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Author Topic: First build  (Read 730 times)

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Offline Darth Catacus

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First build
« on: May 21, 2022, 06:48:14 PM »
Greetings everyone,

I've been sitting on this for nearly three years and I've decided it's time for my first saber build. I've watched a lot of videos and have a good idea on what to do. Here is the list of parts for my build, including the hilt:

SF Bane mk2
blade
Either 3.7 or 7.4 volt battery
Charging port (unless I can find out how to do a removable battery)
Luxeon tri-rebel led (deep red, deep red, neutral white)
Blade holder
Lens
Lens pad
CFX
Speaker
Two momentary switches (unless the recharge port dosen't fit in the chassis, then it'll just be one)
3 resistors for the led (2 2ohm 1 watt resistors and 1 1ohm 2 watt resistors)
Heatshrink
Wire (either 26 or 28 gauge)

I'm getting all parts except the led and maybe the blade from tcss.

Are all these parts correct or am I missing something?


Offline SirRawThunderMan

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Re: First build
« Reply #1 on: May 22, 2022, 03:14:11 AM »
Hello there.

Welcome to your new addiction! Well, your basic parts list looks good.

I'll make a couple of suggestions based on experience, though: I'd stick to a 3.7V cell, as that's pretty much all you need these days, and make sure it's a regular one, not a high discharge (they're for Pixel blades.)

28 AWG wire is pretty much all you'll need for LED sabers. I'd suggest getting some multicoloured flat ribbon cable and stripping the individual strands out of that, rather than using just the one spool. That way you've got a colour coded indicator for what wire is going where and won't suffer any accidental shorts.

Finally, I'd suggest looking into some form of chassis to hold all your wiring and components together inside the hilt. That might be a little harder with a curved hilt like yours, but it's doable.

Good luck, and MTFBWY
Better late than never.

Offline Darth Catacus

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Re: First build
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2022, 02:40:00 PM »
Thanks for the feedback! I actually have a chassis 3D printed; I just forgot to list it. It's going to be a tight fit as there's only roughly 3 inches of space for the chassis, but it should be OK. If the one I printed doesn't work, then I'll build one out of disks.

Being new to soldering, I've been practicing and I've noticed I get good pre-soldered bulbs, but I have trouble with soldering connections. I've started applying soldering paste, but not noticing much difference so far. Here's a picture to show what I mean. The red wire was dipped in paste while the black one was not. I should note that this is on a dummy board that is not being connected to or used for anything, it's simply to practice on. Any advice on how to make cleaner connections?





For the blade holder, the inner diameter of my hilt is 1.5 inches. Should the blade holder be the same diameter or smaller?

Expect more questions as this build progresses.

Offline SirRawThunderMan

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Re: First build
« Reply #3 on: May 28, 2022, 05:03:36 AM »
Fair enough. For what it's worth, the key to cleaner soldering is:

1: practice makes perfect. when I started, I bought a few metres of speak wire and spent an afternoon just cutting strips out of it and soldering them together. boring as heck at the time, but worth it down the road.
2: pre-tin your wires.
3: use flux.
4: if your soldering iron has a temperature control, experiment a little to try and figure out what the ideal melting temperature for the solder you're using is. ie, there's no point running it at full heat all the time if your solder melts at medium. You'll just burn out the heating element faster and melt your wire's insulation.
5: USE MORE FLUX.
6: clean up your flux with some IPA and a toothbrush afterwards.

re: the blade holder: ideally, you want your blade holder to fit your blade. so if you're using a 1" blade, you want a 1" holder, a 7/8" blade, a 7/82 holder.
Better late than never.

Offline Darth Catacus

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Re: First build
« Reply #4 on: June 25, 2022, 10:32:44 AM »
Hello there,

I have a question about batteries. For my build, what amount of mAh will I need. I've noticed batteries come in several mAh and I want to know how important that is.

Offline SirRawThunderMan

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Re: First build
« Reply #5 on: June 25, 2022, 01:52:26 PM »
In short, not particularly important, except as a warning against fakes. It's just a rating of electrical charge.

Most modern 18650s are around 3000-3200 mAh, 21700s are around the 5000 mAh mark. As I understand it, that's about as much charge as you can get from the li-ion battery chemistry in those sizes.

So, if you find any 18650s sold with mAh values higher than that (I've seen anything from 4000 to 16000 mAh in my time), that's usually a safe sign that it's a fake. Avoid buying.
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Offline K-2SO

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Re: First build
« Reply #6 on: June 26, 2022, 12:59:03 AM »
mAh is basically a measurement of how long the battery (or battery pack) in question should last.



I find your arguments vague and unconvincing.

Quiet! *Slap* And there’s a fresh one if you mouth off again.

 

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