First Saber Build & First Forum Post

[Charlie Murphy]

Hey guys I've been getting back into lightsabers with the new film coming out as well as my interest in battlefront and swtor. I had purchased some ultrasabers' dominix v2s about 5 years ago or so that just weren't nearly as bright as I had wanted. Especially after seeing the amazing builds people have come up with on here it was hard to want to even look or play with my sabers at that point(they have seoul p4s stock). Also the 4 AAA battery setup makes no sense to me for power delivery.

So I started doing some more research over the past week on how you wire these sabers up and what all you can wire up in a hilt. After a week on these forums and youtube I figured I'd attempt to upgrade one of my dominix v2s first in order to save a little bit of money in not buying a whole MHS kit right off the bat. Eventually I plan on doing that for my brothers build however for my own it didn't matter to me near as much. So I ordered these parts: 18650 Single Cell Holder, Star thermal tape pad, 18deg Tri-Rebel/Cree Star Lens, Cree/Rebel Lens Holder, .47ohm .5w resistor(Requires 1ohm 2w), Luxeon Tri-Rebel Star (RBlue/RBlue/White), 26 gauge wire (sold by the foot) (Black) & (Red) 4 Ft of Each, and a MHS "new style" Short Heat Sink. So I now have to speak on the excellent shipping provided by TCSS. They literally got all the parts to my front door on Thursday(today) and I ordered them on Monday. That's 3 days during the holiday season. Needless to say I'm very very impressed by that alone. Also I'd like to say Rob helped me a good bit on youtube letting me know that the resistors work like coils in an ecig in that you can run them in parallel to halve the resistance.

I opened the packaging and started the sort the parts out. I started to solder the 2 royal blue leds on the tri rebel together in parallel and then proceeded to run the positive and negative from that. Afterwards I adhered the tri rebel to the short new style mhs heatsink with the star thermal tape pad. I put on the 18deg Tri-Rebel lens with some super glue branded by Gorilla Glue. After that I soldered the positive from the tri rebel to my existing dominix v2 switch which I'm not quite sure the styling on it as TCSS doesn't carry the identical part to my knowledge. I then ran my negative through the hilt and then soldered two 2 ohm 3w resistors I had laying around together in parallel and ran them in line with the negative. As Rob had notified my earlier that the .47ohm .5w resistors I ordered wouldn't offer near enough resistance. Then I wired the positive coming from the switch to the 18650 Single Cell Holder as well as the negative coming from the resistors and led to it. Then I did a test fire to see if I had done good work on all my joints and so I threw in a samsung 25r(what I use for vaping) I had charged up and ready to go.

I then figured out that the battery sled only supports button top batteries officially since they expect you to use protected cells and most of them are button tops. So I ran a small bit of wire on each side of it with insulation in the middle and some electrical tape on the outside of it so it doesn't short out at all. Then I could get the positive to work as intended on my flat top samsung 25r. Put it back in and did a test fire only to be immediately blinded by the glory of 2 Tri-Rebels(I heard the Cree are even better so I can't imagine). Now I know why the quad rebels and such are so intensely bright. Anyway now to finish the build I had to use a bench grinder on the MHS "new style" Short Heak Sink in order to get it to fit down into the hilt exactly how I wanted. I should have done that first but it looked like it was going to slide on in from the get go so I never even thought to do it until it was too late.

My soldering iron is a little pos one from walmart that cost me literally $7. So it doesn't get near hot enough to do work like this. Next time when upgrading the other ultrasabers I have laying around I'll be sure to grind down the heatsink in the beginning of the build as well as having a better set of helping hands(mine aren't brand new anymore and have seen some use) as well as a soldering station that is ESD safe. This way I can do more elaborate things next time safely such as doing a NBv2 build. With the tools I have now I am going to wait until Christmas in order to be able to buy an ESD safe soldering station and the helping hands before doing another saber build. Eventually I'll also get a metal lathe and start making my own hilt designs in order to just have to buy electronics for my sabers. Anyway I learned quite a bit about soldering during this build as I never had soldered much in my life before. I'm good with building computers and firearms however neither of those have required me to solder so far hahaha. Hope you guys enjoy this post about me talking like a total noob when it comes to this stuff. Hell I don't even know what the leds are being driven at but from what I remember it should be 1a each. This build opened my eyes a lot as to how complex and difficult some of the builds people are pulling off on this site are. I plan on sticking around these forums for a long while though as I continue to learn through my years. I'll include some pics captured off my samsung s6 but forewarning I'm no photographer. Side note I used a 36" heavy dueling blade from ultrasabers in the pic so it's not as bright as it could be blade wise.

Another side note. The royal blue in the tri rebel gives off an ultraviolet hue to the point where you can light up neon colored objects as if it were a blacklight. Very cool feature to the royal blue in my opinion.

Also what blade do you guys recommend I buy in order to show off the tri rebel more? I honestly think this ultrasabers 36" heavy dueling blade is butchering the potential brightness of this saber.

Here's another image of it in pure darkness in my bathroom http://imgur.com/a/RTUYB. I also have this image of me using the front facing camera on the s6. http://imgur.com/NwV0Fhi This truly shows how ultraviolet royal blue is.

[Silver Serpent]

That's an impressive wall of text. Paragraphs are your friend, and will make reading that a lot easier on our eyes.

That being said, one thing did stick out at me: You said you used super glue to hold your lens in place? That's probably not a good idea, though it's too late to change now.

[Charlie Murphy]

Sorry about not formatting it to look more proper. It was late when I finished the build so I just was excited to be able to post it. I used a small dab of super glue on the posts for the lens that sit into the little holes on the led. I had originally planned on using hot glue to put it on however I figured super glue wouldn't get near as messy and would look cleaner as a final product. I would have just used the led holder that TCSS sells with the heatsinks however it has a diameter of 1.31 inches which was too large for the ultrasaber dominix v2 hilt. So I could only attach the lens by means of glue. At least that was the only idea I came up with for attaching it. Anyway I appreciate you commenting. Please tell me why I shouldn't use super glue next time as well as if hot glue would have been any better.

[Cire Yeldarb]

Gonna be 100% honest, I just had to skim the giant paragraph in the middle, it was too much for my eyes lol

But anyways, congrats on your conversion, especially with the cheap soldering iron!

Looking forward to seeing what else you do in the future!

[Charlie Murphy]

I will continue to edit the formatting on it. I am terribly sorry it's hard to read. I haven't been in school for only 2 years and I forgot how to form basic paragraphs I guess. Or maybe I just never truly knew how to form them properly .

Thanks for the kind words though and I can't wait to see what I can come up with as I make my brother's MHS NBv2 build. I'll likely put a star wars 7 sound font on there for him with the new movie coming out.

Hopefully I can do the MHS parts justice as I've seen some seriously wicked builds on this site in the past week.

People have some major craftsmanship on here.

[Silver Serpent]

Super glue can cause certain plastics to turn cloudy or hazy. The plastic that makes up our lenses is one of those. This would negatively impact their ability to focus light.

I was concerned that you'd applied the glue to the optical surfaces, instead of the little legs.

[Charlie Murphy]

Ah ok. This makes sense. I wasn't going to apply it to the optical surfaces because I figured the super glue would burn/melt the leds. Plus where the lens sits in the led "pcb" are the legs as you said so I just applied a tiny dap on each leg.

Again if I could I would have used the heatsink/lens holder that TCSS sells but it was 1.31 inches in diameter. I would have bought all MHS parts and started from scratch but I wont have the money to do something like that until Christmas.

Once Christmas rolls around though I'll be doing a more extensive MHS 1 build with a GGW Tri Cree and NBv2. I also plan on eventually getting a media blaster so I can do cerakote. I already have an oven for it haha.

I don't think I've seen a saber build on here yet with cerakote. I think it would be a unique touch as far as a finish goes. Most builds I've seen colored on here are using powder coat. Which isn't bad I just think cerakote is leagues ahead if you can afford to put it on.

[Silver Serpent]

I've heard cerakote mentioned a couple of times in the past. It's good stuff, if you're set up to work with it. Powder coating is a little easier to get started working with, and it does a really nice job of protecting your parts and adding color.

[Charlie Murphy]

I've heard cerakote mentioned a couple of times in the past. It's good stuff, if you're set up to work with it. Powder coating is a little easier to get started working with, and it does a really nice job of protecting your parts and adding color.

This. I'm glad we have people like you around here cause I've only been on these forums for a week so I've seen no mention of it. I might do Powder coating at first because as you said it's easier to get setup with.

I would really like to see how the burnt bronze looks on a hilt as it's almost a tanish gold color depending on how you mix it. From what I remember the hardener mix determines how glossy the finish is. I also already had plans on doing my ar builds in cerakote so I would eventually have everything to do it anyway. Plus I've seen the car part cerakote they have which would be nice for certain little touches under the hood or maybe on the wheels.

I'll be sure to search the forums for cerakote builds now. Link me to a build you really enjoyed with cerakote applied if you remember one.

I only found 2 builds using cerakote when I searched it on the forums. So it still should be very unique.

[FenixFire]

Are you going to send the parts to be coated or have you done this before. To do it properly here are the tools you will need nearly $1500 of tools and equipment to get set up to breakdown, clean, and media blast the ARs; for the saber you won't need the press and such but you will still need to clean, prep and media blast the aluminum. Also I would not recommend a low dollar spray gun to spry it, you will not be happy with the surface quality. The spray can version while not as durable and done as A more DIY product would be good for the lightsaber. I have only used it on stocks and scopes, never on the actions or barrels so I have no idea how well it hold up there.

If you are considering DIY of the actual non-rattle can cerakote go to ar15.com and search "DIY cerakote on a budget, cautionary tale" before you commit.