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Thread: Converting a Hasbro Mace force fx???

  1. #11

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    Ok, finally had time to upload photos so here goes...

    First I started by unscrewing the battery compartment:


    Then with a hex wrench unscrew the retainer thingy:


    Turn the saber over and you'll find another bolt to undo:


    Unscrewing it will allow you to slide this part off:


    Slide the next part off too - the retaining bolts circled slide along the groove indicated by the arrow so that it does not spin around. they also hold the plastic parts underneath somewhat:


    Once the screws above have been taken off, slide the next part off - again the bolts circled slide along the red arrowed bits to stop this piece spinning round relative to the metal tube:


    Undo the bolts mentioned above then pull off the button top - be careful not to damage the metal work with scratches. I cannot see how to pull this saber apart without breaking the plastic on this switch as it's glued in place (you can see the broken plastic areas ringed in red) - I'm not too worried about this break as I can simply pin it with some wire and drilled holes which should make it stronger than the original plastic anyway!


    Then pull off the gold triangle part again trying not to damage the metal work - this is difficult - again the underside of this piece will break but again it can easily be fixed with pinning:


    At this point push the pin indicated with the arrow in the above picture which will allow you to slide the metal piece off and take the rubber grip piece away:


    Then take the pin out completely:


    Then using a screw driver ply out the switch slider:


    Then you will need to unscrew the gold emitter part - again this was glued in place and took quite a lot of effort to unscrew - I basically cut the glue out of the groove I could see from the surface with a surgical blade, then a bit of swearing, 20 minutes and WD40 later, it finally came off (and without any damage to any part woo!)


    Then slide the internals out - again the bits of glue here and there made it seem like it wasn't going to come out but it did in the end:


    I then took out this pin:


    Then used a surgical blade to score along the seam which was again glued (they really do not want you to take this apart do they!) and seperated the two halves:


    Here's the underside of the electronics:


    This is the part that slides out of the blade (again glue held it in place):


    And here's the electronics that were inside the blade including a motion sensor:


    Like I've said earlier the internal diameter of the gold emitter end part is 1 inch but seems too tight for my 1 inch diameter blades which will have to be shaved down if I'm to use them.

    Once this emitter part is screwed in it is flush with the plastic internals (up against the red arrow in the photo below). The internal diameter of the metal tube (or outerdiameter of the plastic internals) is about 1 and 3/16ths of an inch and as you can see by the picture theres 3 and 2/16ths of an inch length to play with before you hit the switch (green arrow):


    If the rest of the MR version conversion part fits inside these diameters that's great, but the thinner section of it will most definately have to be cut off as it won't fit through the screw-on gold emitter.

    Maybe one of the other conversion pieces will fit but TCSS hasn't detailed the dimensions of them...

  2. #12
    Sith Adept dgdve's Avatar
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    super awesome breakdown and detailed pics(should this be made into a tut?) its VERY VERY different from the 05 version, thanks soo soo much for this

  3. #13
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    Extremely nice job! Kudos to you.
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  4. #14

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    No probs,

    Used to do tutorials for converting games workshop figures years ago.

    Was thinking of using a piece of blade inside the plastic internals to hold the LED much like what the guy from ultrasabers does in his sabers.

    Will post more when I finish it

  5. #15
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    they certainly didn't make that easy to take apart did they? great tutorial and very detailed pictures. thanks ^_^
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  6. #16

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    Woah, its kinda Joe Jedi style.

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  7. #17
    Sith Adept dgdve's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Skottsaber View Post
    Woah, its kinda Joe Jedi style.
    Yeah I noticed that too.. the inner "Sleeve" hits off so similar

  8. #18

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    Couldn't be bothered to wait to order a RGB LED so I nicked one out of my other saber and continued the conversion...

    The picture below shows how the guys at Ultrasabers mount their LEDs - basically it's just glued, with a heatsink, inside a polycarbonate tube then slotted into the blade holder. Simple but effective methinks:


    I thought I'd try the same with the windu saber. By putting a simple shaped polycarbonate tube inside it would have moved around too much, so I came up with the idea of shaping one so that it fitted around the plastics, in such a way as it would not move at all.

    I decided that a tube of about 7cm should do the trick nicely and I started marking the tube ready for cutting:


    The hole in the pic above is about 2.5 cm long and 1.25 cm wide and slots around the switch housing. I then cut holes on the sides so that they fitted around the plastic supports (whatever you call them!) and cut part of the back piece off so that it didn't collide with the soundboard. I then filed down some of the plastic lumps on the inside of the tube (circled in red):


    During the above step, I would cut a little test it's fit and cut a bit more again and again. It may be tedious but it meant that I ended up with a very snug fit. In fact I need a screw driver to ply it out once it's in place. This baby isn't going to rattle around when I swing the saber oh no! Here's what the completed piece looks like fitted into the bottom section:


    And with the top section on too. Note how the blade will sit flush with the polycarbonated tubing when inserted:


    I then needed to drill and tap some holes. Because you won't be able to use the original pins, these new screw holes will stop the innards from sliding around. The best way of doing this is to insert the plastic internals into the metal tube, lining it up so that you cut in the right place. I decided to use the holes marked in red. Because I was using wider diameter grub nuts, I needed to drill larger holes before tapping. Once done I inserted the grub nuts making sure that they did not collide with any of the internals or the blade when inserted. If I had had shorter grub nuts, I probably would have opted to use the hole circled in green and the one on the opposite side of the tube too, but I found that it was very secure anyway:


    The other reason for using a wider diameter grub in the hole circled in red above was this - it created a much tighter fit to this piece (when I got the saber out of the box this gold bit wobbled around a bit - poor buildsmanship!):


    Then onto the electrics. I cut the wires off the end of the original blade like so:


    The purple wire is the positive on this board (you can check on yours by looking for the wire that corresponds with VDD markings on the board). Trim off the wire casings then join all the negative wires together (i.e. all wires apart from your positive - purple, and the wire going to the motion sensor - white). Solder the blue wire coming out of the other side of the motion sensor (blue) to your positive. Then all that's left is to solder and shrink wrap your positive to the positve of the LED and all the negatives to the negative of your LED. Note I have 2 negatives - one for the blue and one (with resistors) for the red on my RGB LED. This is so that the red colour is toned down and does not over power the blue hence giving a purple colour. By reconnecting the battery pack you can test to see if it all works ok. If you're doing purple, I suggest you grab your blade and shine the LED up it to see if you're happy with the colour. Otherwise change the resistor values on the -ve wire from the red part of the RGB LED. Also flick the motion sensor to test sounds. It's a good idea to use a little glue from your glue gun to attachment sites of your wires to make sure they don't come apart - when you try and squeeze all this inside the plastic tube later on, you'll probably be glad you did this! Here's what you should end up with (forgive the messiness - I ran out of heat shrink!):


    The next bit is to fit it all in. Easier than it sounds! Fit the lens assembly to your LED and attach the heat sink to the underside, not forgetting thermal compound (I had already done that above so sorry for no pics!). Squeeze the LED, lens and heat sink into the polycarbonate tube and use a glue gun to keep it all in place. Then feed the switch through it's hole and screw it back in. Screw the sound board back in and find a good place to glue gun the motion sensor in. If I hadn't had so many resistors I would have had the space to put it up against the back of the heat sink. After all this you should end up with something like this:


    It was a very snug fit and I was glad that it felt very solid in construction. After putting the two halves of the plastic innards together I used a bit of cellotape to hold it in place, then slid it into the metal tube. After inserting the grub nuts into the holes I had created, I assembled the rest of the saber in the reverse order to which I described earlier in this thread. If you're wondering about how pinning works when putting your switch back together - simply find some wire, drill some holes into the slider part of the switch then drip some super glue into them, before pushing short pieces of wire all the way into the hole. Similarly, drill holes into the plastic underside of the gold switch, drip some super glue in those too before slotting it all together. Here's a picture mid way through the process:


    Interestingly, I found some of my other 1 inch diameter blades that I did not need to file down at all to fit into the blade holder. (obviously my new ultra edge blades are the tiniest bit wider!)

    I haven't got any small grub nuts yet to hold the blade in place but I suggest you drill the hole for this in one (or more) of the recesses of the screw-on gold emitter part, like that in the MR tutorial.

    Anyway I'm a lot happier with the saber now. There's not any of that annoying wobbling of parts anymore thank goodness!

    The hilt and the blade are both lighter and the weight distribution is much much better. The weight is still towards the butt of the hilt making it a very stable saber to duel with, but after many years of using bokkens, chinese swords etc etc it's not my cup of tea. My favourite dueling sword still remains to be the Dominix II from Ultrasabers and I don't see that changing any time soon! I didn't really want to use this saber for dueling with anyway, more for display or costuming purposes. I have been told that regular sword play wears the gold and silver plating of the metal and I can easily see why!

    The main thing I'm happy with (and the main reason for the conversion) is the blade. It is a proper purple now and doesn't have any of those dark spots up the sides like the original had. A nice even colour.

    Here's a quick video of it (note the purple seems a bit pinker on film for some reason):


    Well that's the first ever conversion I've done. Wouldn't recommend it as your first unless you're a cheeky one like me who learns very fast lol!
    Last edited by Palladian; 01-03-2011 at 07:48 PM. Reason: Spelling!

  9. #19

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    I hope you never plan on duelling with that.
    The MR plastic is weak and will most likely not hold up.

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  10. #20

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    Like I said above I didn't convert it for dueling purposes. I believe it to be stronger than the original build but it's still not a saber I want to whack around

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