ANH, ESB, TFA Grafex Project

[Tom Tilmon]

Not all in one, all 3. I've gone saber building nuts. While I have this project going on, I also re-designed and re-built my Mako MHS RGB saber. New main tube, new chassis, in-chassis rc port. I had to solve some issues. My work bench is very busy right now. Very busy. Tonight I finished Saber 1, which was ANH Graflex.

I am using Korbanth Graflex 2.0 replicas as the base for these sabers.

So, this first post is some photos of the first Graflex which is ANH version. This saber is powered by NBIV. It has a RGB accent LED illuminating the crystal, which is wired to match blade color and FOC my way, which is fairly unique. It has a DR Chassis system (Knight), TCSS blade plugs, red button activation, 2 blue accent LED's under the board, accurate screws, milled down glass eye for blade retention, Veco Bass Speaker, B,B,W tri-cree, and the crystal is a real quartz crystal in the chassis chamber.

All 3 kits ready to roll!


Build progress:
Main LED BBW

NBIV Solders

Accent LED's under the board

Quartz Crystal and DR chassis

Glass Eye with accurate slotted screw above it.

Fired Up!

Brass Contacts on pins

Slotted screw on clamp

Riveted D-Ring, with hollowed out rivet.


Quick video snippet of crystal chamber in action. FOC in crystal chamber looks goldish here, in person, it looks white. But you get the idea.

[Whosle]

Looking Awesome!

Is you 501st crew picky about screen accuracy? I have some possible local 501st looking to commision a saber, I am a little worries they might demand 100% screen accuracy.

Thanks for posting! I was hoping for some pics of these builds!

[Tom Tilmon]

They're picky, but not too bad. If you have facebook, there is a group called Graflex Addict's Support Group. There is tons of good information there about how to mod these 2.0's tom make them better. The most glaring inaccuracy is the S curve on the emitter; however, its not glaring enough to stop approval in the Rebel Legion. The 2.0 is waaaaaaaaay better than the Hasbro junk, or dare I say Master Replicas. The 2.0 is an outstanding looking hilt, and should work for submission with Rebel Legion. I have seen some of the junk they are approved with, and the 2.0s are certainly a step up from that, as is the K4. I will post more pics of the rest as they come together. Waiting on some parts now, I ordered the wrong clamp switch holder, and that delayed the whole mess. After this weekend, building a box for the TFA one. Should be all done by the end of the month, and ready to roll in November, which is what I was aiming for. Have them ready before TLJ comes out!

Tom

[Tom Tilmon]

Finished TFA Graflex tonight. It has Prizm 5.1, RGB main, RGB Crystal (blade matching), 4 accent LED's, lots of accuracy upgrades, fancy red button, and clamp card switches. Those clamp card switches gave me fits tonight, and I still have a lot of adjusting to do. Too tired to post pics or video.

Tom

[Tom Tilmon]

ESB is on the bench now, then I have to get RICE working on TFA and ESB. Then box for TFA, saber stands, and this project is done! This project has allowed me to learn Prizm boards, and I love them. Awesome board! I'll be using Prizm for my neopixel build.

Tom

[Tom Tilmon]

I had a issue with two of my installs, in that a round rice port plug would have looked out of place on the installs. So, after some advice here, I decided to order some 3 prong micro JST plugs. I installed the female on the chassis, in an area that previously had a similar shaped area that I cut out. I then attached the male end of the micro JST to the USB Cable appropriately, ignoring the positive feed on the USB wire. After I installed the female onto the chassis, I soldered my ground wire to the battery, and the TXD/RXD to the appropriate spots as depicted below (forgive my child-like drawing skills, but you get the point):



Video of it working:



Added this to two of the three Graflex 2.0's I'm building. ESB/TFA variants. Tested on both, unbelieveable! Pretty awesome stuff, and the good news is that this solution kept my chassis looking like it was originally. I'm sure I could have adapted it for a normal RICE stereo plug, but what fun would that be? Its always good to try different tactics, you might learn something!

Tom

[Tom Tilmon]

Final cut on the ANH version:



Doing final bits on ESB/TFA now. Almost all done with this project.

Tom