Upgrades... the devil is in the NEW tech...

[Novastar]

Just wondering what folks out there finding themselves:

A) "plagued" by consistently upgrading their sabers... never happy unless you add a new motor, new LED setup, new sounds, etc.

B) Always looking for ways to improve the saber in general

I find that this is a HUGE thing when it comes to my most personal sabers (yes, the Flange III & IV sabers)... and a little bit regarding the other sabers I use for b-day parties/events/etc.

Am I wrong? Or do you all just make a completely new saber with the new "stuff"?

[Kant Lavar]

It depends. I've got a Corbin-driven saber that I'm planning on pulling out the guts of and putting an UltraSound in there. That kind of upgrade would probably stay in the same hilt. Same with, say, switching from the 14500s to a custom battery pack; two of the three sabers I have made have had recharge ports already on them for "one day" having in-hilt recharging.

Now, if I got my hands on a Crystal Focus board... then I'd go all-out and get a new hilt; because that would deserve it, IMHO.

[Crystal Chambers]

I'm currently building my first saber and plan to make a few upgrades in the future.
However...hehe.
If I can get my hands on CF I'd like to explore the idea of making a sled/chassis that's easy to remove and put inside a variety of hilts that I'd make. I like so many different designs for hilts that I would like to be able to just quick connect the wires and slide my chassis in which ever one I felt like at the time. I'd probably end up with like 5 empty hilts that have the LED, accent leds and switch, and one sled/chassis.

[psab keel]

Yeah, I hear you Novastar,

That's why I haven't even built a saber in over a year. I've been saving my money and purchasing all kinds of parts and planning, planning, planning, and will be making my ultimate versions of my favorite hilts from the series. I never got into custom sabers myself for several reasons, the first being that no matter how great they looked, they never looked as "real" as the ones in the films. The second was because I knew I would just keep changing my mind on how I wanted them to look! hahaha.

So with all of the parts I have I will be building one saber from each film to round out my collection:

Qui-Gon Jinn
I haven't decided which Episode II Saber to build yet
Obi-Wan ROTS
Luke ANH
Vader ESB
Luke ROTJ (Shared Stunt Version)

and then I'll likely build a whole mess of customs to sell.

[Sunrider]

Tell me about it folks but I think my problem is worse! I can't even get off the ground with my first saber. At first i'm thinking I love luke ROTJ but then all the stuff wont fit. Now It's a windu sort of shape, love that sabre too.

Still not enough room!

I need 1.5 ID section to fit 6 PCBs & huge batteries in & don't Know where to get that part.

Every time I look at the space inside the tubes it gets smaller!

I will fit everything in there (willhelm scream)

luckily i'm bald so I can't pull my hair out!

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

I'm getting SERIOUSLY disenchanted with this hobby...I seem to have NO LUCK at all in it...

Waaaaaay back [3 years ago? lol] when I started in custom sabers I had what I thought was a great design for a custom saber that would be a TRIBUTE SABER to the Original Trilogy for the 30th Anniversary of ANH if I could get it custom machined...at that time the only place I knew of doing true made-to-order custom sabers was Randomsabers so I joined there and got my design together and sent it to RY and he seemed to think it was doable except for a few parts...sooooo I spent a couple months sourcing 'rare' parts [like a ROTJ rear shroud] to send to him so I could finalize an order...the week my parts FINALLY came in [thanks for the 3 week delay due to the Post Office] he announced he wasn't taking new orders for two years - which would make my design MISS the 2007 'deadline' for the 30th Anniversary it was supposed to be a Tribute to!...ARGH!

Understand that I'm like Sheldon on The Big Bang Theory i.e. imo there is one right way to do anything and if things can't be done RIGHT they shouldnt be done at all...so if not makeable by 2007 that design could not be a Tribute Saber to the OT on the ANH Aniiversary and thus was now WORTHLESS to me...there goes that design down the drain and with it perhaps a hundred man hours of R&D and several hundred dollars in parts.

So I decided I'd learned my lesson about buying costly parts before I had the design and order finalized...no buying parts for an UBERSABER til I was ready to order everything all at once!

Ironically I could have bought a CF and would have for that saber...being in Canada I wouldnt have been affected by Ervs then-policy of not shipping to US because of Hyperdyne...you'll see where the irony comes in a bit later...

Sooo I signed up here and bought parts to build some basic MHS sabers...nothing impressive enough to share just 'conventional' functional designs to learn on...and meanwhile considered what would be a worthy design to replace my old design at Random since that would now never be made [unless I'm still in this hobby in 2017 maybe] and among the many parts I got over the next couple years were some MHS pommels #3 [the original version] but they came wrapped together not separately so their lugs had dinged one another up tumbling around in shipping...I figured not worth complaining to Strydur about since I could always get more later eh? Eventually I decided I'd like to build a 'Pr!ncess Saber' [if I actually explained that y'all wouldnt believe me] based on the 'padawan Leia' as a Presentation Saber...very high grade design, would have had gold plating and jewels etc for a very special person who would appreciate and expect nothing less...and the week I finalized THAT design surprise TCSS introduced the not-very-feminine MHS pommel 3 V2 not ADDING to but REPLACING the now 'v1' without warning...soooooo NO nicely feminine MHS 3 v1 pommel and thus NO Presentation-grade gold plated Pr!ncess saber gift from me...AARGH!!

Of course by this time Erv had come up with the new version of CF that had isaber...would have been perfect to load with "Princess Leias Theme" eh...but no MHS #3 pommel meant that saber couldnt be made now so no point and another abandoned 'ubersaber' design, and this one even closer to my Heart. -sigh-

By this time I had discovered Ultrasabers and FX saber forums and bought some stunts and had finally figured out a custom saber design to get built by DSC when Ultrasabers announced an 'interest list' for another run of Overlords so I jumped on that list instead...but it was never clear when it might come out so every month I didnt dare buy other sabers IN CASE they suddenly announced Overlords were here and it was payment due immediately [I have NEVER 'welched' on a commitment to any sabersmith making a 'run']...missed out on LOTS of great sabers from Nocturne, Do-Clo, Madcow etc back when they were less costly that way waiting to pay for the Overlord...eventually a year later they took my money for that [still havent got my Overlord though lol] so NOW with my finances PREDICTABLE again I could look at getting a DSC Custom saber built...only by then Ultrasabers was no longer taking custom saber designs through DSC...soooo my would-be DSC Custom "ubersaber" design ALSO had to be abandoned.

Meanwhile I also came up with another "ubersaber" design I could get made one part at a time to get around the cost issue of a whole saber with the Overlord expense hanging over it unpredictably...just when I figured that out Strydur announced he was no longer taking orders for custom parts.

Are we seeing a pattern of PERFECT TIMING here?

Also meanwhile I was bidding on CFs when the 'lottery' came up and missing every time...yep perfectly BAD timing that is.

On FX Sabers forums I discovered AceRockets Obi pommels and was amazed by the quality and thought here was someone who could bring my newest Ubersaber design to life part-by-part...and when I got THAT design ready to submit Ace announced he was no longer taking custom parts jobs on either.

Then came my US 2.0 debacle...I bought 3 [from US direct not TCSS] ...one to go to Darth Tyrannus for install on my Overlord, 2 to be shipped to me...I was quite eager to get a US 2.0 so I could run XWingbands Tri-rebels in series and ordered several from him with optics...

...but the US 2.0s never arrived...there was a Christmas Strike at the Post Office so when the boards werent delivered they werent sent to my local post office for pickup who told me they had no record of the parcel and explained that was because packages were only reentered into their system at the sorting plant when the trucks returned and because of the strike nothing was being unloaded so nothing was being reentered therefore they had no record even what it was...of course I had other things coming so didn't know it was the US 2.0s til over a month later when everything else arrived thus missed the deadline for 2.1 upgrade...but hey my 2.0s would still run my tri-rebels...except they NEVER came...apparently since nothing was reentered while those trucks were sitting loaded at the plant someone crooked decided it was a good time for things with no record to 'fall off a truck' eh? So I never ever got my US 2.0s...meanwhile i've spent money on tri-rebels i cant use except with a corbin driver which I did get Thanks TCSS but still for my latest Ubersaber design I'd have to wait til the NEXT run of Ultrasounds eh...

...which did come [US2.5] but no longer supported 12v so *in Soup-Nazi voice* "no trirebels in series with sound for you" eh?

Meanwhile it is 2009...the 10th Anniversary of TPM...time for another TRIBUTE UBERSABER eh...this time one to the PT...with the US2.0/tri-rebels situation FUBARed I saw a thread on the new LEDEngin 10W and RGBA so can switch from Obi-blue to Qui-green to Maul-red...PERFECT...I already had the Obi pommel and TCSS BH#6, contacted Gemini Customs about making a Qui shroud since my dremel-fu is awful as a result of shaky hands from being tortured as a child...now all I needed was to get a CF 4.3 to finalize orders and build it...

...soooo I loaded my cart, was on time, ran the gauntlet and SEEMED to get one...EUREKA?

...oh oh oversells again??? Hmmm...lowest order # mentioned on the forums was #881...I'm 953...how many did Erv make anyway...oh he says 72?

*does math quick* Sooo am I the LAST person who got one or the FIRST person who DIDN'T???

*waits with trepidation* REFUND! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

So there goes ANOTHER Tribute Saber design...a TPM 10th Anniversary PT Tribute Saber that can't play "Duel of the Fates" on iSaber would be *in The Tick voice* JUST PLAIN WRONG...

^^^THERE'S the irony that If i'd gotten lucky with a CF back in 2007 for my ANH 30th Anniversary OT Tribute Saber that I 'just missed' at Randomsabers I'd have been able to use it to build my design for the TPM 10th Anniversary PT Tribute Saber...AAARGH!!!

Sooooo another design down the drain and this time until at best 2019...WAAAAAAH!

Sooooo now the last week i've been trying to decide where to go from here...

I have a design [actually the first of a 'series' of 9 "Form Sabers" I've been working on designs for a YEAR now intended to be ALL TCSS MHS BASED designs] for a 'FORM ZERO Youngling Training Saber' [a la AOTC] that I want to build in EL [its a YOUNGLING saber eh?] and figured out a month ago should be doable with a SaberSound passing through 9V...

Meanwhile I got Caine Drathuls training DVD and have been waiting to get this training saber built IMMEDIATELY AFTER I got the CF 4.3 situation figured out for my TPM Tribute saber [now never to be built -sigh-] which afterall is on a CALENDAR DEADLINE of just two months left now which my training isn't...so that I could start on his system...

...sooooo when Erv refunded me PayPal puts a 'hold' on the refund for "6-8 business days" and just released the money TODAY...I'm waiting to get that so I can email Strydur about getting my Youngling Training Saber hilt done with custom grooves and...yes you guessed it...

...POWDERCOATING...

...and TODAY when PayPal finally gives me my money back I come here to and see...

NO MORE POWDERCOATING!!!

Which means *in the Soup Nazi voice again* NO TRAINING SABER FOR YOU.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!

THIS HOBBY HATES ME!!!

[Sunrider]

I take it back. I'm not that bad off. Daaaaayyymmm you really have had some bad luck.

Perhaps we will get lucky & Stryder will come out with some new parts that will satisfy our thirst for more? .... Please!

[Rhyen Skytracker]

I am sure Stryder will come out with more than a few new parts.

[Sunrider]

Yes. Can't wait.

[Count Malik]

Nova..... you had to bring this subject up... I have my cf saber I modified 3x and am wanting to make a us saber with accent leds and maybe a crystal chamber... need a good design though...