It's been a while...
I sent my Prizm in to Michael for repair. He did a stellar job patching it up and getting it back to me. Thanks M.H.!
I assembled the saber and had it working gloriously for about a day. It looked AWESOME! . . . right up to the point where smoke started pouring out of it.
It was a dumb mistake: I *really* wanted to use quick connect harnesses so I could easily disconnect the chassis from the saber if I wanted to in the future. The harnesses I had were pretty thin gauge but I took a chance on them anyhow. Learn from me, kids! don't skimp on the wiring, especially if your blade is running 274 neopixels. :)
LUCKILY, the board and battery were both ok. So I took the whole @#!% thing apart and rewired EVERYTHING. I went a bit overkill, but am ok with that. I used 28 gauge, and double the wires for all that carried current for the blade.
So, I'll leave you with a few parting shots. Here's the saber in it's normal "closed" presentation.
And here she is with the clamp opened, showing the crystal chamber.
Behold, the illumnated nerdy goodness.
One last shot, at rest on the workbench.
That's all for now! I'm glad to have the saber done just in time for the movie.
I plan to re-wire this saber when Erv's new CF-LS comes out, so I can bling out the crystal chamber a bit more.
In the meantime, it's time to help my son with his Malgus model.
Happy Saber-ing!
-Jeremy