Inching Across The Line

Marv has his saber operating.

His hilt is decidedly budget oriented and mainly sourced from Home Depot's plumbing section.

We gave up trying to reinvent the wheel and just purchased the Crystal X board from The Custom Saber Shop.



It's verra kewl!

I've got all the parts I need for mine, but I need to get some powdercoating done.

I'm Sure It's Just Me

Every time USPS tracking says, "In Transit, Arriving On-Time," that means it's going to be late.

I'm numb to it now.

Guts

People have begun to break their Galaxy's Edge/Savi's Workshop lightsabers and started selling them on ebay for a pittance.

Electronics geeks have started complete tear downs!

We now know the blade is a plastic strip of domed RGB LED's spaced about 1/2" apart.

So the three blades will (should) have:

26" should have 48 LED
31" should have 58 LED
35" should have 66 LED

That's a lot fewer than a 2815 or 2813 running 258 LED on my 35" blade, about 4x as many as the Disney system.  I think this also explains why they're getting such good battery life from 3x AA's!

Marv has been running out of memory to run the LED's and was wondering if we could run them in groups of 3 giving an effective 86 LED as far as the Arduino is concerned.

Progress On Other Fronts

This is the blade activation program running on a test stand.

No sound, gyro or motion sensor yet, but coming right along!

Ready For Electronics

Darth The Lovely Harvey's saber now has its switch box.

We await Marv's electronics and blade design to get to playing around!

Opinions

Because the hilt parts are modular... It's like Lego.

I am torn between configurations

And

I'm leaning towards the second version because it feels better in the hand.

Drillin' Tappin' Hoggin'

Got the switch plate mounted on my saber!

First I drilled and tapped for the 4-40 mounting screws.

Then I hogged out the space under the threaded in the switch plate.  It's ugly because Dremel® and it will be hidden under the plate and switches.  So I didn't take a picture!

Bits And Pieces Dribs And Drabs

The pommel and blade-holder for The Lovely Harvey's saber have arrived!

Progress is being made.

Our switches arrived in the same package.

The silver switch should light purple and the black one orange.  The smaller thing is a charging port.

The tabs will have to be bent somewhat to clear the battery pack.

My next step will be figuring out where I want it, drill and tap the mounting holes, mark the switch locations and hog out the hilt for them.

I don't have Harvey's switch mounting box yet...

Package Problem

Because I sourced my light saber laser sword force sword parts from The Custom Saber Shop, I've been space constrained from day one for the internal components, most especially for batteries.

Marv has been basing his design on a Russian saber enthusiast who used plumbing supplies and a bit of artistry.

Marv is discovering that Russia uses different pipe standards than The USA.

Three times now he's bumped into the part recommended by the Russian guy are just a little too big to fit inside the PVC drain tubing he's using.

He's getting close to having to redesign his innards to better accommodate the restraints placed on him by what he can get from Lowe's and Home Depot.  That will mean repackaging his batteries and getting a smaller speaker.

I feel for him, I really do.

It's Published Information

There's an oddity in the do-it-yourself light saber community.

Threads.

Not forum threads.  Screw threads.

The Custom Saber Shop's modular hilt system uses threads to screw all the various parts together.

UltraSabers produced a hilt which uses the same threads as The Custom Saber Shop and the fanbois went apeshit about UltraSabers' theft!

I will let everyone in on the secret.  There is no secret.

I measured the threads on the parts I bought from TCSS.

1-3/8-20-UN.

A standard thread.  A standard thread he probably selected from a drop-down menu of his CNC machine to cut the parts.

He probably selected this size because it sits dead center in the thickness of the walls he chose for his hilt tubes.

There's only so much size variation on this sort of thing you can get away with before someone can't grip it comfortably while making humming noises.

Longer Life Than "Real"

The Force Sword in GURPS: Ultra Tech will run for 300 seconds (5 minutes) on a single "C" Powercell.

With 262 LED in the 36" of blade pulling 8mA to 20 mA each for 2,096 to 5,240 mA.

The prop-toy will run for...

9 to 24 minutes on 3x 14500 Sanyo cells.
6 to 14 minutes on 3x 14500 Chinesium cells.

39 to 97 minutes on 3x 18650 Sanyo cells.

Darth The Lovely Harvey has indicated that 5-10 minutes is enough play time for her.

Parts Have Started To Accumulate

Mine and much of Harvey's saber hilts showed up today.

Her's still needs the pommel, blade holder and blade parts.

We both need Marv to finish his Arduino design.

Involved

Darth The Lovely Harvey has approved of her hilt design, but wanted a box for the switches because Darth Vader's has one.

We can do!

Lucky Number Seven

Packaging is everything!  I think that I'm happy with this.  I can get a three pack of 18650's in there and all the boards.

A problem I have is I ordered parts BEFORE I considered the size of the components Marv was planning on using.  No matter how many times I cut it, it's still too short!

Except for the blade holder and pommel, I have the hilt below...

Doesn't that just SCREAM Darth The Lovely Harvey?

Even more fun, the 3x 18650 fits, just barely, in there if we Dremel a groove for the speaker wires in the pommel.

Battery Life.

Marv is hard for the ws2815 over the ws2813.

The problem is that it needs it 12v nominal.

That needs three 3.7v Li-Ion cells in series.

That's a real issue inside the tube I've selected.

I can stuff:

6x 14500 for 1,680 mAh at 11.1v

OR

3x 16650 for 2,500 mAh at 11.1v

OR

Go with the ws2813 and:

2x 18650 for 3,400 mAh at 7.4v.

The 2815 is supposed to be more efficient, but I admit defeat in figuring out the terminology.

My 35" blade will be running 258 LEDs.

Who here can figure out the ballpark for batt life?

Design 5

Going with the 12v ws2815 strips means finding room for more battery than I anticipated.

6x li-ion 14500 batts to get enough amps to run it for a while.

That chews up a lot of space.

To make it work with 12v pretty much means going with 3x 14500 batts and the limited number mAh would appear to cut into the fun time significantly.

I can, just barely, according to AutoCAD, fit 9x 14500 batteries in there.  2,520 mAh if the Sanyo spec sheet is to be believed.

3x 16650 batts will fit and fit better!  2,500 mAh should give a decent amount of fun time.

Design 4 With Mods

An awaaaaaaay we go!

Even with the added electronics this will still be cheaper than a trip to DisneyWorld's®™© Galaxy's Edge®™© Savi's Workshop®™©.

Fuck the Mouse!®™©

This has the fun of doing it ourselves even if I picked and chose from a pile of premade bits.

If we want to do the Savi's Workshop experience, that's really more The Boy's speed.  He'll get more out of it than I will.

Sucked Back In

The Custom Saber Shop sells lathed aluminum parts to make the hilt and offers many of the electrical supplies needed to make the blade plug into the hilt.

We're sourcing the LED strips from elsewhere.

Design 1:

Blades extends out to the right.

Design 2:

In both cases, I want to put o-rings in the grooves.

Design 3:

Design 4:

Marv is planning on making a little Arduino board for the effects and to control the lights.

The Moment It Stopped Being Fun

When Marv started linking to Etsy and ever cheaper pre-made items.

I can now live without a fake light saber.

Going Full Geek

I got Marvyn all interested in figuring out how to make a light saber with a neo-pixel blade.

And figure he has!

He figures that the most expensive thing will be the LED light strips.

We're probably still going to end up around the same price as a trip to Disney for a Savi's Workshop saber, but ours will truly be unique to us.

Our resolve is buoyed by watching a couple of former ILM employees talking about how they made the actual sabers for the films.

They, essentially, used trash and scrap.

So some aluminum tubing, a chop saw, drill press, some taps, rivets and epoxy...  Robert's your mother's sister's husband.

Definitely going to have pics of the builds!