First Saber Ever. Parts list inside. Help please, and thanks in advance.

[Silver Serpent]

The BuckPuck isn't going to work very well with a single li-ion battery pack. They need 5v to operate properly, and start doing all manner of strange things if you drop below about 4v. At best, you'll have a hard time turning the saber on except after you've fully charged the battery.

Just something to keep in mind.

Your saber looks really nice though! Don't be afraid to tweak the internals later on, after you get some confidence with a soldering iron.

[DopeChicken]

Wow. You were so right. I went home the other day after having read your last post and it seemed so dim. So then I took it apart to compare the brightness with the buckpuck to when I just plugged the LED directly into the battery and it was really obvious.

So after an afternoon of soldering (following the wiring guide you put together) I am happy to say that it is up and running at what I think is fully capacity. I did notice this afternoon though that the battery seemed to be dying which was somewhat quicker than I expected. In any case it was a lot brighter than previously. So major thanks to you for your help.

I was surprised that instead of running at full brightness until the battery dies it seems to dim progressively until the battery is dead. Is this normal?

Also, when the entire apparatus was plugged in with the buckpuck the saber would turn on regardless of whether the kill key was in the charge port or not, the only thing that changed with the kill key out was that the switch LED came on, and stayed on when the switch was on or off. Now, however, the saber will not turn on with the kill key in at all, and the LED on the switch will not light up unless the kill key is out, and the switch (and thus main LED) are activated. I was wondering if this too was normal?

I don't really care about this last point, with both questions I just want to make sure that these are normal workings of a saber in the way that you have helped me wire it; I just want to make sure I didn't screw up somwhere.

Thanks again and again. I really appreciate all the help on here.

[Silver Serpent]

The current operation of the kill key is normal. It's supposed to kill all power to the saber when the key is inserted. If you were getting power before, then something wasn't wired correctly.

With a resistor, the LED will get progressively dimmer as the battery drains. It will also suddenly turn off, once the battery reaches its low limit. A BuckPuck will keep a constant current (and brightness) to your LED, but you want a stronger battery pack for that. A 7.4v li-ion pack is ideal for use with BuckPucks.

The 3400mAh battery, fully charged, should power a Rebel Blue at 1000mA for roughly 3 hours. It takes a while to recharge those all the way, so don't fret if it seems to be taking forever.

[DopeChicken]

Ahh, so a 3400mAh should run a 1000mA LED for roughly...3.4 hours? Makes sense.

The only resistor in it right now is the dynaohm for the led on the switch. If I were to remove that and resolder the wires back together would the saber run at full brightness until it died?

[Silver Serpent]

That's how the math works, at least on paper. You'll find in practice that you never quite get to 3.4 hours.

The switch pulls about 20mA of current. It's minimal, compared to the main LED. If you were to remove the DynaOhm, you'd quite possibly blow out the LED in the switch.

In order to keep the main LED running at full brightness all the time, you'll need an LED driver. The BuckPuck is one type, the Petit Crouton has one onboard, and there's also a standalone LED driver in the store here. None of those options work with less than 5v. For constant brightness, you'd need to upgrade to a 7.4v li-ion pack.

(There is the single-cell hack for the PC, but that's not recommended for beginners)

[DopeChicken]

I see. Thanks.

I have been charging it with the switch turned off. When it is plugged into the charger and the switch is turned on, the main LED, switch LED, and the light on the charger blink every second or two.

While charging, should the switch be on or off? It seems as though it has not been charging with the switch turned off, I had it plugged in all night last night and it seemed to die quickly today. When I left it was not even turning on anymore but when I plugged it in with the switch on it was still doing its blinking thing, so I assume the electronics are still intact.

[Silver Serpent]

You should not try to operate the saber while it is charging. If the recharge port is connected in a proper "kill-key" setup, the saber will not be able to power on while it is being charged, and the switch shouldn't have any effect.

You might have something hooked up incorrectly. A picture of your updated wiring setup would be helpful.

I can go a couple weeks without recharging my saber cane, but it's not on for more than 15 minutes at a time typically.

[DopeChicken]

So I don't think the way that I had it set up was right, for the Y-shaped connections I would strip the middle part of one wire, then strip the end of another, curl it a little bit, and wrap it around the stripped part of the other, then solder and heat shrink. I tried again the other night and one of the leads ended up breaking off the switch, so I can't use that anymore. I just grabbed a couple of switches from radioshack after reading about different switch types. The latching one I was bought from TCSS was DPDT but I think that it should work with a SPST on/off switch that is either a push-button, but I also have one that is a toggle (I think this qualifies as a "latching" type. I also bought one DPDT toggle switch just in case that was necessary. One of the areas that I kept getting confused was with the recharge port, even after watching the video again. The MWS charge port I still have has (I think) a double/split wire coming from the positive, plus two black wires coming from the negative and a ground (?), I thought in the video he said that the one marked "S/C" was the negative (in my image has the blue heatshrink on it) which would make the other black wire the ground, which I assumed you marked with the green line in the wiring diagram you made for me. I really don't know where I was going wrong. It has been driving me crazy. I am trying to study for medical boards and doing this a little bit at night when I get the time, but it's like I can't focus until I have it figured out.

I am going to post another picture with pictures of the new switches on there, as well as pictures of the recharge port. If possible, I would prefer to use the red-button switch, but the image includes the other two just in case. If you wouldn't mind completing this diagram again for me I would really appreciate it. I have nothing to offer but karma points and thanks.

DaveSaber Wiring.jpg

Also, I will attach a crude picture of the way it was just before the first switch broke, take a look at it if you want, but no bother if you don't. I eventually will have to buy another switch on here but until then it is all a learning experience. Thanks again.

_20141019_134100.jpg

[Forgetful Jedi Knight]

If you are using the red switch that you have in the first picture, from the recharge port, attach the 2 wires that are suppose to go to the battery, to the battery. The other two wires that are suppose to go to the "board", wire the negative straight to the main LED, and the positive goes like this:

Recharge port lug >--->one side of switch > other side of switch >---> resistor >---> LED

That should work if you do it properly.

[DopeChicken]

Saber Wiring.jpg

Like this? And in an earlier post I thought that the other poster said I would not need a resistor for the setup I have. But if I do need one, what should the resistance be?

Thank you