Feedback on my second saber

[gsterley]

So I am back to build my second saber. I did a sink tube saber a good while back and am ready to take it up a notch with an MHS saber this time.

I prepared this rendering in preparation. Now it may not be 100% mechanically accurate in the cutaways, but everything is to scale. The only thing missing from the drawing would be some detail on mounting the MR sound board. I am in the air about mounting it integral to the battery pack or on its own, perhaps in a film canister.

Anyway, please have a look and let me know what you think.

[astromech_kuhns]

as far as i can tell your circuit looks fine. only thing im not sure on is the speaker. you have the positive coming right from the battery and the negative from the board.

now, your battery pack is packed with foam, but not your board. and that is important. you dont want any shorts. or especially components braking. but to pack it all in foam makes it harder to take out and switch batteries.

you could use a chasis. it is a sled for your electronic components. put them in it and slide it out from the saber.

[Jedi-Loreen]

Some MR boards use the positive from the battery, ak.


You don't have much space at all for the speaker to resonate. It would sound better, and louder if you did.

MR, and now Hasbro, got it wrong when they put the speaker at the end of the battery back right at the very end of the pommel. Some space in front of and a little behind the speaker will work wonders.

I don't know if you can work that into your design, with that set up, but try some experimenting and you'll see what I mean.

[gsterley]

now, your battery pack is packed with foam, but not your board. and that is important. you dont want any shorts. or especially components braking. but to pack it all in foam makes it harder to take out and switch batteries.

you could use a chasis. it is a sled for your electronic components. put them in it and slide it out from the saber.

I agree 100%. I am still hammering out the details of mounting the board. I am leaning towards the sled idea as I have no recharge port and sliding out one assembly to change the batteries seems best. I will work on that today. Thanks.

Some MR boards use the positive from the battery, ak.


You don't have much space at all for the speaker to resonate. It would sound better, and louder if you did.

MR, and now Hasbro, got it wrong when they put the speaker at the end of the battery back right at the very end of the pommel. Some space in front of and a little behind the speaker will work wonders.

I don't know if you can work that into your design, with that set up, but try some experimenting and you'll see what I mean.

Great, thats good to know. I may be able to mount the board on top of the battery holder. This should let me move the whole assembly up a good ways and allow some space for the speaker to resonate. If all goes well the battery pack should become a nice chassis to build off of.

I will work on creating Version 2.1 today. Thanks!

[Lord Dottore Matto]

The wiring is perfect. No need to put the board into a chassis unless you want to. Just a poly-C sleeve or heatshrink on the board will be perfectly fine.

[FenderBender]

One thing I notice: The speaker mount does not fit "into" the pommel like you pictured. If you are using the TCSS speaker mount, the pommel sandwhiches it to the hilt at the bottom of the threads. So this may not work lengthwise with your design. UNLESS, you mount the sound board onto the battery pack, which I would only recommend if it is a permanant/rechargable battery set-up.

Also as a suggestion, don't rigidly affix your clash sensor anywhere, it makes it less sensitive. I usually solder it inline with the main LED leads and let it hang out in the choke. This way it gets maximum impact registration from blade vibrations.

[gsterley]

Thanks so much, I would have never thought about the inside diameter of the threaded portion of the pommel getting in the way. I guess that takes care of some of the resonance concern.

Because of pommel/speaker situation I decided to stack the board on the battery pack. I really had no other option due to space. (It will of course be covered in non-conductive material when its all said and done)

It was said that "Most sound boards can be stacked on top of the battery holder" in the product description of the MHS speaker mount v3. Since I do not have my Vader board here just yet, and I am unable to find a definitive answer as to the thickness of that Vader board. I am going to keep my fingers crossed for now, and hope that it fits.

Please see the latest revision and keep me posted if anything throws up a red flag.

[Invisas1979]

I doubt you'll be able to get the MR board to sit on top of the battery solution, they are quite wide.

For this saber I would go with the 4 cell power solution tim sells, have the MR board in front of that and then the switch.

Otherwise, like the design would have pommel 4 personally.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Man, that saber looks familiar:

Nice design!

I managed to do a simlar battery/soundboard set up in that saber, but I used an Ultrasound 2.1 instead of the MR. The MR board's are 1" wide, just like an Ultrasound, so it may fit on top of the battery holder just fine, so long as it isn't too tall. The transistors on the board may not clear the sidewalls of the hilt.

[Jedi-Loreen]

2" wide? That's gotta be a typo, since the OD of most sabers is around 1.5".