TOPIC: Please Help Me

I ordered a champion weathered Exhalted with the 12w upgrade in medium blue from Etsy. I love the hilt. The weight and detail are fantastic.
However the brightness was disappointing to say the least. I believe it has a 6w or defective 12w system
I've let it charge until the light turns green multiple times during my testing so all pictures and video comparisons are on a full charge. The light distribution is correct just not at the levels I have seen from the other thin neck sabers others have posted. My blade is 32 inches vs the 37 most have.

I have emailed saberforge and the answers I received about my concerns were a bit dismissive. All I was told was the thin neck sabers have a reduced light output due to the placement of the LEDs. They also wrote the you can't see if a thin neck saber is turned on outside during the day. Even in overcast conditions.

I'm asking for thoughts of those that own or have seen thin necks in person. Is there a way for me to test/check the LEDs without voiding my warranty?





Comparison between SF and stock 2005 MR with old batteries



Also this fell out of the saber shortly after unboxing.

The Saberforge team usually does a good job with solving issues like this. If there's no problem with the 12 watt brightness here I guess that is a little disappointing. I ordered my redeemer in a 12 watt medium blue and that should be here in a few weeks. Hopefully this gets resolved before then, but if no I will post pictures for you to compare yours with. Wish I could be of more assistance

Mario will probably be more help than me, but that does look kinda dim. Could just be the camera, though.

In a normal saber you can see if all 4 dice are illuminating by taking the blade/plug out and shining the light against a plain, flat surface at varying distance. You can see the individual lights in the projection. That being said, I don't know that you can see that from a thin neck. I don't own any. I'm thinking it wouldn't work due to the whole... neck... thing... Mario would know for sure.

It's also not easy to remove the LED from thin necks so it would be a pain to remove the module and test it... I don't really know what I can suggest. Sorry.

I will be watching this topic with interest, as I have a Champion Exhalted in Arctic Blue on order.

That sucks dude, that's the dimmest picture I've seen (with the lights on) so far.

As far as measuring the LED, if you know someone with a light meter so you could measure the lumens it's putting out. I believe a 12W LED should put out somewhere around 800-1000 lumens. However, there is a bit more than meets the eye to getting this measurement, so probably not going to be an option.

* Also I should note that I'm not the best electronics resource , and I don't know all the details of what a typical SF 12W actually outputs, so even if you did measure it may not be a true comparison.*

Unfortunately you are probably going to have to wait until you hear back from someone who has a lot more experience with this.

There is one thing I though of... maybe you have a dud battery. Get a new one, try that fully charged and compare. If nothing else you have a spare battery if thats not the fix.

Brax wrote:
I too will be all over this one... I'm on the verge of ordering once I finally nail down the color I definitely want... (and also if I will do Hero edition or not... so many choices).

I would think that the 12w should blow the FX out of the water. I don't own a thin neck but my avenger is so bright it drowns out my fx sabers when they are side by side. Just about to put money down on an exhalted champ green now leaning towards the guardian after this!

Moe, you might be able to look down the neck of your Exhalted to see if it's a 12w or 6w. I just did the same on my own 12w Exhalted, and you can see that there are four distinct orange dies on the LED module (I have 12w amber, which has orange/red dies). It may be harder for you with 12w blue, since the blue dies on the LED are clear, but see if you can look down the neck and see four dies instead of two. Two dies would indicate only a 6w LED.





If you can make out 4 dies, try shining the light onto a flat white surface. If it's an even circle, then nothing is wrong and you have a fully functioning 12w LED. If you can see 4 distinct dies and the light is not an even circle, then there is a faulty component somewhere on one of the dies in the LED and that is something SaberForge's warranty will fix for you.

Thanks Mario. I'll try this when i get home. How does the level of brightness look to you?

Your second picture in the daylight looks disgustingly dim, but the other two don't look terribly bad. It's so incredibly hard to judge these sabers via camera, when I bought my first saber I had no idea that it wouldn't look exactly like it did on camera, and I was quite disappointed that it didn't actually look like a solid white blade with a pulsing aura of blue around the white core. I had no idea that cameras can't pick up the look and colors of these high powered LEDs properly. I have since learned, of course

That being said, here's a comparison shot of a 12w red Justicar, a 6w red converted MR Vader, and a stock MR Vader I took a few weeks ago. The 12w looks much brighter, especially on camera, but keep in mind also that cameras sometimes lie…

So a bit of an update. I was told by saberforge that I did indeed get the 12w. They have yet to tell me that is normal for my blade to be that dark. All they keep saying is that the thin necks are dimmer. They have yet to address the piece that fell out.

I followed Mario's suggestion about checking for a round light. This is what I got. It is brighter than this, but the pic gives the best representation of what I'm seeing. I believe that is a dead spot.

Yeah that looks kinda funky. I'm not at liberty to say if that's normal or not. I feel like we're Princess Peach right now just waiting for Mario to come save us.

I just got a champion exhalted in a trade, 12w, deep blue. My blade is definitely brighter than your pics... especially the daytime one. It is dimmer than my gladius or Disciple, however. I think you may have a faulty led.

Can you share a photo of your LED projection like Moe posted? Just for comparison.

Mine isn't a thin neck but this is my 12W green. Pretty solid beam.

Here's a shot of my exhalted projection:



And for comparison, here's a shot of my disciples projection, in the same led strength and color:

Thanks. And yip, Moe's ain't looking quite right. Bummer.

Yeah. I would email SF and include either a link or the comparison images to give them a clear idea of what the problem may be. That's just my thought process tho

I sent saberforge an email today with the pic I posted yesterday notifying them I was sending it in for repair. They responded promptly apologizing for the malfunction and that they will repair or replace the LEDs.
I guess I should have done that from the start instead of asking if the condition of mine was normal.

Good to hear

Really happy you gave us all a follow up, I was so bummed out when I saw how dim it was. I'm not sure if you said what blade size you chose, but you should try a 32" blade if you haven't already. From what I've heard, the shorter blade makes the saber seem a lot brighter than what it actually is. I just emailed them today asking if I could change mine from a 37 to a 32 lol