Looking to upgrade saber, need a ton of help

[pogo]

Hey all!

Sorry if this seems like a common question, but i want to make sure i do this right, and unfortunately need to do this in "baby steps". I wanted to install a 3.7V 3000 Mah battery into my saber (i hate the 4 AA battery packs), however when i installed it, after about 20 seconds poof, the led fried(melted its own lens to the led itself) and nuked my momentary-latching switch.

So my basic understanding of wiring etc, has led to a couple problems that i need to solve, so lets start with what i have,

1. Momentary to latching switch (this was working fine, but got fried)
2. White LED short momentary switch ( off the TCSS store) this is being wired with a DynaOhm Varitible resistor. luckily the led portion was not connected at the time of the purge.
3. Cool White (5650K) LUXEON Rebel ES LED on a SinkPAD-II 20mm Tri-Star Base - 705 lm @ 700mA - This did have some heatsink on it, my guess is that it wasnt enough to keep up.

now, all that being said, is it even feasible to install this battery? and if so, what precautions/ items do i need to properly install this. I luckly have spares of everything that got fried but i messed up once, dont want to do it again.

Thanks!

[Silver Serpent]

Gonna need to see your wiring diagram. That battery is perfectly acceptable for your saber.

The momentary-to-latching converter shouldn't have been damaged if it was hooked up correctly. It may work once you get things sorted out.

It sounds like you forgot to put a resistor on your main LED, or used the wrong one. It overheated and cooked itself. The LED will most likely need to be replaced. Your heatsink keeps the LED safe at normal power levels, but it's not enough if you don't regulate the power.

The DynaOhm resistor will be good for the LED in your switch, assuming you wire it up correctly.

Post us a pic of your wiring diagram, and we'll give it a once over.

[pogo]

Gonna need to see your wiring diagram. That battery is perfectly acceptable for your saber.

The momentary-to-latching converter shouldn't have been damaged if it was hooked up correctly. It may work once you get things sorted out.

It sounds like you forgot to put a resistor on your main LED, or used the wrong one. It overheated and cooked itself. The LED will most likely need to be replaced. Your heatsink keeps the LED safe at normal power levels, but it's not enough if you don't regulate the power.

The DynaOhm resistor will be good for the LED in your switch, assuming you wire it up correctly.

Post us a pic of your wiring diagram, and we'll give it a once over.

This is a very VERY Basic version of it.

wiring.jpg

[Silver Serpent]

You have two wires going to your switch. There should be four. Two for your switch LED (these will include your DynaOhm), and two that go to the switch mechanism itself. The second pair will wire up to the switch pads on the converter.

pushbutton-power-switch-lv-rev-5.jpg

The switch wires go to A and B, the accent LED in the switch and the main LED will connect to VOUT (+) and GND (-). The battery will connect to VIN (+) and GND (-). All the GND pads are interchangeable.

The ON, OFF, and CTRL pads can be ignored.

[pogo]

You have two wires going to your switch. There should be four. Two for your switch LED (these will include your DynaOhm), and two that go to the switch mechanism itself. The second pair will wire up to the switch pads on the converter.

pushbutton-power-switch-lv-rev-5.jpg

The switch wires go to A and B, the accent LED in the switch and the main LED will connect to VOUT (+) and GND (-). The battery will connect to VIN (+) and GND (-). All the GND pads are interchangeable.

The ON, OFF, and CTRL pads can be ignored.

There are four, i am ommiting two of them, as i know they are wire correctly, i guess my main question would be this, where on that diagram do i need resistors for the main LED and what kind for the 3.7V 3000MAH battery. i know for the Switch LED i do need a resistor on the positive wire (using a dynaom at the moment)

Edit: to clarify, everything worked before when i had the 4AAA battery pack installed so the base wiring is correct, im at a loss of what kind of resistors and where for the main blade LED

[Silver Serpent]

The main LED resistor goes on either the positive or negative wire that joins the LED to the converter. For a standard resistor, it doesn't matter wire you place it on. I'd stick with the positive wire, since that's how you have to do it with the DynaOhm.

There are links in my signature that will tell you how to calculate your resistor.

I am a bit confused as to how you went from a 4AAA pack (6v) to a 3.7v li-ion battery, and it blew the LED? The 6v pack should have cooked it much earlier if you didn't have a resistor or BuckPuck or something along those lines.

[pogo]

explain that to US,

I'm at work and not infront of my saber, but it was ether a 4xAAA or 4xAA (whatever one is standard to US sabers)

[Silver Serpent]

I don't know how that particular manufacturer wires things up. I was under the assumption that you had built this one from scratch. They must've included a resistor in there somewhere if it wasn't blowing out from your 6v pack. You might have inadvertently removed it when you performed your upgrade.

Actual pictures of your wiring would be helpful, when you're back in front of the saber in question.

[FenixFire]

explain that to US,

I'm at work and not in front of my saber, but it was either a 4xAAA or 4xAA (whatever one is standard to US sabers)

This is probably more your issue than switching to the 3.7v. Unless they are wiring the pack to have two series wired banks of two parallel wired cells...which would give you 3.0v your upgrade would not have blown anything. Considering I have seen numerous posts and blogs asking similar questions because of a lack of resistors on their builds when they burn up a few months in, I assume this is the case. One other issue that I personally saw on a new friends saber he bought off ebay was the led, lense, and a peice of aluminum(heatsink) were just hotglued into a section of 1" thinwalled blade stock...literally encased in hotglue!

You list a TCSS White LED, is this the replacement or the original that fried?

[PhoenixHawk]

Yes some of the resistors they use are really small, and you can easily overlook them.
Tiny Resistor.jpg