Rogue9607's Satele Inspired Saber - First Saber

**rogue9607** · 08-23-2012, 05:50 PM

So I've been doing more working than posting and have a mixed bag to report (though it all has a happy ending). I ended up milling some grooves between the inner rings at the center of the hilt for both more airspace for the speaker and a visible section of crystal. This addition took the better part of a day and pushed back an already challenging schedule. However, the result was well worth it!

Tuesday night I finally started wiring the electronics up (had it working on a breadboard prior to this) and learned some valuable lessons, mostly the hard way - I'm sure I could have avoided some of it with more reading. The biggest item was that solid core wiring makes inserting items into the hilt very difficult. Also, my custom Arduino setup, while useful for its purpose, was a huge space hog. This brings me to the part of the build that fell below my hopes - the sound. I finally got to wiring the sound portion up last night, and despite checking and rechecking connections, the SOMO module just seem confused. It would play the sample files just fine, but got stuck in a chopped/repeating loop when I used a card with the boot sounds. Tried different card/file combinations with no luck. Ultimately it was getting late and I needed something "done" for CVI starting today, so I had to remove sound for now. I'm pretty bummed about that, but alas it's better than no saber.

I didn't get everything wired up as cleanly as I wanted, but I'll need to do major surgery on it later which may include ripping everything out and adding something different for sound. At 5:00 AM this morning I finally had a "complete" saber ready for a CVI debut! (who needs sleep, right?)

We got a ton of complements and talked to some really great people (including some on here). Rob from the Saber Guild gave it a spin, and to my delight the saber held up! (and looked really cool) My wife made some blade plugs with some plastic gems that gave a really cool disco-ball effect in the dim hallways leading out of the Celebration Stage.

So enough typing. I apologize for the poor pics (don't have my camera/tripod with me), but here are some shots of the saber in its current form.

**rogue9607** · 08-27-2012, 09:19 AM

First, I want to say how much I enjoyed talking to everyone at CVI! I was really blown away by the positive response from the general public, members of this forum that recognized the saber, saber builders whose work I admire, and even a few celebrities! (my wife had quite a good conversation with Sam Whitwer, Dave Fiolini, and Dave Collins as they played with/admired the saber when we ran into them in the halls after a panel)

This saber is far from "done" but it was good enough for the con, and visually is in a near-final state. I got some great advice for the electronics/lighting of the saber which I'll be redoing as soon as I can gather the appropriate parts. I want to make all four switches functional which will hopefully come with the electronics update. The only metal pieces that may be added are sliders on the switches if I can find a suitable option that's visually satisfying while still allowing proper function. (the sliders I currently have impair the use of the switch too much)

My wife has named this saber "Holly" (after "Holly Golightly" from "Breakfast at Tiffany's"). So, I'm proud to present... Holly!

Some of the color options: Tiffany Blue, Red, Green, and Blue