Hard-wire as home theater sconces - Looking for Advice

**RobInMN** · 08-31-2012, 06:06 PM

I bought some Master Replicas Lightsabers that I would like to hard-wire as sconces in my home theater. As I assume these to be considered collectors items, I would like to leave them as un-altered as possible. If it matters, they are Darth Vader, Luke - ESB, Luke - ROTJ, and 2 Dath Maul (to make a double blade)
BTW, did they never make an Obi-Wan from the original Star Wars? or is the closest thing an Obi-Wan from ROTS? Same hilt, just new vs. aged?

I have some questions about the batter/speaker pack and wiring. Almost all of what I am finding in searches is focused on the circuit board wiring and ignores the battery/speaker pack.
The obvious thing to do would be to sneak a pair of wires through the sound holes and connect them to the the battery leads and connect those to a 4.5v or 9v transformer.
Are thre things I should be aware of? or is it just that simple?

Some of my lightsabers are 4.5v (3 AA/AAA) and some are 9V (6 AA).
Anyone know why?

The 4.5v ones have 3 connectors from the battery/speaker pack and the housing, power +/- and I assume speaker.
The 9V ones have 5 connectors. I took the top & bottom off one (Luke - ESB) and found the following:
Red (+)
Orange??
Black (-)
2 yellows (both appear to go to the speaker)
What is the orange? and why 2 speaker wires (yellow) does the speaker not connect to the negative internally?

I would also like to disconnect the speaker as I don't want them to hum constantly while watching a movie.
Any issue with blocking the connection or clipping the speaker leads?

Anyway to prevent them from auto-turning off? All but Luke - ESB, turn off after after 2 minutes. Luke - ESB takes 5?

**Lord Dottore Matto** · 08-31-2012, 08:22 PM

One thing...they are all 4.5V. The ones with 6 AA batteries have battery packs that run in //. The boards are programmed to turn off automatically. No way to change that. Truthfully, the best solution for you would be to replace the boards and convert the sabers when the Nano BIscotti is in the store, then hard wire them to your transformer. The outside of the hilts would remain unchanged.

**Strydur** · 09-01-2012, 08:27 AM

This would be easy to do if you ditch the sound which I would imagine you want to do anyways. Just replace the sound module with some A/C driven buckpucks.

**Lord Dottore Matto** · 09-03-2012, 11:00 PM

Originally Posted by Strydur

This would be easy to do if you ditch the sound which I would imagine you want to do anyways. Just replace the sound module with some A/C driven buckpucks.

Perfect.

**RobInMN** · 10-08-2012, 01:42 PM

Originally Posted by Strydur

This would be easy to do if you ditch the sound which I would imagine you want to do anyways. Just replace the sound module with some A/C driven buckpucks.

Originally Posted by Lord Dottore Matto

Perfect.

But that won't disable the 2 minute time-out, would it?
Well, anyway, I have decided to go ahead and disassemble them to wire the LEDs directly. I have disassembled 4 of them. I have a variable output transformer that I can set to 4.5V (or a number of other settings) with the plan being to wire the lightsabers in parallel with the appropriate resister(s) or other current limiting things at each saber. I think I read on here somewhere that the circuit board will work from 3.8 to 5V, but what is the min/max for the LED strip itself? Max being the most important as I don't want to burn any out. BTW, anyone know if there is enough range in the voltage to make them dimmable?

Or would I be better with the Nano BIscotti thing LDM mentioned?

Thanks again!

**RobInMN** · 02-14-2013, 12:46 PM

Just thought I would share.

We ended up gutting them and hard-wiring the LED strips to a pair of transformers. Those are plugged into outlets that are controlled with ligting controls for the room.
There is Luke (IV/V?), Darth Vader, Luke RoJ, Darth Maul, Obi-Wan (III - since technically it's the same one he had in IV), and Yoda.