First sabre wiring (Ultimate FX sabre sound board)

[boshuda21]

Hi all

I've been a member for a long time, but mostly read the threads. I have lots of ideas for sabre builds, but have been out of the hobby due to a busy life. However, I decided to have my son design his own sabre for Christmas and I wanted to use the sound board from a Luke (green) ultimate FX lightsabre (the old 30$ sabres with the LED string)

I'm a little gun shy on the wiring as this is a new thing to me (funny I can edit genomes in human cells and build computers, but wiring a lightsabre makes me nervous) so I hope some experienced people can help me make this a trouble free build.

I have attached my current wiring scheme for the board. I based this off some information I found in other threads, but it's sometimes hard to find the right thread for a particular board. Please let me know if anything is off.

Here are some questions I have about the build.

1) What are holes A and B? They attach to the LED string, but I don't know what they do. Do I need to do anything with these?

2) I read in another thread, I think Wade said this, that if you are wiring a single LED with this board, to wire all 5 spots together? I assume you splice them together in the scheme and connect the LED to it and the ground? Is there a better or cleaner way to do this?

3) How do I wire a new clash sensor? In series with the LED power wire?

4) Is it worthwhile to replace the swing sensor on the board with the TCSS swing sensor? i.e. will it have a different sensitivity? Has anyone done this?

5) The stock speaker on this board is 0.25W. Now, if I put a 2-3W bass speaker in there, it shouldn't affect power output from the board provided the resistance of the speakers are the same, right? the 2W is just the max output of the speaker, right?

6) How would I wire this thing to remove the on/off/test switch? I might like to keep this switch on there, but I haven't given much thought about how to mount it in the body. I may end up just removing it.

7) Given this simple mod, do I need to change any of the jumpers on the board or resistors? (R1-5). I have read that these boards can handle 6V of power so.

8 ) I want to put a rebel green P4 LED on this. I haven't tested the resistance with a multimeter (buying one today) yet, but if anyone has experience wiring this LED to this board, did you need additional resistors for this LED?

9) any advice on removing the solder and wires from the board without ruining it?




Thanks in advance for the help and advice. Aidan's sabre wiring.jpg

[YdurSolrac]

If you want to remove older from the board safely, you can use a product called a "desoldering braid" essentially you place on top of the connection and place your soldering iron on top and the braid absorbs it and leaves a clean contact. Not sure about the speaker question. About the LED, maybe theres a way to wire this board onto an N MOSFET? that way you're powering the blade through the transistor instead of the board? Also on my other lightsaber build I replaced the swing sensor with the TCSS sensor and I freed up some space in my build but that was only because it had that huge swing sensor( I think they call them monkey ears) if the stock one is small I wouldnt worry about it.

[boshuda21]

If you want to remove older from the board safely, you can use a product called a "desoldering braid" essentially you place on top of the connection and place your soldering iron on top and the braid absorbs it and leaves a clean contact. Not sure about the speaker question. About the LED, maybe theres a way to wire this board onto an N MOSFET? that way you're powering the blade through the transistor instead of the board? Also on my other lightsaber build I replaced the swing sensor with the TCSS sensor and I freed up some space in my build but that was only because it had that huge swing sensor( I think they call them monkey ears) if the stock one is small I wouldnt worry about it.

Thanks for the advice. I'll look into the soldering braid. Sounds simple and cheap. Yeah, the swing sensor is pretty small.

As for the transistor, I don't think it is needed unless I use a different type of power source. 3-4 AA should be tolerated well from what I have read. Hopefully I'll get confirmation on this soon.


OK, I did some deeper digging and found an other scheme in an old thread for a (different) ultimate board, but it seems similar.

1) A and B is for the clash sensor? Is this correct? The clash sensor does not appear to be wired directly to A and B, but it does appear to be connected through the LED string board.
2) The on/off/test switch was bypassed by wiring V+ to VDD; BP23 to gnd ( I saw this possible solution and also saw another person saying this crashes the board and that GND to VDD to bypass the switch) Which is it? -- Gnd to Vdd makes the most sense to me (but this didn't seem to work. I got no power to the momentary switch pads, but when I rewired the on/off/test switch, I was able to power the board.)

The main difference is the power source used in the other thread, which was a Li battery pack. They used a TIP42 transistor to bypass the board for power and switching. So while I (might) have found answers to a couple questions, I still would like advice on the best way to wire the led directly to the board. Again, do I link all 5 LED slots or just choose one? Does it matter? I suspect the multiple slots are for the LED string to light up in succession. Should they be all receiving the same current?



If anyone else has advice on the remaining issues, I would definitely appreciate the help before ordering my parts for this build.

[boshuda21]

Please delete this thread. I updated everything and posted it in a more appropriate forum. thanks