Build Log - "Aurea" - Machinimax's First Crystal Focus Lightsaber

**Machinimax** · 05-08-2012, 09:27 PM

Great news, I have placed the order for the remaining parts I need from Tim and they should hopefully be here next week! I'm also waiting for my new soldering station to arrive as well. Once they are here, building will begin and construction pics will start rolling in! I know how excited many of you are to see those chassis disks in action.

**Machinimax** · 05-17-2012, 09:38 PM

OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY OH BOY!! The rest of my parts arrived today from TCSS and I got right to work when they did. Now I'm probably not going to be soldering anything just yet. First things first, I'm planning everything out and seeing how I want to approach it all. Right now I'm working on the layout and spacing of the chassis disks.

Here the pics for today! Like I said, I'm not doing any wiring and soldering just yet so I'm working at my desk right now. Look at that perfect mess! Erv' would be proud.

First off I decided to assemble the control box since the switches and recharge port are going to have to be in there when I wire them anyway. Piece of cake, moving on.

Next I wanted to check and see how the speaker would fit within the speaker mount. As you can see, it looks like a Regal but it isn't. It's the size of one but it can produce sound at 2W like the new speakers sold by Erv or TCSS. It won't have the bass like those speakers but it is a huge space saver. Jay-Gon Jinn used it when he made some improvements to CS-21. It interested me so I'm going to give it a try.

In my best Ace Ventura voice: "LIKE! A! GLOVVEEEE!! Next.

Here's what a lot of you have been waiting for.

Now as of right now, this is just the prototype. I bought a good handful of nuts to hold the disks in place during this phase. When building the final product, the disks will be separated by pieces of aluminum rod. Just looking at it like this impressed me. It actually could make a decent reveal chassis but I'm not going to do that. You can see that I accidentally broke one of my diska there. Long story so don't ask how but I got in touch with Sanjuro right away after it happened and he said he will cut me the replacement, along with a couple extra disks I ordered, this weekend. I haven't used all the disks I currently possess yet so there is still more to be added but it is coming along.

To end the day, I decided to test out the LEDEngin for fun to see which die was which. When I was done, well...let's just say I'm still seeing spots. *

So far so good, I'll probably be in this experimental phase for another couple of days and wiring shall begin once I draw out my game plan. Here's where the fun begins!!!

**Ty_Bomber** · 05-17-2012, 11:12 PM

Let's see the yellow!

**Machinimax** · 05-18-2012, 11:38 PM

Originally Posted by Ty_Bomber

Let's see the yellow!

Lol! I know. I want to see it too!!

Anyway I continued playing around with the chassis design today and I'm making good progress. Unfortunately I discovered that my design will not allow me to use 18650s, which were the type of batteries I intended to use. However this will not be a problem since I bought a pair of 18500s as well. I will wind up using those instead. I'll have some pictures and more details posted later.

**Machinimax** · 06-04-2012, 10:22 PM

Ok big update! The chassis has been completed. I have to say I thought I was dreaming when I saw this. I can't believe how far I've come.

http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/...-43-19_631.jpg
http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/...-42-42_476.jpg
http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/...-43-02_314.jpg

Everything fits perfectly just the way I wanted it! As you can see, the threaded rods have been cut down but are still sticking out from the top of the system. However they will be trimed down again when I am closer to the end of the build. I wanted to shorten the rods but still give myself some extra room for now.

Creating this thing was much easier than I thought. I knew the real trick was going to be cutting up the aluminum rods into the seperate little pieces I needed. Here's how I did it. At first I figured I would just cut these up using the band saw and a miter guage but I knew the band saw wasn't the best at making straight cuts. So I had to brainstorm and my dad helped me out with that. Well, the past weekend I was away on a beach trip with some friends. When I came home on Sunday, my dad came up with an idea. Being the handyman that he is, he whiped me up a jig that would allow me to make nice striaght cuts with a hack saw.

http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/...1-00-34_86.jpg

This thing worked out phenominally and it wasn't as annoying as it sounds to have had to cut the sleeves by hand. Here's an example of what a piece looked like when it was mounted inside. Once the pieces were cut, I just removed any sharp edges with a metal file.

http://i1238.photobucket.com/albums/...-44-19_392.jpg

Since I needed at least two of every sized piece I cut, I took a scrap of paper and folded it over to fit in the slot that held the rods and used it as a stopping block so I would would be able to cut the pieces evenly. In any case, so far so good. Now that this has been tackled, I should hopefully be moving on to wiring with the next few days. I'll keep y'all posted!

**Ty_Bomber** · 06-04-2012, 11:29 PM

Very cool. Looks super tidy.

Now max, I know its your saber and all, but I have been thinking about how sweet this thing would look with a brass shroud. I dunno if it's the yellow blade, or the subtle mace in the design, but I think it would look BAMF, if you know what I mean.

Not to detract you, it looks like it is gonna be just as beautiful on the inside as out. Can't wait to see it regardless.

**Machinimax** · 06-05-2012, 08:04 AM

Originally Posted by Ty_Bomber

Very cool. Looks super tidy.

Now max, I know its your saber and all, but I have been thinking about how sweet this thing would look with a brass shroud. I dunno if it's the yellow blade, or the subtle mace in the design, but I think it would look BAMF, if you know what I mean.

Not to detract you, it looks like it is gonna be just as beautiful on the inside as out. Can't wait to see it regardless.

It might be something for me to think about later down the road after the saber has been completed. I wanted a saber more symmetrical in design and without a shroud or emitter guard like Mace's or Obi-Wan's. I'll see. Thanks for the suggestion though!