Herugrim - A Vader's Vault PC-U saber
Hello Saberland
When you have a backlog as long as ours, you're bound to have a situation happen where a customer can't follow through with the build after it has already been started. This one was fortunate for us in that the design was all ours so we don't have to worry about holding on to a saber that isn't of our design. The original criteria that was given was that it had to be slender, compact and lightly weathered. What I came up with was a one piece hilt with the majority of the saber under 1.35" outer diameter. The main feature of this design was something that was brewing in my mind for a long time, a slender bar that runs the length of the hilt with 'finger grips' cut into it. The bar serves other functional purposes as well, it houses the recharge port and the custom aux switch. The recessed AV switch is sandwiched between to raised areas of the hilt to maximize it's low profile and prevent accidental ignition/retraction. The main handgrip is covered in a piece of Italian lambskin leather inset into an inlay in the hilt so everything is flush and nice. The grip bar is also milled on the backside to fit over the leather. The way the grip area was designed, your hand fits perfectly with the index finger poised to work the aux button and the rest of the fingers resting comfortably in the grip cuts. I also wanted a covertec in the design, but all readily available options didn't look right. So I machined my own and made it so it fit on the grip bar without overhanging the edge. The weathering on the hilt is what I call "10 foot weathering", meaning that at 10 feet it looks like a nice shiny polished saber. As you get close you can see the subtle wear on the weapon. No dings, or gouges just wear with grime in all the right nooks and crannies, places that don't get handled a lot. I wanted it to look used but not beat to heck.
For the electronics, we opted for the Petit Crouton and the original plan was for a green LED so we went with the LEDengin 5W green for a nice bright blade without having to compromise the battery since we were space limited. For the speaker, we were limited as the interior of the saber is only 1" inner diameter (that's right, PC-U, 7.4v stick pack, 2 switches all insulated, all in a 1"X6" space) we couldn't go with the standard speaker options that are available. I had a laptop that was busted, so I decided to gut it and see what was in it for speakers. What I found was an Altec Lansing Aura 2 speaker sytem. Two little rectangular speakers installed in a ported pod/box. At 2W 4ohm they were perfect. I built my own speaker box to mount one in and installed that directly in the pommel and got great sound out of it. If you're looking for a compact speaker solution, look around for some busted laptops
.
The PC-U is currently running with an altered version of Madcow's Shatterpoint font. Master Windu, as it's called was tweaked by Darth Xusia here on the forums. I like the louder hum and it fits the design of this saber well.
Quick Specs:
Custom machined slender hilt at 10.75" long
Light weathering
Italian Lambskin leather grip
Custom machined grip bar
Custom aux switch
Recessed green anti-vandal switch
Custom Covertec wheel
Plecter Labs Petit Crouton - U
Madcow/Xusia's Shatterpoint/Master Windu
LEDengin 5W green run at 1.5A
2W 4ohm Altec Lansing speaker
Pics:
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0pt58-1J_Q
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Originally Posted by Gin Malinko
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