MV's Return to Saber Building!

[Silver Serpent]

With Arctic Silver, less is more. You want enough to ensure a good contact with the heat sink, but slathering it on will actually hurt the performance. Just follow the directions on the AS website and you'll do fine.

[Johannes Huber]

Hi!,

Just wanted to let you know I PM'd you the Quad rebel wiring pictures photobucket album link. Let me know if it doesn't work.

Johannes

[Master Valon]

@ Siver Serpent: Alright, I gotcha. I'll be sure to use the right amount.

@JH: Received, bud! Thanks for the help. Those pics helped confirm how I would wire these up. One question, though. Instead of using wire for the serial connections, couldn't you use the bridging pads just below the two outer pads that you used wire on? I thought thats what the manual said, but I could be mistaken.

[Johannes Huber]

You know, the bridges were what I tried first with doing a seriallel setup and I never could get it to work, that's why I switched to FenderBender's solution. The bridges solution definitely cuts down on wire and I should say I never tried doing all the LEDs into one series circuit since I didn't have enough voltage to drive that, but trying to split them into two sets of two LEDs seemed not to work when I tried it and with FenderBender's solution right there, I was too lazy to contact Luxeon. If you can figure out how to make it work, let me know.

[Master Valon]

Major update! Sorry for not keeping this thread up to date, but I jus received my soldering station and LED yesterday, and having received the TCSS shipment last week, I went ahead and assembled everything in about 4 and a half hours last night! The majority of the time was just prepping materials, like making sure I cut the heat shrink, put it on, pre tinned the pads, etc....But it is done. At first, I was super excited to see how bright the LED on the bench was. It was definitely blinding. But once I put my blade on it, I was less than impressed. But then, I remembered that the diffusing material in the blade was all crinkled, due to a friend messing it up. So I hoped it was just that, and called it a night. But this morning, in the light of the sun, the blade looked REALLY dim toward the top, and only slightly better at the base. So, I took out the diffusing gift wrap, cut off the crinkled parts, and rerolled it and put it back in. Voila! SO much better. It looks on par with my Tri Rebel RGB mixed to Cyan that Jay made me in BS-26. now. But, this blade is a trans white blade, so I want to get a thin walled clear Poly-C blade from TCSS now, so it will be even brighter, as that is the type of blade I used with BS-26, after I found that, to my eye at least, it was much brighter than in the trans white blade.

But as far as the actual build, I am afraid I didn't take too many build pics, because I was too concerned with banging it out in a reasonable amount of time. But, I guess I am happy with the wiring. Its just really....REALLY cramped in there. So much, that I don't even need to use the retention screw for the chassis I made like I had thought I would. The pressure from the few wires that go outside the chassis is more than enough to keep the internals secure. The PVC sled I made is only about .25" thinner than the ID of the Graflex, so there wasn't too much play room to begin with. But, I have it now where it is fairly easy (albeit a tad precarious) to gain access to the compartment with all the JST connections. you just pull the lower cell out from the clamp, which contains the whole chassis, then pull the chassis out far enough to get access to the window I cut out that holds all the JST connectors, the battery being one of them. I originally planned the battery to be fully removable, but with all the wires that lay on top of it, I can't pull it out of the chassis without interfering with the wiring. Speaking of the wiring, well....it isn't pretty, to say the least. It isn't rat's nest wiring, but it isn't smith quality, either. I'm not afraid of any of the joints breaking, because I made sure every one was made correctly where the solder melts into the braid of the wire, and cools to be shiny, not dull gray, and then heat-shrunk all the joints. So that's good, at least. If anything, I am afraid of the exposed LED driver pads bridging, or grounding against the inside of the hilt. But to combat this, I put a dab of hot glue over each pad, so hopefully that won't happen (I decided to do this after there was a short when I was trying to put the chassis back in the hilt). Mostly, it's just the length of the wires that bugs me. Some are just right, but others are too long, like the LED and switch leads. But they have to be, because the chassis pulls out completely, so there needs to be some slack from those two components. But putting the chassis back in, those wires get all pushed in there, which I don't like. But ultimately, this is loads better than my previous work, not to mention more complicated, so I guess I am happy with it. On to the pics!

My solder station from MPJA (thanks, Fender!)

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My work station in the backyard at my Aunt's house, pre-build:

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First bench test of the LED...it's alive!!

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Me holding the saber, the night I made it (so its dimmer than it is now):

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The whole length of the blade, again, last night, so it is much brighter now:

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I will most likely be taking more pictures today, and I will add them here.

[Master Valon]

Sorry for the double post, but the forum won't let me attach any more pics.

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