my first saber

[duncan29793]

Ok, much thanks goes to Jay-Gon for inspiration. Here is what I hope to be my first saber that I will be giving to my son. He loves Darth Vader, and as much as I was trying to steer him from the Dark Side... he says the Dark Side has cookies.. damn the temptation of cookies... he persisted and I lost out of the arguement. So I will have a Darth Midget running around the house

Anywho, I took the basic template of Jay-Gon and added a little decoration to spruce it up a bit. I have a basic sketch up of what I am attempting and would like the masters to let me know if I am on track.

I haven't put in the wiring yet as I haven't had time to really research that aspect yet, but believe from rummaging around the board for the past 2 weeks that it shouldn't be difficult.

Once I have this one built I will take the next step and build myself one and up the difficulty level a little in both electronics and also material.

The attachment came out smaller than expected so here are the electronic specs
Luxeon Star 1 - Red
10 degree collimater
cheap led holder
Buckpuck 350ma
24: Corbin Style Show Blade thin walled (cut to 20")
2AAA Battery pack
Push Button Switch

[ArkaiHalon]

for "cheap LED holder, a section of blade about a half inch long works perfect to hold the lens, holder, and LED. A little dab of hot glue on the back of teh star, and your good to go.

[Mazarill Slay]

Thats pretty cool. going to be PVC I suppose since its for a youngling..

Arkai thank you for that I was wondering what I could do to mount my led :P

[Jay-gon Jinn]

To Arkai, you should listen! I did them like this:


I got the idea from Ultrasabers after dismantling an Initiate I bought from them. I also used a tubing cutter to cut the bottom off a blade to make the housing. Tighten up the cutter enough to roll the edge of the tube so the led star won't pass through it. then add in the optic and hot glue it all together. Simple as that!

[ArkaiHalon]

I have to admit, I LOVE pvc sabers. Cheap, easily customizable, not afraid to be dropped, relatively bright.

[duncan29793]

wow, cool idea. I didn't realize when I was reading your thread Jay-Gon that you cut off part of the blade. I just assume it was a cheap housing. Now I have a use for the extra couple inches of blade I was planing on cutting off.

Obviously the led doesn't get hot enough to melt the glue or housing. I remember reading threads about using a certain kind of epoxy or something that works better hooking housings to heatsinks.

EDIT -- Ok after a little more scrutiny of the pics and previous posts I see what is happening. I assumed that the LED housing would fit snuggly into the hilt. I didn't realize that it was smaller than 1' in diameter. So I still need to get a holder, the cut portion of blade creates the housing to keep in in place.

[ArkaiHalon]

you got it.

If you work it right, the switch body will act as a "rest" for the LED housing, and thus create a LED sammich with the blade itself. like this

Blade led switch

══════╡╬╞⌐