TOPIC: Hero tier swapped red - blue diodes soldering

Hi! Nice to become the part of this community!

I've stumbled upon a weird problem - I've just yesterday received my Avenger Hero tier lightsaber with RGBA setup and everything was awesome until I got into the settings - that's when I've discovered (to my horror) that when saber says "red" I, in fact, change the intensity of the blue diode. Same goes for blue - when I change the blue's setup it's really dimming and brightening the red one.

I'd send it to be fixed, but because of SaberForge's kinda stupid warranty policy I'd have to pay for the postage (which in my country varies from 50-150 bucks to send it to USA). That'd be like 1/4th value of the saber and when it'd come back I guess customs would also add it's own part making it be as pricy as buying the whole new board and replacing it on my own.

Also I don't really want to tear it open to resolder it myself as it would void the warranty and I don't really know how to open that tightly packed body anyway.

Is there a "softer" way to remap the diodes configuration? Maybe in some kind of config file or new firmware settings?

Long story short, the board's default files expect a Blue/Green/Red Tri-star, while SF is using a Red/Green/Blue/Amber Quad-Star and forgets to replace the default config.

The SD card in your Hero saber should have a pdf with instructions on editing configs properly. The actual utility can be downloaded from the manufacturer's website:

http://www.saberigniter.com/downloads/SC2R3Editor.zip

Edit: The link provided above may cause issues, as it's for the R3 release and SF is still using the R2 boards. There's some new features with the R3 and I don't know how it will behave when trying to save it to an R2 board. You can find the files for the SC2-R2 on the "Downloads" page of the NEC site (in the right-hand column), rather than the page for the board.

The saber should be wired as RGBA order. The problem is that the voice menu and PC config edit program are set as BGRA order for the Spark Color 2 - R2.

Are you using the in-hilt voice menu "Spark Colorset Editor" to do this, or are you using the PC program "Spark Color Config Editor"? (which I believe the install files are included on the SD card)

If it's the voice menu, you will just have to deal with it and remember that "red" is actually "blue" and vice-versa. On the PC program you can go to Options > Color Settings and change the order temporarily. You will need to do that every time you use it though, if you want an accurate preview in the "Spark-ulator".

I just downloaded the SC2-R3 (new update as of a month ago) software onto my work PC and it seems to be defaulted to the proper RGB order now; can't confirm the voice menu though. No idea when SF will run out of their R2 versions and start stocking the R3.

Soooo, theoretically I _could_ resolder it and it would make it more comfortable to use it, like, all the time?

And I guess if there are no more updates released for the R2 version (which is quite a disappointment, when you pay 6-7 hundred bucks for something) there's no hope that R3 will get "ported" to R2, right?

If only Naigon from the SaberIgniter released the sources to the board's software I wouldn't have any problem to fix that. I was even searching for the sources yesterday as it was written inside each package in the License.txt file that it's open source (na-ah Naigon, it is not, if there are no sources released).

I'm using mainly the on-saber menu and manual editing of the .ini files on the SD card as I own the Mac and using the Spark Editor via the CrossOver/PlayOnMac is pain in the you-know-what.

That's stupid though to solder it in a reverse way. Green and amber are soldered properly and that's why I'm like "but why?"

@KelbornX - have you had any luck trying to run it on the R2? I've tried (mistakenly) yesterday and it refused to start up, had to download the R2 default files.

And thanks for the tip about changing the color order in-app. I haven't found that feature earlier, though when I've read your post for the first time I was like "holymoly, there's a way", though later it turned to something more like "damn, there's not".

You could simply swap the wires from C1- and C3-. That would however void the remaining warranty with SF, and cracking open the hilt in-general it a bit of a chore. I do agree it's a bit odd that SF doesn't wire it the way the board is setup.

Try PMing Naigon on FB or sending him an email. He might be able to help you out more than we can. You may be able to send the board to him for a firmware update, but I'm not sure. I need to watch the R3 release video again to see what he said about that. And again, doing that would void the warranty from SF.

And no, I haven't tried to run it on the R3 (?) files. I actually haven't touched the settings on my only Hero saber for months lol. My Hero is the old style of 6w/6w, Royal Blue and Green (Arctic) for me. So I just dealt with the "blue" being "red" until I was done mixing my colors.

Well, I've dealt with it the simplest way I could have. I got over it. I've just finished setting mine up to my liking and honestly? I'm pretty satisfied with the results, though that was a bit odd experience every time I heard "red" and knew I'm going to change the blue.

Also - I've watched the R3 release video before even playing with my saber and unfortunately Naigon said that these boards are non-upgradeable (firmware) even though the hardware is pretty much the same. He said something like "if you've bought the board within the 3 months of the release I'll replace it for free, it has to be untouched though". So in this particular regard I'm out of luck, but hey! At least I know that swapped colors are not a defect

I think it should be said somewhere in the FAQ or anywhere on the forum and I wasn't able to find ANY piece of information about it.

I feel like someone with a Hero saber could just adjust the config themselves and then email a zip to SF customer service to put it on all the new Hero sabers from here on out. It's a recurring issue.

I've never bothered because I tend to stick with Spark or Igniter.

Though I'm sure the R3 editor works fine with an R2 board. I remember chatting with Naigon about it fixing a drive bug in the R2 editor.

As for the upgrade, SparkColor2 was, actually, intended to be user-upgradeable, and I think the R1>R2 update worked just fine. The trouble is that R3 is such a complete overhaul in the code, the R2 bootloader can't handle an SD update, so the firmware has to be manually flashed directly to the chip.

I'll see about opening up the editor to tinker with a default SparkColor package to tell you what values to change in the config files. Alternatively, you can just find the menu wav files and rename the blue and red files accordingly.