Pertinax

[JakeSoft]

I present: Pertinax, an MHS saber with a home-made custom sound board.

Vital Stats:
Hilt is full MHS Parts from TCSS
RGB Tri-Rebel 3-up main LED
In-hilt recharge system
7.4v Li-ion 800mAh 14500 Battery Pack
Sound-synchronized Blade Ramp-up/Ramp-down
Flash-on-clash
Lockup
3 "mini" sound fonts which each contain these sounds:
- Power-up
- Power-down
- x4 Swing sounds
- x4 Clash sounds
- Lockup
3 quick-switch profiles
136 possible color settings

Let me start this post by saying that when it comes to saber building, I consider Erv (of Plector Labs) and Niagon (creator of Saber Igniter) to be among my personal heroes. Their contributions to the hobby have allowed for great power and flexibility to be added to any saber build in much the same way that Tim has allowed us all to create great looking hilts with the MHS system. So, in keeping with the old adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I set out to create my own sound board. I did this not because existing products weren't good enough, but because I sought the adventure of it; to get just a taste of what it must have been like to develop early prototypes of those now familiar products. It may also have been partially because I'm an engineer and I just couldn't help myself.

For the core electrics hardware, I wanted to select components that a hobbyist with moderate soldering skills could reasonably be expected to assemble on their own. That meant no surface mount components, no etched circuit boards, and no connections that required the hands of a surgeon to complete, and no exotic chemicals or tools. This was the first a major design requirement.

The second consideration was size: It had to fit in standard diameter MHS parts. This also influenced component selection and placement on the board.


After much research, I selected the components above: A WT588d programmable sound module, 3 small MOSFETs, a 5V/5A regulator, and a the 3.3 volt version of an Arduino Pro Mini.


Code, code, and more code. This part took me months of bread-boarding and coding. For the software, I targeted functionality somewhere between an MR board and a Saber Igniter. Switchable profiles was a must as well as multiple sound fonts, but I wanted to keep it fairly simple so I didn't incorporate an accelerometer opting instead for simple swing/clash sensors. See the stats above for details on what I ended up with.


After much trial and error, I got a crude test-rig wired up so I could do some testing off of my bread-board.


After that I moved on to putting the components on some pref-board in a more permanent way. Then I made a sled/chassis out of some 1-inch polyurethane pipe with my Dremel and mounted the board, other core components, and the battery.

Wire it up, stick in the MHS hilt, and bam: We've got a multi-color, multi-sound font saber!








Here is a video of it working.

Note: I made the video to demo the board before I finished the grip section at the bottom of the hilt. The bottom section still screws off in the same way to reveal the core electronics. This is so I can get at it to pull the WT588d and reprogram it to change sound fonts, or to pull the Arduino to make firmware changes via the programming pin headers.

As always, thanks to everyone on these TCSS forums for teaching me so much over the years. I couldn't have done this without such a helpful community. And of course, thanks to Tim for making such awesome hilt parts. This is my 4th saber, but up until this build I had always used a sink tube for all or most of my hilt body. After building a full MHS saber, all I can say is: Wow! I love the Modular Hilt System!

[Ty_Bomber]

Jake, I don't know if I can properly articulate how impressed I am. What a very cool project.

I really like the color changing menu. That was a very enjoyable vid. Thanks very much for sharing.

[Gnar-Gnar Gin]

inspiring dude! I love the effort you put into that! mad props to you!

[Bradman9]

This is superb! Really well done!! If I was you I would be uber proud! Extremely impressed!!

[Obi1]

I'm utterly impressed!!! You can be proud of your achievement!!! I was amazed and astonished at the same time, the color changing and the sound engine are both extraordinary! Well done, and that's an understatement!

[Silver Serpent]

Congratulations! You've accomplished what only a very small handful of people in this hobby have done. I've seen a number of people come along and express a desire to build their own board, and it's rare that we ever see results. Good job!

The saber doesn't look half bad either. I like a little more color on my sabers, but the black accents help break it up nicely.

[JakeSoft]

Thanks all for your kind words!

The saber doesn't look half bad either. I like a little more color on my sabers, but the black accents help break it up nicely.

Thanks, SS. With all of the focus on the custom sound board, I neglected to say much about the hilt and what I was thinking there. It felt like an injustice to put all of that work into the sound board and then stick it in a sink tube saber, so I decided to go all out with full MHS parts for this build. I tend to favor builds with lots of usable grip space and this one is no exception. I was going for the look of "well-used but also well-maintained". My camera didn't really capture it very well, but I intentionally left a lot of little imperfections in the aluminum instead of trying to buff them out. I opened my toolbox for inspiration. I observed that even tools that I hadn't used very much still had little nicks and marks on them. I decided I wanted my saber to look the same way: Like that of a Jedi who had been around the galaxy a few times using it to dispense some justice as opposed to one who spent a lot of time sitting around the temple polishing his saber. I tried to create contrast with the black accents, this is true. I also tried to break it up a little with flat-on-smooth finishes created by the flatter switch box and the overlays in the grip section at the bottom over the comparatively smooth and shiny main hilt body . I worked the overlays with some steel wool to dull the finish at the bottom part of the hilt, I didn't realize how shinny the MHS sleeve material would be!

[cannibal869]

Congratulations! You've accomplished what only a very small handful of people in this hobby have done. I've seen a number of people come along and express a desire to build their own board, and it's rare that we ever see results. Good job!

The saber doesn't look half bad either. I like a little more color on my sabers, but the black accents help break it up nicely.

agreed - I suppose it was only a matter of time until someone went down the arduino route, but as far as I am aware, you may be the first. Very impressive job with the coding and internals. I know it's already done and put together, but one of Tim's newer lower profile boxes would really give this hilt a bit more "oomph" and sleekness.

[jedimastergarcia87]

*Tallahassee voice from Zombieland* Very cool. :P Love how you can change colors with the board in the hilt instead of using a computer. Makes it much easier. I like your custom sound font too.

[forsytjr]

Very Cool! I was thinking of doing an Arduino based board myself, so was excited to find this thread. I just put a PC-Prizm into my wife's saber (and then managed to fry it by putting the battery in backwards), but don't have the $ right now to put a good sound card into mine, so I was thinking of slowly tinkering with an Arduino. This is partly just because I think I would enjoy doing it, and partly so it could be fully customizable, upgradeable, etc. For now I just modified a cheap hasbro board. For the main board, why did you go with a pro mini rather than a nano? For the sound module (WT588d), that doesn't have an SD card, right? So just the onboard memory of the card? How much sound can you store on it? Or are you also using memory on the Arduino? Also how many bits for the sound, and sample rate?