TOPIC: Datachron MK1 rewiews: Red/brass, Blue/silver

Sorry to be putting this thread in open topics, but there's not a review section for these yet. Please feel free to relocate when that becomes available.

Just received my Datachrons, and must admit that I'm a little underwhelmed with these, especially the LED setup. I had seen previews of these on one of SF's social media pages a long while back, and had been eagerly awaiting their release for over a year I believe. I think there's even an old thread regarding these that I was active in.

Sorry to be leaving a (mostly) negative review on these, but since there aren’t any other reviews or additional pictures posted yet, I do feel some sort of duty to the community on this board to share my experience with them, and the differences of seeing them out in the wild vs the carefully staged studio pictures being presented to the public.

I will start with the good. The finish is nice on both as is the detailing on the cut work. They look fine as a non-illuminated prop if they’re set out on a shelf with just the pyramidal section. The remotes work great, and don't interfere with each other so they must be on separate channels/frequencies.

Now for the bad, pretty much all directed towards the LED setup.

I strongly suspect that they intentionally took those photos on the sales page(s) from a 45deg downward angle that completely hides the LED setup. It's about the size of a hockey puck, and the "datachron" just rests on top of it without seating in any way.





Unfortunately, not only is the visible side of LED puck not very aesthetically pleasing, it also seems to bleed more light out of the side of the unit than it actually directs in to the datachron itself. Perhaps it won't look so weird if I put them way low, and am looking down on top of it instead of the veiwing angle being roughly level with the units. Another option I suppose would be to build another base for it with a big old hole drilled in it that the LED puck can set down in so the top surfaces are flush, and then put the datachron on top.




Another issue I have with the LED is the lack of diffusion. It’s quite visually obvious that it’s 10 points of light coming up through the bottom rather than having a nice diffused glow like I would have hoped. Although it doesn’t look great in the picture, I think it actually looks even worse in person.

I'm honestly surprised to see something like this from Saberforge. As the LED setup comes out of the box, it looks more like an amateur prop-maker's lazy attempt to light the unit up than it does a finished product from a professional company that specializes in making higher end LED props on a fairly large scale.

If I were another person considering one of these, I would perhaps wait until a new and improved V2 (or MK2 perhaps?) that addresses these LED issues is released.

Hmm, weird indeed that this would be the final product - one would at least assume the LED module would for instance go fully (or halfway) into the Holocron so the light would indeed get diffused into the Holocron instead of bleeding out to the sides.

Sorry to hear that this was not a good purchase, but very thankful that you were one of the first to take the leap of faith and inform us about it. Hopefully SaberForge will take the feedback and perhaps make improvements.