TOPIC: My Son's Saber - Design questions

Here's the initial design sketch, this isn't to scale, just more to get a feel for the design and what may or may not work.



This would be primarily a PVC build.

My son is 4 years old with little hands so I want to keep the hilt pretty straight forward. 1" ID PVC for the length of the hilt, with a leather wrap around it for grip. A shroud at the top with the recharge port, 12mm AV switch, and a 3 or 6 way rotary switch. It will house an RGB LED in a self made HS (Kouri's design) hardwired to the rotary switch for some basic color changing. A Blade Builders sound board and an 18650 battery housed in the hilt, with the speaker taking up residence at the top of the pommel.

Design has some Graflex/MPP influence to it. I'll probably put a D ring on the pommel so it can hang from the belt.

Some questions:

1) best methods for securing the retention screws (I may opt to glue the LED in) in PVC?
2) Internal chassis ideas? Anyoen have an experience with a chassis for a 1"ID PVC and a BB board?
3) pommel attachment methods? I don't want to glue it in place.

Thanks!

1) Brass threaded inserts. They're meant for securing machine screws into wood. 8-32 internal threading for the set screw. Coarse external threading to bite into the material. Depending on your location, they're sold for a 6mm or 1/4" hole. I bought a bunch of 6mm in bulk and use a 15/64" bit to be safe.

2) 1" thin wall blade stock is nice, but 3/4" Class200 PVC works in a pinch. The PVC is too wide to fit inside the 1" pipe though, so you'll want to remove maybe a quarter inch down the length of it so the 3/4" pipe can compress.

3) Conduit aisle is your friend. Pipe is more durable. Fittings are cheaper. Threaded couplers screw together without Teflon tape. You'll need three pieces.

a) Female threaded adapter 1" (conduit)
b) Male threaded adapter 1" (conduit)
c) End plug 1" (plumbing)

Drill some sound vents into the flat face of the plug. Cement it into the male adapter. You just made a pommel.

Cement the female adapter to the 1" hilt pipe. Ta-da, removable threaded pommel.

Order ignore all that, slap a 1" end cap on, and secure it with a screw.

1) great suggestion, I hadn't though about those. I was looking at those threaded inserts with the "star" pattern to bit into plastic, but those seemed ugly.

I believe this is what you mean:



2) I may have to experiment a bit (this is where I wish I had a 3D printer... ) the BB boards are 1" square?

3) That conduit just might work, especially with the pommel design I have in mind. I was just browsing that isle yesterday at the local Lowes looking at curved sections for yet another idea I don't have any time or money for...

Bingo on the insert.

Though looking at your design, I have a few concerns.

1) SCH 40 makes for a fairly loose emitter. Even with the retention screw, a thinwall blade will work its way out after a few hits. I suggest a 2" blade socket on PVC hilts, so you might need to extend the emitter some.

2) Board in the middle of the hilt will reduce sensitivity - especially on physical sensors. Move the battery to the middle of the hilt and put the board as close to the pommel as you can get it.

3) Not actually a concern, but a helpful tip - a little bit of dremeling away at the ID of the 1" pipe and the Blade Builder speaker will pop in place. If you don't want to glue it in place, you can lock it in place with a a piece of 1" pipe secured in a coupler or endcap - but you'll need to screw the coupler/cap in place on the hilt.

4) EXTRA PLAY VALUE - combining the simple pommel idea with the previous note and a special bonus - after you've taken apart the BB hilt, you'll have a BB connector that's conveniently the same OD as 1" pipe. Dremel off the retaining ring, glue/screw the adapter into a 1" coupler, and pop the coupler on the end of your hilt. Your custom saber is now compatible with the Blade Builder system.

And yeah, board's about 1" square. Can cut a notch in the inner chassis tube to sit the board on top, similar to my ASP hilt: https://saberforgeforum.com/forum/saber-hilt-diy/11333-sentinel-s-rebirth-asp-customization-wip#66553

1) I had a thought about using a piece of 1"ID copper tube inside the emitter section in case that was a problem. I've worked with copper tubing in the past for plumbing inside computers (I used to build custom water cooled gaming PCs) and a 1-2" piece should hold a blade pretty well. My concern would be getting that to fit inside the PVC. I figure I could use a sanding wheel on the Dremel to hollow out the PVC enough to insert the copper. This might even work in conjunction with the 3/4" end cap LED HS if I solder them together, although it would make the LED removal a chore.

2) I was hoping for the battery at the bottom for easier removal, but sounds like the board will have to go at the base

3)That's good to know. I had a an idea about how to acoustically enhance the volume if I could get it to fit inside the 1" ID section. Basically create a small horn inside the pommel to boost the sound level using a funnel and some smaller ID thin tubing.

Extra credit: I'll check that out, might be a nifty addition.

I wouldn't go through *that* much trouble for the emitter. Just make sure you've got 2" blade socket minimum. 3" if you want to be extra careful. If the blade comes out too often, give it a couple wraps of packing tape to tighten it up.

Also, on the heatsink, the 3/4" end cap works great on single Crees and 3W RGB LEDs, but I'd be concerned over popping a Tri-Cree in there - unless you had things wired up to limit the entire star to 1A (A shared Negative with 0.5ohm resistor ought to do, if Red gets a 1N4000X diode on its Positive line - I use a 1N40007 diode on my 3W RGB Red when hooking it up to a BuckPuck or MR board). I don't know that one copper endcap is enough metal to keep a 3A Tri-Cree RGB off-white cool enough for a PVC hilt.

Well, this one will be a sort of test run for another scratch build for my wife, that one I intend to put Tri-Cree's in (Double bladed) so I'd like to come up with a decent solution.

I'll play around at the hardware store and see how creative I can get for heat dissipation.

@Kouri

Have you played with just using regular AAA or AA batteries with the converted BB board?

I'm wondering if it might be an "easier" thing for my son if this build just took regular batteries.

Yeah, I've got what I call "kiddie sabers" - the PVC Luke was an advanced one:



Idea is to build an activation box out of a 3xAAA battery holder so kids don't have to poke their fingers inside the hilt and potentially damage speaker or wiring just to change the batteries.

For my first personal build, I first built it with a lithium-ion, but yanked that out for a better build and swapped in a cylindirical 3xAAA battery holder. They're hard to find on their own, but Dollar Tree carries $1 flashlights that use the piece as an adapter - and it's cheaper than the $2 a piece online shops sell the adapter for. You also get a free latching switch, heh. The cylindirical adapters are nice because, with batteries installed, they're only about 7/8" in diameter, so you can slide a piece of 1" thinwall bladestock over to keep the batteries from popping out. Or just use a few wraps of velcro. Either way, fits great inside the 1" conduit.

AA batteries would give a brighter blade and longer run time (assume under 1000mA out of the smaller AAA cells), but they don't really fit too well. I'd love to find a 1xAA battery holder to build a smaller control box for a 14500 cell (thinking budget Graflex), but I haven't found any with a cover.

Kouri wrote:
Control box, great idea!

I was already thinking of adding one to the design of his saber to give it a more MPP/Graflex look anyway.

You mean something like this:


and build a box around it? Or is there a rectangular version that hold 3 cells?

No, those cylinder ones are the ones I use for in-hilt batteries. The control box is built out of a rectangular battery holders that hold all three AAA cells flat, one next to the other. Ummmm:



You can sort of see it in this unfinished photo. Flat battery box up top. Some shims to adapt it to the underlying curve. Coupler to act as the clamp.

Hold thing started as a prototype for a modular soundclamp.



Idea was to have the soundboard in the clamp with the batteries in the box Speaker nestled in between the two couplers (rear would act as a pommel). Then I could stuff whatever pipe and detailing up front for the handle and emitter.

I think I got it, more like this:

That looks darn close to what I used. I ordered in bulk from DealExtreme. I desolder the switch and solder the wires back to the battery contact. Use the switch hole to run wires down into the hilt.

You can even see the screw hole on the circuit board:



EDIT: Well you could on the original image. Forum compression kind of blends the screw in with the copper...

SPEAKING OF SCREWS

I don't trust just gluing the battery pack on. I drill a hole in the middle battery slot, countersink it, then secure the battery holder into the PVC hilt with a wood screw or two for safe measure.

Cool, I think I'll play around a bit with both the rechargeable battery and the standard batteries.

My ides for the control box was to put a 3-6 way sliding switch in there, so instead of using a rotary switch to change the LEDs, just have a simple box switch.

This battery idea would work if I ditch the multi LED approach.

Maybe I'll just make two

Once you remove the on-off switch, there's room in back for a replacement switch - you can dremel out some space so the button/slide pokes out the back.

I stuffed a little tactile switch in back for discreet ignition:

what are the OD measurements on that saber and box?

I'm trying to keep the OD as thin as possible since he's only 4.

I wouldn't go off that one. It was purposely designed with large pieces to compensate a really old (pre-2010) econo board that was a lot bigger.

Darn, I lost my measurement files...

Um, dunno. I wound up machining my own adapter that's the same width of a 1" coupler (~1.6"), and the battery pack's a little thinner than that.

I've got a stock design for Kiddie sabers that keeps all the bulk in back and gives plenty of thin handle space (1" conduit with scored lines) up front. Emitter's just made from a 1" - 1.25" adapter.




Forward coupler with the clamp holds the batteries n soundboard. Back coupler holds the BladeBuilder connector.

I'll have to redo the design a bit, but I think I could make something similar work with what I have in mind for him. I want to do a shroud over the emitter with a cut out along the top (Similar to the fury or disciple). He wants a "Sith" saber so going for a little bit of sinister flair

Any idea what "brand" those dollar store flashlights are?

Nope, just small generic flashlights.

They're sold with just a label, no packaging in the way, so nothing stopping you from unscrewing the pommel and making sure the adapter is indeed there.

Seen them in two styles. One is a small aluminum cylinder, anodized some bright color. Button on the pommel.

Other style is more like a traditional flashlight. All plastic. Big head. Button in the handle.

Dollar Tree is the only ship I've seen carrying them for a dollar. Other shops, mostly hardware stores, have them up by the checkout lanes, but for closer to $6-7.

Dusting this one off.

I'm thinking about using an Acolyte hilt for this build. It would fit my sons hands better than the PVC build I'm thinking of. So the original design is getting shelved for now.

I was still thinking of using a BB board, but the CRAM-FU required might be prohibitive in the apprentice hilt. I'm not sure I could fit that and a battery in there.

Anyone have any experience trying to cram a BB board into an apprentice hilt?