TOPIC: ASP Champion General Care Discussion

This thread is about how we might care for the ASP with Champion electronics when not in use (i.e. not switched on for a period of time).

As the Champion ASP in its current format does not have a recharge port, I am thinking to remove the battery out of its battery holder when not in use.

I have noticed the electronics can sit quite snug inside the hilt body. Is it also a good idea to disconnect the soundboard from the switch and LED too? This just means all electronics parts are disconnected when the saber is not in use. Or is this not necessary? Any suggestions most welcome.

Find yourself an old relic weathered chest, store your Saber in that and keep the chest in a darkened room within the basement. Come the next time you hear ghostly whispers, you will naturally be drawn to enter the vicinity of this unmarked chest and upon grasping the Saber you will be flooded with immediate visions as if re-awakening. Sounds almost like a scene from a Movie doesn't it?

Quick Connections are handy to have however I'd believe whilst there's merit in the convenience, it isn't something you'd want to unnecessarily disconnect and reconnect repeatedly as the connectors and the wires attached to it still have the same tolerance and sensitivity as if it were a fixed-connect. Since there's no Kill-Key and no Sleep Mode with Sabercore, I reckon simply removing the battery (hence cutting any available power source) for extended disuse should be fine. With no power coursing through it, it makes zero difference (if not redundant) to disconnect the switch from the board as well. I could be completely wrong though.

I'd personally keep the battery in the hilt, and have a spare handy when the charge runs out. I'd keep turning it on and off during the day anyway. But, with a collection as large as yours, I see your point.

I agree with Ovrcahst about the quick connects. Leave them be as they are fragile enough already. The less they move, the better. This is also why I'd keep the battery in, and keep a spare. (I'd also be getting a recharge port as soon as possible.)

Since there's no in-hilt recharge and if there's no immediate intention to have one installed and integrated to the existing setup, has anyone tested what the discharge rate (in real-time) is with saber on and what the discharge rate is when saber is off? Absent a recharge port, unless the saber is participating in a full day of duelling or convention, keeping a second charged battery has merit but excluding that keeping it in for the infrequent drive-by ignition I'd imagine would see the battery losing it's juice quickly.

Let's assume for now there isn't a recharge port (and maybe for the thousands of ASP out there right now, majority probably won't). There will be times when one is away traveling, and for whatever reasons the battery won't necessarily be switched on for days or even more than a week. I read the safer option is to remove it.

Gnost-Dural, good for you that you have the skills to install a recharge port. Wish I could learn.

Ovrcahst, I can confirm that the battery loses its charge within two days of install on an asp saber with no in-hilt recharge. this is a freshly charged battery, with approximately an hour of total run time. your experience may vary.

Execute66, no I don't have the electronic skills, at least not yet. But if other people can do it, so can we. There's a lot info in the forum, and very helpful people.

Aside from the skillset, we'll need tools such as a soldering iron, wires, and stuff like that. And it'll take a while to acquire these things, what with saving for more sabers. So having said that, I'll probably look for someone to do installs in the meantime.

OvrcAHst wrote: Yes, I just did that. I only tested for 10 minutes though, because it's hard to hold leads onto a battery for a long time.

Standby power was 200-240mA and never got any lower in the first 10 minutes after turning the blade off. This suggests it should go through an entire charge in under a day (17 hours), but in my experience it actually lasts a few days so I assume it must drop down to something closer to 50mA or 100mA after a while.

This was the power consumption graph of the first two minutes:

On the left was when I connected the battery, slipped, connected it again, and waited a few seconds for power to settle. Then I turned on the blade (12W+ green, 4.06V Samsung 20R cell, pulse pattern 3, sound on). I only left it on a short time before turning it off, where it reached a peak draw of about 1570mA (~6.3W). Then it dropped down to 200mA in idle mode, and never got any lower. After 10 minutes the cell was at 4.03V.

I didn't set things up well for high-power testing, so the peak draw would likely be higher during normal use. This test does not indicate that the 12W+ LED isn't running hot enough. It mostly just shows that the idle power is way too high.

Standby power should be less than 1mA, ideally less than 0.1mA. My ASP saber is running orders of magnitude hotter than that, at least until I get a kill/charge port installed.

Oh, and if the blade-on readings are anywhere near accurate, the expected runtime with the blade on looks like about 2.5 hours. Maybe more since it's direct-drive so current will drop with voltage. But at full 12W+ power with no blade flicker, runtime should be only about an hour.

Edit: Re-uploaded graph, forgot to turn off lowpass filter first time.