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Author Topic: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage  (Read 34407 times)

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Offline LUKE SKYWALKER

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Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« on: July 23, 2011, 01:24:00 AM »
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:



------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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:


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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

« Last Edit: July 31, 2011, 08:07:42 AM by EgonMcGregor »


Offline RedArc

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #1 on: July 23, 2011, 01:39:17 AM »
Very cool build thread  ;)

Cant wait to see more progress !




Offline LUKE SKYWALKER

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #2 on: July 23, 2011, 02:14:17 AM »
thanks RedArc! i will make the updates direct into the main post and bump the thread when i have new pictures  ;)


Offline LUKE SKYWALKER

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #3 on: July 23, 2011, 02:55:10 AM »
bump for update! finished batterie and speaker chamber


Offline Obi-Shane

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #4 on: July 23, 2011, 05:43:37 AM »
Watch this with great interest I will! :D


 Cheers and gz on the DIY kit , I will hopefully be grabbing one of these in the future.


                   Shane

Offline Evan Zal

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #5 on: July 23, 2011, 02:37:50 PM »
Egon,

I'm glad you're writing this review :) I have already finished my chassis but I don't have a good camera to document the build. It was a fun process though. it was like building a Lego set, but with screws and glue. I don't know how Master Yoda came up with all this stuff, and then there will be upgrades later :o

Enjoy your build!

Offline LUKE SKYWALKER

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #6 on: July 24, 2011, 07:55:16 AM »
Egon,

I'm glad you're writing this review :) I have already finished my chassis but I don't have a good camera to document the build. It was a fun process though. it was like building a Lego set, but with screws and glue. I don't know how Master Yoda came up with all this stuff, and then there will be upgrades later :o

Enjoy your build!

thanks Evan, maybe you could show us some pictures of your finished chassis? do you use a replica or a vintage graflex?


Offline Evan Zal

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #7 on: July 24, 2011, 12:44:09 PM »
I am using a Parks replica. I bought some things from him a while ago and there was something that was back-ordered for over two years. I called him and he asked me if there was anything else that I would want instead, so I asked him for a Graflex. He never really asked me whether I wanted it dressed or not, he just sent me the ANH version. I kind of wanted ESB but he put the ANH grips and D-ring (not screen accurate) on it ::). He put the grips on so well and drilled holes for the D-ring, so I decided to keep it as ANH.

Offline Obi-Shane

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #8 on: July 24, 2011, 01:41:05 PM »
I am using a Parks replica. I bought some things from him a while ago and there was something that was back-ordered for over two years. I called him and he asked me if there was anything else that I would want instead, so I asked him for a Graflex. He never really asked me whether I wanted it dressed or not, he just sent me the ANH version. I kind of wanted ESB but he put the ANH grips and D-ring (not screen accurate) on it ::). He put the grips on so well and drilled holes for the D-ring, so I decided to keep it as ANH.

That must have been insanely annoying  :-\ ....Just noticed the other day you can now get them dressed, neat, but sort of takes the fun out of it. But nice, if you don't have a drill press/ printer (grip templates) to do the grips for an ESB yourself.


 Cheerios!

           Shane

Offline Evan Zal

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #9 on: July 24, 2011, 03:09:51 PM »
Yeah, I figured it would be plain and he would include the grips, D-ring and bubble strip, but whatever :D He did me a favor. The Graflex was worth more than he owed me. I say: Jeff Parks is the man!

Offline SgtBatten

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #10 on: July 24, 2011, 03:12:50 PM »
so long as you are happy :)

Now get on with the build Egon you lucky devil :D
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Offline Mersenne

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #11 on: July 25, 2011, 12:41:45 AM »
.... 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! .......
Egon and others reading this
just wanted to confirm which screws were too big.
The springs Mater Yoda uses are the ones that come from behind the Graflex Pins that needed to be unscrewed. They're used to make contact with the centre contact and are Silver plated.
They are tiny and smaller than the ones that you ended up using, so small that they could have fallen out when pulling the black insultator out and not noticed - OR perhaps a previous owner of your Graflex had already opened it and lost the screws before you bought it?
The springs are a snug fit over the brass rod used for holding the crystal.

Not a worry at all, yours looks great none the less.
I'm at the wiring in of the PC on mine.
it's all Elemental

Offline LUKE SKYWALKER

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #12 on: July 25, 2011, 02:07:55 AM »
.... 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! .......
Egon and others reading this
just wanted to confirm which screws were too big.
The springs Mater Yoda uses are the ones that come from behind the Graflex Pins that needed to be unscrewed. They're used to make contact with the centre contact and are Silver plated.
They are tiny and smaller than the ones that you ended up using, so small that they could have fallen out when pulling the black insultator out and not noticed - OR perhaps a previous owner of your Graflex had already opened it and lost the screws before you bought it?
The springs are a snug fit over the brass rod used for holding the crystal.

Not a worry at all, yours looks great none the less.
I'm at the wiring in of the PC on mine.


maybe the last owner lost them, i carefully pulled the black insulator out of the graflex, but there where no springs :/


Offline LUKE SKYWALKER

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #13 on: July 25, 2011, 02:10:48 AM »
so long as you are happy :)

Now get on with the build Egon you lucky devil :D

YES SIR!!!  :D
just waiting for the 4-40 tap that i will need for the upper crystal chamber plate, should arrive today :)
without the tap i stuck in  :(

but i can post the last few pics i made over the weekend  ;)
i used the time to clean the vintage graflex  ;D


Offline LUKE SKYWALKER

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Re: Yoda DIY Graflex Chassis Kit ESB Vintage
« Reply #14 on: July 26, 2011, 02:37:55 PM »
bump for some updates! finally got my thread tap and moved on with the DIY kit. posted some more pics of the
working progress and the chassis ( without the blade adapter and the electronics ) is finished!!! hope you like it  :)


 

retrousse