I am almost afraid to post, but here we go .

I bought a 2003 MR Luke ROTJ, which has the EL blade. Shortly after we got it home, the blade broke off just inside the emitter.

Until I can afford to change it over to LED, I was tinkering with it to see if my son could still use it. I removed all the damaged debris, and shortened the blade just to the base of the EL connectors in the blade.

I have connected everything outside of the hilt, and I get flickering across the entire blade, and a bright light right at where the two connectors are. I held it on for a short while and the bright light at the connectors turned from green to white, and then started to smoke, at which time I removed the power.

Not knowing anything about the EL insert, I was wondering if anyone had any ideas? Simple grounding problem? Does the sheet have a tear?

Thanks in advance for any help on this. It just might sit for a few weeks until I can get an order in.