FX-Sabers.com
FX-Sabers Discussion - Including a Gallery of custom sabers. => Data Sheets => Topic started by: darthphineas on June 03, 2005, 01:26:04 PM
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Did you snap any pictures of the process? I have a Vader with quite a few dead LEDs, so I am happy to hack and slash at this sucker. I have begun a dissection of my sabers (a Vader and a Luke, both very banded due to massive fighting) but I have only gotten as far as documenting the battery/speaker module (pinouts and construction details).
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Man, Someone REALLY needs to make a DETAILED turotial on this. ;)
I am thinking about buying one of those "broken" FX sabers off ebay, just so I can tear it apart without worry of breaking it. That way, I can write the tutorial myself. (I am rather good at that kind of stuff too.)
Who knows, maybe I can fix it?? ???
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Hi,
Great job, darthphineas. But actually, if you want a detailed tutorial of the exact same procedure with step-by-step pictures, it's already been done. You can find it here (http://www.rpf.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=90131&st=0).
I guess Star Wars fans all think alike, huh? I bought an extra ESB Vader that I was thinking about modifying with a removeable blade, but I have none of the skills or experience to even try it. I was going to return it and save the money, but after reading the two tutorials I'm rethinking it a bit. :-\ Maybe I'll let my wallet decide.
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Oooooh, VERY nice!
Hey, any of you guys members on that fourm? Can you get me that guys email? I would like to email him and ask permission to use his tutorial on my website, but I can't get that unless I register with the site.
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;D
Already done! http://www.fx-sabers.com/vader_ESB_tutorial.html
I had to get permission from the original poster, but he was gracious enough to let me use it. He also said that he is going to do the Anakin one too. :)
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Well kudos to you then ;D.
Good job Bigdog, I'm sure a lot more people will appreciate that article now.
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I checked out that guide, and while it was very helpful in alleviating my disassembly axiety it wasn't very representative of my experience with my Vader saber.
I found significant differences in the detail of that guide and my saber, the biggest being it was tremendously easier to get apart! I took a bunch of photos of my disassembly process, which in my case also includes getting all the way down to the LEDs in the blade.
<Side note: I am motivated by need. I have contacted MR and they will not repair my sabers; they ONLY repair warranty defects. I was happy to pay a service fee since I damaged them in vigorous sparring (and I admitted this to them) but they simply do not offer the service. Sucks @$$.>
The LEDs are standard 5mm leaded parts with a clever diffuser around each one to help scatter the light. I tested some of my "dead" LEDs and they all worked, so it would appear at first guess that the solder joints have broken. I am pretty confident at this point that I will be able to restore this saber to 100%.
An eventual addition to this saber will be the incorporation of an integrated FM transmitter, so the hilt audio effects can be sent to a nearby home stereo. I have already hooked the hilt audio up to headphones and the quality is surprisingly high, so I estimate that this mod will prove VERY impressive in a surround-sound living room. :) I was extremely pleased to see there is ample room in the hilt electronics enclosure, but the solid metal hilt does concern me so I expect to come up with some sort of external antenna to insure the signal gets out.
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Darth Sodomus - If you would like to write up a disassembly tutorial for your saber, I would gladly host it here on FX-Sabers.com. I am sure other people would be interested in seeing any differences in disassembly as well.
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Yes, it is! ;D
But imagine the Vader idle hum in SURROUND SOUND! :o
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:o ;)
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Hardcore, perhaps, but two facts might help.
1. I am the senior engineer with a large computer peripheral and iPod accessory manufacturer, so I know my way around a circuit board. This also provides me with a LOT of equipment for tinkering.
2. I am the product manager for all our FM transmitters. It isn't like I am unfamiliar with the subject of adding FM transmitters to stuff. ;)
I have made a really excessive mechanical diagram of the blade PCB with pinouts (which I will share soon) and I have started the process of diagnosing the dead segments. As I may have mentioned, ALL of the "dead" LEDs have continuity, and almost all of them will light up if the PCB is flexed slightly. I used my mechanical drawing to plot the dead elements, so the next step is to try to reflow the solder on the LED leads and current-limiting resistor.
BTW, I did just say "current-limiting resistor". This IMPLIES it may be possible to increase the brightness of each LED, but I would point out I SUSPECT it will be too subtle to be worth swapping out *64* surface-mount resistors. I seriously doubt I will try modding this aspect of the blade, but I welcome someone to try it. If you do, PLEASE find a way to quantify light levels using a meter, don't use an auto-exposure digital camera or even worse your subjective opinion. I'd love to know how much of a change actually occured.
Random thought: since the 64 LEDs are controlled in 6 banks, and each bank can be switched independantly, it should be technically possible to make the blade "deploy" from tip-to-hilt or even expand from the center in both directions. Obviously this cannot be done with the stock controller hardware, but it is an intellectual curiosity.
For those who care: the "whoosh" is done using a simple tilt switch. I have been unable to find any information about it online. It seems like it wouldn't be possible for the sounds I have heard to be produced by a simple on-off switch, so maybe it provides some sort of ranged feedback like velocity or percentage of tilt. For those who have ever wondered, this is likely the cause of the rattling sound you hear in the hilt.
So, now that I have exact mechanicals on the blade PCB dimensions, I can custom manufacture my own PCB that will allow me to use tri-color LEDs, and then I will make a new control board that not only allows me to change the blade color to any possible mixture of RGB (can you say "Mace Windu to Count Dooku in one flip"?) but also a random mode that will cycle the entire blade through the RGB colors as well as allowing each individual LED to cycle independantly, so the entire blade just friggin SWIRLS with color! While I am replacing the control board I will go ahead and add surround-sound audio FX ripped from the movie DVDs and transmit it over a 2.4GHz link to a S/PDIF-equipped home theater system (THX preferred, doncha know).
Psych! Just kidding. Even I don't have that much free time. ;)
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Hmmm....
I don't know if I should rejoice or cry. :-\
My first thought was: Cool! With the tri-colored LED's, you could, in theory, program the controler to "flash" yellow during the "clash" sequence. Maybe program it so just the middle LED's "flashed." That would be VERY nice!
Of course, you would have to build your own custom hilt, with a dial switch which allows you to dial in the color you want. Heck, you could even do blande "length" too.
Ohhhhh....the possibilities! ;D
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The tutorial for ESB disassembly doesn't cover RE-assembly....so we're left with a broken toy. :(
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I get nervous about gluing things back on...
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When is the guide on how to take the blade apart coming? I have just successfully dissassembled and reassembled my ESB Vader saber and now I need to know how to get the blade apart. There is a small pin in the blade and I have tried to get it out, but was unable to. After many attempts the pin is now deep inside and I can now turn the inside a little bit but it seems that the end cap at the tip of the blade is keeping me from getting the darn thing apart. Any advice is really appreciated.
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Btw the reason I am taking the blade apart is because my stupid cousins broke it. It has a huge crease in the blade and now about 3 inches on the bottom and on the top light up. I am pretty good at fixing things so I am preety confident on this project.
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Nevermind, I finally got the pin out and pulled out the LED board. I had my friend solder the broken areas(had to add some wires to reconnect some of the areas). Now my saber is back together and fully functional again. My next mission is to find replacement plastic for the blade so then I won't have the ugly crease.
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Glad to hear/see that you got it working again!
I recently read an article about "builing your own lightsaber blades." Int he article, the author mentioned where to get the poly-carb tube.
Gotta go find it...
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Ok, here ya go:
http://fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=130.0
The article is located there, but the author says that he got his tube from www.usplastic.com (http://www.usplastic.com).
Good luck, and be sure to let us know how it works out for you!
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Thanks for your help Bigdog. I can get the tube from my local hardware store that a relative owns for dirt cheap. The article that you gave the link for has the wrong size tube for the Fx lightsaber it is 1"od and 35 and 3/8 inches long. Now I just need to get this darn tip off of my old blade. I cannot tell if it is glue together to the inner tubing or just really tightly pushed on. Oh well, xxx am I happy that the whole blade lights up again! ;D :D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D
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The tip looks like one of those toys they had out a while ago that was rubber and you pushed it inside out and then set it down and it would right itself with a pop and jump into the air. That is the only thing I can think of that looks like it. I have been unsuccessful getting the tip and the white inner tube out from the outer tube. It seems that the the crease in the outer is keeping the inner one in. I have not been able to get the crease out enough to get the inner one out. I almost started cutting it, but decided to wait until Saturday to do it. By then I will have my polycarbonate tube. I will try to get you guys a picture of the inside of the blade and the tip. It won't be untill probably tomorrow( have to work late).
BTW.. Nice review on the Mace Saber Bigdog. It literally sent shivers down my spine! I can't wait till mine comes!
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Certainly a brilliant tutorial, and came in handy when I took my Vader ESB apart today. I didn't go so far as to remove the blade itself...the 2-foot aluminium tubing I have is pretty much exactly the right diameter to simply slide in the Vader internals. I'm about a tenth of the way towards having a working Force FX double-saber! :)
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This has been some very informative reading. Thanks to all posters.
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Don't know if I should post this here, or start a new thread, but has anyone disassembled a Vader ANH please? I was going to get two Vader ESBs to make a Darth Maul. However, my supplier accidentally sent me an ANH Vader, so I now have one of each.
I'm assuming that the internals are going to be a bit more bulky than the ESB, so might not fit into my Darth Maul hilt. (Obviously I don't want to give it a try if it's not going to fit!)
Can anyone who's disassembled both answer this question for me please?
Thanks,
Tim.
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sorry to bring back this old thread,but i was just wondering,when you remove the polycarbonate blade from the black sleeve in the vader esb, there is obviously two holes in the blade,right? and assuming there is,how big are they? they must be really small judging on the size of the two pins that go through them.do the metal pins fit tightly in the holes in the blade or do they just slide through them?
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I have finished my repair and reconstruction of my Vader ESB, minus the overly ambitious FM transmitter. Ironically, I decided to skip embedding an FM transmitter when I realized that every single FM transmitter ever made by the company I work for is utterly inappropriate to such a project, and I couldn't really get away with using a competitor's product in the company light sabers!
The important part was the total restoration of the blade. All 64 LEDs now light up.
The only problem I ran into was a screw that may have been slightly cross-threaded, and the head snapped off. It is annoying, but doesn't really affect the saber.
So, a big middle finger to Master Replicas. I would have been happy to pay half the purchase price to have it repaired ($60), but they flatly (and rather snottily) told me they would not do it, period. Thanks for forcing me to learn one more semi-useless life skill.
Sadly, the documentation for the restoration may have been lost to a hard drive crash. If I can get the info off the HD, I will make the repair tutorial. If not, I am not redocumenting it, sorry.
Now that I have these mad, l33t repair skills, I have a general question for everyone. Should I offer a repair service? Here is my thoughts:
-I would have to do so as an unconditionally UNGUARANTEED repair that COULD result in making things even worse, as I will not pay to replace anyone's saber for any reason, including my mistakes, negligence, accidents, or whatever.
-In the event I could not repair it, or broke it and made it worse, or whatever, I would charge only an "examination" fee (maybe $10 or something).
-Shipping costs would be prepaid, i.e. shipping both ways would be at the expense of the customer.
-I should be able to offer "tweaks", like increasing the brightness of the LEDs slightly, or changing the LED colors (all purple, rainbow mix, red and green LEDs for a Christmas model, adding an audio output jack, adding an FM transmitter, other things), but these would be at additional cost.
Assuming anyone found that acceptable, what would be a fair price to charge for the repair? I wouldn't consider it for less than $40, and even that seems low considering the fairly large amount of time it takes, and the somewhat specialized electronics knowledge and equipment needed to do it. Anything over $60 seems like you'd have to ask yourself if a repair is worth it, or if just buying a new one would be smarter, but that may be my modestly well-padded wallet talking and I can sure remember days in my youth where the difference between $60 and $120 was massive, so perhaps some people WOULD find value in the repair fee.
Thoughts? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller? Anyone?
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Good day. I am new to this forum. Can i ask whoever is an expert regarding my problem. The chorme part on the bottom of the hilt of my darth vader force fx lightsaber faded and showed the yellow plastic underneath. Is there a way to remove this part so i could repaint it? Thank you so much for any intelligent input and insights.