sound with el

[patd]

I have been reading alot, but havent seen anything about how to wire in a cheapo sound board to a el saber. My son is 5 and i dont want to give him a LED saber. He really would like his saber to have sound! can anyone point me in the right direction?

[cardcollector]

Well, firstly, welcome!!

Secondly, Why would you rather use EL and not LED?? LED is brighter, tougher, and more reliable than EL. LED is what you should use!

I don't even know if anybody here uses EL anymore.

[patd]

As i said my son is 5, he likes to try to take things apart though, and i'm afraid he look int the led while on. I just wanta make a saber that he can bang around with and not worry about him ripping it apart.
Thanx for the welcome!

[patd]

okay I belive I found it. X wing posted it in 2006. thankx.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Perhaps you permanently mount the blade on an LED saber? And only let him play with it when he's supervised, then take out the batteries after that.

Sound with EL can be done, but the power solution is a pain. EL inverters run at 9-12V while sound boards can't take more than 6V, most are happier with 4.5-5V.

I don't know how well a 5V regulator fto the sound board would work in this case, I've never used one.

I did once help a friend build an EL saber with sound using a 9V battery for the EL inverter, and a 4AAA battery pack for the sound board. But you need a fairly long saber to house all that, and we used 2 separate switches.

This was back in 2003, before this place existed.

[cardcollector]

Sorry to persist but...

Permanetly mounting a LED blade is easy. You can use Epoxy or other things.

Like J-Lo said, It is MUCH easier to use LED+soundboard. EL may be cheaper but I'm telling you LED is the way to go!!!

If your five year old does happen to look into the LED once or twice it won't cause any serious damage. Plus, he probably won't do it again. You can also buy plugs in Tim's store to put in the emmiter when the blade is out.

[Lord Dottore Matto]

One 3.7V trustfire will run a cheapo board well and there will likely be enough room for that and your 9V & inverter. wire it all up using a dpdt switch and you are ready to go.. Easily doable if you have the internal room in the hilt.

Card collector, coming form the father of a 4 year old boy, I can say that he knows his son best and if he is not comfortable with an LED saber, then he should go EL. Everyone should build at least 1 EL saber IMO, because it helps to understand sabercraft from all angles!

[Do-Clo]

I have been reading alot, but havent seen anything about how to wire in a cheapo sound board to a el saber. My son is 5 and i dont want to give him a LED saber. He really would like his saber to have sound! can anyone point me in the right direction?

I have done a el sber with a hasbro sound board and there is a diagram some where on the forum. The basics are that you use 2- 4AAA battery holders and connect them in series. You use the two packs to drive the el inverter and 1 pack to drive the hasbro sound board, by center taping the back packs. You put a relay on the output of the habro sound board where the led is normally connected and you use the relay to turn the el inverter on and off controled by the sound board. If you get stuck email me and i will make a new diagram to help you