Recharge port hookup

[Darth Scorn]

So just hook it directly to the recharge port?

[Skottsaber]

Yes, but make sure that you have it on the negative wire that is going to your electonics, not your battery. This will make sure that the LED will only turn on when the kill key is pulled.

[Darth Scorn]

Cool thank you

[Gilraen Took]

I've been browsing the forums for a while now, and while I plan to keep my first saber the simple design(so I can make sure I can solder wires without frying them before I try anything too involved) I knew from the start that I wanted a recharge port with it. I was just wondering if this is the proper wiring configuration for a plain resistor driven led saber, or if I needed to change anything. (On my little diagram I switched the battery- and the board- pins just so I would be able to leave the chart looking a little cleaner.)

wiring.jpg

Also, how do you figure out what sort of a charger to get? Since the store doesn't seem to have packs for sale anymore(at least not that I could find while searching) I had one made at a local battery store. The information I was given with it says that I've got a 4.8V NiMH pack, and I was told that I should get a 6V 100-200 mah charger. Also, he didn't put any sort of pci onto the pack and said that the NiMH batteries don't need them. Seems like the smart charger from the store would be my best bet(since that is one of the sort you plug into your wall outlet and then into the recharge port, correct?) but I thought I should ask before I ended up with the wrong thing.

Thank you in advance for the help

[LAN-ED-TUL]

i went down to the hobby store and since i at that time was getting batt packs for my rock crawler and needed a charger, i got a prophet legacy charger, it charges whatever nimh pack you got, i also have a lightsaber i built that has a old TCSS triangle shaped batt pack, the SHOP doesnt SELL anymore, which the SHOP needs to go back to selling PACKS again like before. anyways, the prophet charger, with the TCSS 2.1 charger adaptor they STILL sell, plugs right onto the charger clip, then it plugs right into the recharge port. i charge mine at the 1 amp charge rate, yah takes longer but pack doesnt heat up as much, its a trickle like charge

[demep]

Thanks that really helps, it's easy when
You know how !

[spits79]

Hello,

Forgive the electronic noob question but I have a general question about the how the circuit is connected/broken with the recharge port. So my knowledge of electronics goes as far to know that you need a circuit for electronics to work, positive connected to negative.

So in the actual recharge socket itself there is a the center male pin which I think is connected to the positive pin on the back of the socket. It stands to reason that for the circuit to work with nothing in the socket then by default this has to be physically connected to the female section of the recharge socket which I believe is connected to the negative pin on the back of the socket. That's fine but regardless of what the 3rd second negative is connected to how can inserting a non-conductive peg into this socket break this circuit

[Skottsaber]

It's similar to how when you actuate a switch, the plunger pushes two conductive plates together to make an electrical contact between them, allowing electricity to flow.
In a recharge port, there are three contacts. The first two are recharge port inputs, that is to say the positive and negative connections (to the battery in lightsaber usage). Then there is a third pin that, when a plug is inserted, breaks a connection between that and one of the input pins (for our uses this is the negative input). This connection is made again when a plug isn't inserted - allowing your electronics connected to that pin to receive power from the battery.
The reason for this is explained in the original post: it allows you to cut power to your saber's electronics during charging, and with a non-conductive plug it allows you to cut off power to your saber's electronics between uses.
For the physical process which occurs inside the recharge port to cut the power, I'm afraid I can't answer that. Perhaps you could take a plug apart in order to reverse engineer the process.

[spits79]

Ahhh ok I've finally wrapped my head around it... I ended up having to do little diagram to get it right in my head

So 3 pins on the port: positive (+), negative (-) and switching negative (-)
So no pin (default position): the 2 negatives pins are joined together
Recharge port no pin.jpg

When a pin is inserted the link between the 2 negatives is broken...
Non-conductive pin inserted: + and - pins are connected to the inserted pin but since non conductive no circuit created
Recharge port non-conductive pin.jpg
Recharger/conductive pin plugged in : Same as the latter but the pin provides a circuit between the + and - pins
Recharge port recharging.jpg

[jcook1023]

hey i've been reading this thread but wanted to just post and make sure i have everything straight here... if i wanted to add a recharge port to a saber, i'd need to drill a 5/16" hole to use this guy here. along with that, i'd want to ideally use a 4.8V setup but i'm not readily seeing a premade pack for that so if i got a 4xAAA pack and rigged that up with 1.2V NiMH cells, with the + from both the battery pack and my soundboard going to the terminal and the - from my battery pack and soundboard going to the terminal, right? but now here's where i'm a bit on the confused side...how do i do that using the nano biscotte? cuz everything is like, LED +/- speaker +/- etc... beyond that 5/16" hole and jack, i'd use the 2.1mm plug adapter and the NiMH charger...anything i'm missing? i have a saberforge saber that i bought on ebay for cheap, but to have him wire it up he's asking $140 (which isn't terrible since it'd be with a neutrino board, the charger, and replacing the mom switch with a lighted av switch, including shipping) so i figure if i can do it on my own, i'm better off (although i do need to send it in for a repair, as the pommel doesn't screw on correctly..think it's worth just having him do it and me do this setup on another build?)