Obi-Wan Ultimate FX color conversion (kids)

[cptamerica03]

I am hoping this is an alright place to post this.

I have a Hasbro Obi-Wan Ultimate FX, the smaller kid version and I am looking to change the LED color. It's currently blue and I would like to change it to orange. I got everything opened up and got a little overwhelmed looking at everything, so I thought I would check with the experts before diving in.

The blade has a 20 LED ladder. Here are some pics to help show how it looks.

http://nrsandbox.com/IMG_20141219_092907735.jpg
http://nrsandbox.com/IMG_20141219_092927957.jpg

I was thinking that I would be able to just de-solder the blue LEDs and swap them out for orange. I just don't have a good idea of what I would need for LED specs.

Thanks in advance for ideas and help!!

[jeffo95]

I did this last year with a Luke Ultimate FX, swapped green for orange. You can do exactly what you described, just get some orange LED and swap the blue ones out.

I didn't worry too much about specs, I just ordered some high intensity, wide angle 5mm orange LED's. I measured the voltage and ampreage on the board, but can't recall what they were. The LED's I got were close match for voltage, but the amperage was too high. I used them anyway, and would have had to swap out all the surface mount resistors if I really wanted to adjust the amps, so I just let them be over driven. I don't think it will matter too much with the smaller LED's and if one blows out, I have spares.

The LED's leads are clipped and bent at a right angle and go through holes in the pads, so to remove them you will need to heat both pads at the same time and pull them out with pliers. Be careful to heat the pads enough to melt the solder completly so you don't pull off the pads when removing them. Clean the solder from the holes to allow the new LED's to fit properly. Also, keep the batteries in the saber and test each LED you install to be sure it is not backwards. It won't light if it is.

The LED's I got had clear domes, and I noticed that the ones in the blade had more opaque ones. When I put the blade back together, you could notice each LED individually in the blade, which looked bad. I took it apart and tried to sand each LED to cloud up the dome. This was very difficult after they were soldered, so I recommend doing it before. Putting it back together, you could still see each LED in the blade. I mostly fixed this by geting some colored drinking straws and cutting the oranges ones into 1/2" pieces that I fit over each LED. This diffused the light enough that it did not look too bad unless you looked closely. Good enough for a kid's present and the abuse it would take.

I don't know if you can get opaque dome LED's but that could help solve the problem without all the work, or you could try a large difusser over the whole string or some clear gift wrap inside the blade, similar to the blades for single LED sabers. You would have to expirement.

[cptamerica03]

Thanks, you answered all of my questions.