Tarragon's MHS Saber

[Tarragon Rill]

OK starting to work out what exactly I can and can't do for an actual lit saber hilt. I know I was here originally to make and get ideas for a non functioning hilt, but I have decided to do another working saber as well.

Here is my basic plan so far. Hopefully Tim can do the custom machining I need to get this made.




I am also working on some non functional hilts that are set up as pure tactile art. Therfore they will have little, if any working electronics in them. Since I will be working on these at the same time, I am going to combine the build log for them with this one.

[Tarragon Rill]

here is a shot of some inert innards I collected today, as well a a sampling of crystals I purchased to build crystal chambers, for both the inert and active sabers. If you have read the post I made requesting ideas for "Inert Innards" this is the type of things I am looking for. So please, if you can think of any items that would look like they may belong inside of a real light saber, post them here.




In this shot you can see a small black switch. It is a "joystic" from an old cell phone I had. It has a 4 way hat, as well as a press to "click" function. There was a thread talking about a similar switch and controling an RGB led setup with it. My plan for this is to make it be my saber power as well as an RGB "tuner" for blade color. To this end the "click" function is a momentary on, this will control the saber main power as any other momentary switch. then left and right will cycle through the 4 LEDs on the saber I plan to use the 10W RGBA or RGBW. Either way, as you scrol left and right, it will select the individual LEDs and then up and down will adjust a variable brightness. Thus you will be able to fine tune the saber color to just about anything you can imagine. Limited by the resolution of the "dimmer" of course. With a high resolution dimmer, you could get very minimal adjustments, to really fine tune the color. I am not sure how I am going to assemble the circuit, and what hardware I'll end up finding that will fit in the hilt, so this will be a (VERY) long term project.




Here is a link to my skydrive album. I will post many pictures there that I will not embed here, as well as the full size "hires" version of the ones I do post here. If you wish to look around, feel free, you may see something interesting.

http://sdrv.ms/1cxTt4i

[Rafalema]

You must resize your pics to 800x600 max for the forum. It is said in the rules.

Otherwise, pretty cool.

[Tarragon Rill]

Ah sorry. I'll resize them.

[Tarragon Rill]

OK, well yesterday's trip to "electronica" got some good parts, but today's foraging went down the tubes (literally). I went to the plumbing supply shop, and found several good items.






First is this Van de Graaff sphere looking thing. I like the image this conjures, and am hoping to find a way to work this in.





Next we have the beginnings of a very nice crystal mount. These small brass plugs are threaded on the one end, allowing them to be threaded into the center hole of a washer, which will make up a platform in the "Tower of Power" that will become the innards of this inert saber. Furthermore, they are hollow, allowing an LED to be mounted inside or beneath them and thus illuminate the crystal from within. And finally, they have a small o-ring that is seated in the cup, allowing a nice cushion for the quartz point to rest on.






This brings us to my least favorite part about the classic obi-wan saber hilt, the Emitter. the way it was built leaves a lot to be desired, it is just held together by shoving a big bolt up through the center, and threading it into the top half. This leaves the end of the bolt protruding into the emitter cup, and makes it so there is no hole down the center any longer.








Until I can find an acceptable way to fix this I plan to just cover it up. To this end I got a small chrome plug that fits in the spot very nicely, even if it is a bit boring.



The second idea I had looks much nicer, as the screen on the top of the aerator implies a bit more "substance" to the emitter. It does however alter the lines of the classic obi-won so I am not sure I want to do that.

[Crystal Chambers]

If you have a look at some of the blade plugs out there the ariginal Obi emitter bolt didn't look so bad to me. I think This might be a similar hilt that Slothfurnace turned into a LED string blade. His threads are very comprehensive so it's worth looking at.

Otherwise neat parts you got there. Some long stand offs by the look of it. The o-ring cushions sound like a great idea.

[Tarragon Rill]

Well the Obi hilt is not going to be lit. It is the hilt I am turning into the static piece with all these parts I am puting together. So a blade plug is not even the problem. Just the end of that bolt plugging the hole where a beam-o-light needs to go.


To this end I went to the "goodwill store" today and grabbed a couuple of old cameras. I started the disasemby, and realized "my" camera battery is dead. So I have no pics for a log update today. Not a big losss the cameras were not to interesting, most of the lenses were cheap plastic crap, and the glass ones seem to be just the wrong size. I am not sure how much of the 2 cameras I'll be able to salvage. However, I'll keep them around I guess, for future saber hilts. As I am thinking I may keep at this for years to come. It has grabbed me and will not let go. I have thought of doing this for many years, but never got the drive till I saw some of the stunning sabers being built these days. Now I can't stop thinking about it. Every thing i look at these days i ask myself if there is any way to use it in a saber hilt. I just hope I hve the same drive to do the lit sabers, as they look so nice.

[RevengeoftheSeth]

I like your selection of crystals.

I use old hard drive parts for crystal chamber goodies.

[Tarragon Rill]

I was not sure what I was going to find for a crystal chamber, or what I wanted for a crystal even. So I just got an assortment of shapes and colors. I figure I may do more than 1 crystal in the hilt, or use the rest in later projects.

[RevengeoftheSeth]

There is a hippy store near my house that sells all types of crystals (mostly larger ones, though). I bought a 6-pack of quartz crystals that are about 2" long and 1/2" in diameter. That is the max size; some are smaller. It was only $4 per pack.