Some advice required for new project

[Vazan Maceu]

Hello everyone

As my main project is kinda stalled for now (need to redesign some parts), I needed something to keep my mind into hilt building... I came across some old tube, and after a little work it looks like this:



I like how both of them look, specially the one on the right... But the problem is the ID of the tube, an also its shape. Let me explain myself with a quick drawing:



As you can see, the tube is not perfectly round on the inside. Whereas this could be easily solved for the right one (the "emitter" is wider than the rest of the tube, and has no "obstacles" affecting its inner roundness, the left one has almost no inner space to work with. Hence my question: As this hilt is being built for a person with small hands (at least smaller than mine xD), could I use a blade with an OD less than 25,4mm? Would a Luxeon III fit in there? A 4AA battery pack fits into the tube without problem, so a direct drive configuration with a resistor should work...

... What do you think? Should I go on with the one on the left, or the other one? Should I leave all this for later and focus only on my main project? Should I go see the doc?

Thank you for your time reading this, and again thanks in advance for any advice you should come up with

EDIT: Corrected some typos :P

[valeon]

Personally, I would attempt them both, just cause I'm stubbord like that. Now, what you could do is find your own parts that would fit, and possibly make a blade holder/LED holder from PVC piping. As far as the wacky shape of the inside, I would find a battery holder that would fit, even if it is for a different amount of batteries, and just jump a wire where you need to cancel out a battery, I did that on some of my current sabers, they are MR with a lux 3, running off a 3 AAA battery holder, and only runs from 3 AAAs. It may sacrifice some runtime, but I haven't had to replace them yet. Keep in mind, you can ALWAYS make things fit, as long as there is room for a lux, it's just finding the right things to keep it in place, you seem pretty creative....now get crackin'.

I REALLY hope to see something cool come out of these.

[ArkaiHalon]

what's the side to side diamter of the small tube?

doing some simple figuring in my head, this heat sink would work to hold the lux
http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/pc...-heatsink.aspx

This battery pack should fit
http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/pc...ry-holder.aspx

And i'd be willing to bet that Tim (or someone else)
could modify the 1.25 blade holder to fit.

[valeon]

If you don't mind me asking, what are those tubes from?

[vortextwist]

they both would look awsome.

[Hasid Lafre]

Yes what is this tube from?

[alpine]

definately try them both, but those are unusual tubes, where did you find those?

[Vazan Maceu]

First of all, I thank you all for your advice, ideas, and support, you really know how to make someone inspired

Since you´re interested, I´ll tell: It was actually one single tube that was cut into two pieces. It was part of an old vacuum cleaner tube... When it broke up I asked the owner of the vacuum if I could keep the tube assembly (as you can see, he agreed ). I thought it had definite possibilities

If you look at the emitter areas you´ll see some rings... I decided to add these in order to get an idea of how they would look with a blade holder. I´d try to use them in the final version.

Thanks again for your help, I´m willing to give shape to these two

[Sethski]

I just spotted these, they're both crying out to be hilts, they look great!

I'm curious what work you've done on them to get them to this stage and what they were like when you started? They look like they have a dark finish to the metal that's very appealing, and they both have emitter qualities at the ends.

Really look forward to seeing how one or (hopefully) both of them turn out.

[Barmic Rin]

With careful planning, it will all fit in there.

I picked up the same tubing & will be using it for my Imperial knight inspired saber soon.
just got a few other projects to finish first.

As for choosing which one, my answer is Both!