Project: Anniversary Present

**Knighthammer** · 05-15-2011, 02:36 PM

One of my saber friends and I decided that for a fellow friend we should build him a saber for his upcoming wedding anniversary. We all play Star Wars RPG together and well he’d never build his own.

We decided on a couple things, it needed to have sound, rechargeable so it doesn’t need to ever come apart once its built, and decided on blue blade.

Yesterday we started in on it, my friend worked on the shroud for the saber and I took on the electronics portion of it. Here are a couple pics of the internals of the saber so far.
I built a chassis out of;

TCSS speaker holder
4-40 threaded rod
#6 pommel insert.

Sound is provided by an econo board, TCSS speaker and powered by a single 18650 Li-on battery.

I had to modify the #6 pommel insert to accommodate the quick connectors because I didn't take that into account when I was soldering it up the first time - oops.

This last one is slid into the bottom of hilt, a 5" double female.

More to follow in the next couple weeks - got about a month to finish it up.

**cardcollector** · 05-15-2011, 03:24 PM

The project looks promising. If I may offer one humble piece of advice...

A great way to clean up the looks of your wiring is to use hollow brass or aluminum tubing. It makes the internals look so much cleaner and your wires will be safe inside the tubes. you might also want to consider insulating the hasbro board in some way. I usually use 1" heatshrink...

**Knighthammer** · 05-15-2011, 07:05 PM

Originally Posted by cardcollector

The project looks promising. If I may offer one humble piece of advice...

A great way to clean up the looks of your wiring is to use hollow brass or aluminum tubing. It makes the internals look so much cleaner and your wires will be safe inside the tubes. you might also want to consider insulating the hasbro board in some way. I usually use 1" heatshrink...

Thanks Cardcollector - so its advisable to cover the board then? I figured with it trapped in place on the chassis it would be safe.
I'll have to see if I can track down some 1" heatshrink then.

**cardcollector** · 05-15-2011, 07:49 PM

Generally boards are fine secured to chassis, many builders do it that way. I prefer to add just a little more protection because I dont want to risk anything shorting on the board. Either way if fine, the heatshink is just another layer of protection.