two days ago, Yoda's DIY Crystal Core Saber Chassis Kit arrived!!! 8)
I will update this thread after every few steps, so that you can see the work progress of both
the DIY Kit and the conversion of the vintage Graflex 8) and of course the final saber ;D
lets start...
- this parts are also needed ( for my conversion, you don't need all of them ( like the red button set screw ) if you going ANH like described in Yodas manual! )
i'm still waiting for my PC and the ESB conversion kit from tfx studios, the Graflex vintage already arrived 8) but i will show that later ;)
- assembling the Kit - crystal chamber:
-assembling the Kit - top focusing crystal and LED test:
like described in the manual, i tried to use the small springs from the Graflex vintage for detailing the top focusing crystal, i ended up using some little springs out of my electronic junk
because the sprigs from the Graflex where a way too big. but it worked really nice this way!
it took me aprox. 10 hours so far, but i spent a lot of time on the focusing crystal and the mount of its brass rods. this could be a little bit tricky, but now the rods hold the
crystal nice and snug 8)
LED test ok, moving on to the battery holder section and the speaker chamber...
- batterie and speaker chamber:
... next the circuitry chamber...
today the needed 4/40 thread tap arrived and with it some other things ;D
- 6/32 drill bit and, ... wait, where is the thread tap??? it wasn't in the package, so i have to shoot tim a e-mail :-\
- unlocked PC
- another Grips ( actually i didn't decided yet which one to use, the grips from tfx studios are way more softer than this ones from tim, but i like it the hard way ;) )
- and a tap handle
... back to work:
- the kill switch ( its soooo tiny! :D )
- accent LED optic line
... i decided not to go 1:1 with Yodas manual and gave the optic brass tube a second bend, now it fits snug to the crystal and to the upper
chamber plate 8)
on the second picture you can see that the brass tube is as long as the aluminum spacers, i shortened it a bit before mounting the LED!
- and then, the completed chassis without the Graflex blade adapter and all the electronics so far
... looks very nice 8) Yoda did an amazing job on this kits, every little piece fits perfectly to the next one :o and it looks WHAO!
again about 5 hours till here, total working hours ( without cleaning and preparing the Vintage Graflex ) 15
the next steps are to connect and a little modify the blade adapter, wire the pc and after all that i have to convert the graflex...
- completed chassis with modified blade adapter ( already wired up with the 2 switches and the LED ) and the PC ;D
and finally the completed chassis with attached blade adapter and all electronics inside!
before i went on with the final assembling today, i thought it would be nice to have a second optical line to lit the clamp while the saber
is in idle mode. Yoda did that on my Graflex and i liked that kind of idle indication. also there is a lot of room left in the upper part of the chassis, so
here it goes 8)
... looks and works great.
the next days the chassis has to take place in that beauty:
a Graflex Vintage 8)
but first i have to put all that parts together with the Graflex:
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i think its time to post some Graflex Vintage photos :D
- out of the package:
- the single parts:
- from above:
- parts that are not needed for the conversion:
- and i kept those parts:
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lets move on to complete this bad boy ;)
- slide switch preparation:
- before using the dremel:
- me and my dremel :D
- after cutting the contact to the right size:
it worked pretty good with the dremel, and the slider fits the blade adapter perfect 8)
- chassis attached to the upper flashgun shell ( you can see the little tactile aux switch under the graflex button )
- and here a photo with flash, you can see the slight weathering of the Graflex, this will be a nice ESB version! :)
after installing the chassis to its final place, i made a little test run and everything worked as it should, the slider has a little less way ( up and down )
than my Yoda Graflex V, but it worked without any problems. speaker and soundsfonts work like they should, led test is ok, the only thing i didn't made so far
is the led sequencer for the bottom and top crystal leds. but the optical lines also worked fine!
watch the final steps on site 3:
http://www.fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=31996.30