a 4 AAA pack in my Graflex. I recently hooked up a MR Anakin sound board and I have read that they should only get 4.5 volts instead of the full 6 volts. If I take a battery out of my pack and solder a wire from the - and the other to the +, will that basically turn that pack into a 3 AAA pack? Or will it now act like it has one dead battery and not work? Or should I simply by rechargables and run it slightly over the 4.5?

Thanks.

I don't know where you read that the MR can't get 4 AAA (In a stock MR lightsaber, there are 3 AA, that doesn't mean the board can't get more, and you don't have to run a 3w LED or more) . As J.L says, it's O.K. LOTS of people wire MR boards this way. Besides, if you wire a P4, or a rebel LED out of the board, you'll need your 4 AAA. So, go for 4 normal AAA, or 4 rechargeable AAA, which will give you 4.8v (4x1.2).

[Knight Of The Republic]

I read it on this site. For every post I saw it was ok to use 6 volts I saw another one that said only use 4.5 cause you'll burn out your board. I'm a noob so I don't know. I think I'll just use rechargables.

I would like to know about running a wire in the battery pack to down size the pack by one battery. Just curious if it would work.

Thanks for the info.

[Rafalema]

it would work.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

I've been using 6 volts to power MR boards for 4 years now, and still haven't burned one up. The maximum the board will take is actually 6.2 volts...go over that, and the board will sizzle and burn. Use the 4-AAA holder if you want, and if you're worried about it burning up using regular alkaline batteries, use NiMH rechargeables instead.

[Knight Of The Republic]

Thanks guys. I bought some NiMh batteries and they are charging now. On a side note, I freaked out when I turned my saber on and the LED sizzled out and the sound kept running. I was like huh? The batteries mush have been low. I changed them out with new ones and it was so bright compared to what I had been using. I never started the project with new batteries so it was nice to see how bright it could be. I was disappointed with the brightness before I changed the batteries thinking that it was just how bright it was going to be. ha ha.

Now I just have to figure out if how to make my speaker louder. It isn't nearly as loud as my MR Vader or MR Luke. I bought the speaker from the TCSS shop here. So far I have just hot glued it straight to the bottom of the battery pack. I ordered a speaker holder and I am hoping for some reason that will help. Do you guys have any tips on how to make the sound louder?

Thanks.

[Jonitus]

Thanks guys. I bought some NiMh batteries and they are charging now. On a side note, I freaked out when I turned my saber on and the LED sizzled out and the sound kept running. I was like huh? The batteries mush have been low. I changed them out with new ones and it was so bright compared to what I had been using. I never started the project with new batteries so it was nice to see how bright it could be. I was disappointed with the brightness before I changed the batteries thinking that it was just how bright it was going to be. ha ha.

Now I just have to figure out if how to make my speaker louder. It isn't nearly as loud as my MR Vader or MR Luke. I bought the speaker from the TCSS shop here. So far I have just hot glued it straight to the bottom of the battery pack. I ordered a speaker holder and I am hoping for some reason that will help. Do you guys have any tips on how to make the sound louder?

Thanks.

Check the build log threads of Jay-Gon for very detailed examples of him using what we like to refer to in this hobby as a "resonance chamber", which when placed on/around the speaker, amplifies it fairly significantly.

[Vlad Doon]

Now I just have to figure out if how to make my speaker louder. It isn't nearly as loud as my MR Vader or MR Luke. I bought the speaker from the TCSS shop here. So far I have just hot glued it straight to the bottom of the battery pack. I ordered a speaker holder and I am hoping for some reason that will help. Do you guys have any tips on how to make the sound louder?

Thanks. [/QUOTE]

Make sure you have some space between the speaker and the insert of the pommel (resonance chamber), and as weird as it seems, it's also important to let the sound flows behind the speaker through the hilt.You may have to drill some holes in the speaker holder. But like Jonitus says, Jay-gon's tutorials will show you how to make it properly

[Knight Of The Republic]

Well I searched but couldn't find the tutorial that you guys mentioned. I ended up making my own. I bought 3/4 inch pvc pipe coupler and cut it into pieces. About 3/4 inch halves. I put the speaker into one have and then I beveled the edge of the other have so it would fit over the speaker flush. Then I painted one half black. I glued the two halves together with hot glue which locked the speaker in really good. Then I just hooked it all up like normal. So there is about 1/2 (or a little more) inch in front and behind the speaker. It is much louder than before but it is now about equal in loudness to my MR Vader ESB saber. The Vader one is much more high pitched sounding than the new one I just built. It is a Anakin ROTS sound card so it just maybe a different sound recording on the card. I am happy with it. Thanks for the help guys.