ANH Graflex Build

[awc105]

Well, it's been awhile since I have posted anything. But that changes now lol. I have put aside the sidious saber build for a few months because of some circumstances, but it will be finished eventually!
Anyways, I have been busy with another project, a vintage graflex ANH build with completely custom crystal chassis. So here we go!

Specs:
Vintage Graflex (obviously)
CF-LS v6.5
Modular design
Motorized crystal chamber
radiator assembly
blue aura quartz crystal
lots of leds and stuff

Here are some pics from when I first got the flash handle, as you can see in the photo it even included batteries! They were dated for 1962. I carefully gutted it out, saving the pieces for the future.
The tube itself is in really good shape, but the clamp has a few spots where the plating has come off, I'm not too concerned anyway because it adds more character imo.
I didn't get a pic of it, but I removed the pin from the bunny ears and tapped the hole for 4-40 threads and used a machine screw in place of the pin. It's not something you really notice, and it makes taking it apart much easier.

I had to modify the blade holder to be able to fit the original glass eye, as it must have been intended for a replica glass eye with a 10-32 thread on it, not the full vintage eye. I had to machine this hole with a dremel because my drill press doesn't have a belt and I don't have access to a mill currently. But it wont be visible anyway.

The other photo is the aluminum tube where the electronics go, and a gutted hard-drive motor cap on the end.

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[awc105]

Next was the blade construction. I started by making the spacer for the 8-pin din socket, I machined it out of brass and used set screws to hold everything together. After that I went to work making the actual led string. Let me tell you, it took awhile. I was trying to be as precise with it as I could, I even made a little tool for bending the leads so that they would be consistent. I used 120 blue leds, 20 leds per segment. I toyed with the idea of FOC, but decided not to for my first string blade adventure. After I had all the segments connected together and I had run the 26 ga. wire, I then slid a piece of 1/4" clear heatshrink over the whole thing. The next step was to use a mr foam diffuser, but wanting to find something quicker I took a stroll over to home depot and found some thin foam packaging material, I bought 50 feet of the 12" size. It works just as good imo as the mr diffuser, it's just more of a PITA to get it inside the blade tube. I used clear scotch tape to keep it together. Outside of that I used a tcss diffuser and a non-mirrored blade tip. I had to sand down the end of the blade so it would fit the blade holder because it was a little too tight a fit.

Coincidentally, the glass eye acts as the blade retention screw, which is awesome.

I ordered ALOT of different leds trying to find the ideal blue led. I ended up with some 5mm straw-hat leds, which are rated at 11000 mcd and are wide angle.

I am pretty satisfied with the results, when I lit the blade up and set my rotj v2 next to it, you couldn't even tell the v2 was on!









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[awc105]

Here's the full blade all lit up. It draws about 1.45 amps at 6.5v.

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[awc105]

After the blade was completed I decided to finally start to tinker with ideas for the crystal chamber. I wanted something original, and I had never seen a motorized crystal chamber in a graflex build, so I decided I would do that. I went through many different sketches and drawings before I settled on a general layout. Next was the problem of sourcing the parts. Obviously I had to cram a very tiny motor in it, which you'll see soon.

The chassis is made primarily of brass, with ss all-thread holding it all together.

I made the radiator fins out of some .0313 brass sheet, fastening 11 2"x2" squares together and turning them on the lathe.

Also I forgot one more blade pic, which is just before I wrapped the string in the foam.


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[awc105]

Here are more pics of crystal chamber construction. Number one on the list was how to make the chassis motorized. I eventually decided on what parts would move. I reasoned that the crystal should be stationary and then some sort of "rotor" should spin around it. Once I had that nailed out, I needed to figure out what kind of motor it would use. Originally I was planning on using a laptop hdd motor (which requires an additional control circuit because its a stepper motor), but I threw that idea out for two reasons: 1. it wouldn't fit and 2. it would spin too fast. So from there I did some googling and eventually found exactly what I was looking for. It's a micro-miniature motor with a small gear drive on it, which has a nominal speed of 45rpm at 6v. As you can see in the pic, it is quite small only being slightly bigger than the recharge port. The top section of the chamber is also the motor housing.

I also put an led under the crystal to see how it would light up.



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[awc105]

Here is where I started to construct the rotor piece, which is a short piece with 6 slots milled in to it. I had to mill the slots using my lathe because as before I don't have access to a mill right now. I just used an 1/8" end-mill.
I actually had to make two of these parts because I broke the first one... I dropped it and it bent one of the fins, I tried to bend it back and it snapped off! ohwell, live and learn.

Chassis is finally beginning to look better, I machined the top section, which interfaces the blade holder and also houses the other end of the din socket. I opted to put the female end on the blade, so that I wouldn't have to worry as much about bending the pins.

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[awc105]

Here are some more pics of chamber assembly, I finally got the radiator fins completed and started installing them.

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[awc105]

Heres when it started to get real lol. Finally ordered the cf-ls v6.5. I had the whole system hooked up and working outside of the saber. Then I went to wire in my motor to test it. I was soldering the wires on and mistakenly splattered a blob of solder all over the channel two output section... Needless to say after that it didn't work and I wasn't gonna power it up and fry something. **it happens lol So I pulled out the extra-fine tip soldering station and removed the solder, meanwhile I managed to make it worse breaking off two of the pins on a chip for the output. I was pretty frustrated after that so I took a break for a few days. Once I came back I removed the chip from the board and cleaned everything up. I couldn't find any info about the part online, so I asked erv what the part was. He graciously set me on the right path with part numbers and the part should be here soon so I can put it back together. What a fiasco. I am an EE student and have been soldering since I was 6 so this type of accident was particularly embarrassing lol.

During this time I was also tinkering with how to set up the radiator, here I have some wire looping through it.

Also, I wanted to add some accent leds to it somehow. I decided to put them behind the gutted hdd motor at the top of the electronics tube. I made a small circular pcb and soldered six smd leds to it. The colors are blue, orange, and yellow. The ring fits in there good and is fully insulated.

Once I get the accent leds setup and moving, it's gonna look sweet!


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[parsaver]

I'm blown away....

[awc105]

And here's where I am currently. I spent quite awhile thinking about how I wanted to set up my switches, and I decided to (like most People) use the red button and the slide button on the side. After studying several other peoples builds, I wanted to make the mounts for the switches as solid as possible. So I made some more pcbs that hold the tactile switches in place. I have a 3 pin connector that mates to one that still needs to be fastened to the chassis. This way the entire chassis can be removed completely, leaving the blade holder and switches inside.

The boards I made are a little rough because I didn't transfer the design with enough heat, so I had to go back and touch up some of the traces with a sharpie.

The pic with the ice cream container is where the boards are being etched using ferric chloride. The etching process works faster with a bit of agitation. My dad has a laboratory mixing unit he uses for home brewing that he lets me borrow.

With the boards installed in the blade holder and put into the the hilt, they have a very solid tactile feel, I am quite happy with how they turned out!



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