2003 Darth Vader

[Matt Thorn]

Before deciding to take the plunge and buying an Ultrasound 2.0, I bid on a non-functioning 2003 Vader lightsaber at Yahoo! Auctions Japan, and despite my low bid, I won. The seller seems like a trustworthy guy (412 good reviews, zero bad). He says he bought it used (though it looks to be in great shape), but it didn't function from the start. He says the battery pack worked in another saber. So I have no idea what I will find when I open it up (I just won the auction an hour ago), but I have two questions.

1) If I open it up and there's nothing obviously wrong with the connections or wiring, is there some way to test the board to see if it's functional/fixable?

2) If I do manage to salvage the board, any suggestions on what to do with it? I searched the message board, but couldn't find anything on how to use this kind of 3rd generation board.

I probably should have posted this after I got the saber and opened it up, but I thought I'd risk the flames and toss this out there. I'll post an update and photos when I receive the saber and have opened it up.

And the joke will be on me if I open it up and discover it's already been stripped by an earlier scavenger.

Thanks in advance for help or suggestions.

[FenderBender]

Im doing a conversion on one of those right now. The switch is near the emitter on this one instead of the clamp. Going to be a pain with the blade holder. When you get it, I would direct connect a battery/speaker source to the inputs on the board to make sure it wasn't a faulty connection in the pins that the battery pack pushes against. If nothing there its a good chance the board is toast (the bad kind, lame...not buttered). If you can get it to work then great, good luck converting it if that is what you are planning to do.

[Lord Dottore Matto]

as far as what you can do with it...put it in any custom hilt, or convert/customize the vader itself! It is just a standard MR board, just an older generation (unless it happens to be the EL Vader???)

[Matt Thorn]

Thanks for the replies, and the advice. After saying I searched and found nothing, it occurred to me to search for "2003 Vader". Doh. It looks like there's some info to be sifted through that I hadn't known was here.
FenderBender, I'll try the direct connect you suggested. I guess if I had used the leetle grey cells, I could have thought of that myself.
I can't wait to get it. I already ordered everything I need to make an MHS saber (and hoping that my order for the Ultrasound 2.0 will actually be filled in this lifetime), but after looking through the galleries, I've developed a hankering to make something more or less from scratch. Unfortunately, we don't have anything anywhere nearly as well stocked as a Home Depot here in Japan (that I know of), but today I went to the nearest thing we have here in Kyoto and scoured the shelves for potential parts. I didn't find much, but was happy to discover that they had lengths of both 1 1/4" (32mm) and 1 1/2" (38mm) aluminum tube. (Hey, it's a start, right? )

[FenderBender]

It is a great start. Since I'm doing one right now, if I run into anything unusual or come up with anything else helpful, I will let you know. Good luck.

[grayven]

I did one of these. It was a lot easier than I first thought. I use a MPP Blade Socket form the graflex shop ( I don't think Tim sells them yet), and a newer MR sith sound board. Runs on 4 AA.








The Anakin AOTC was definitely a hard chore to convert.