TOPIC: 501st Vader in need of upgrade

Hi there,

My name is Jeff and I'm one of the Darth Vader's in the Cloud City Garrison in the 501st Legion.


My question, is that I need my saber eventually upgraded if possible?

I own a 2010 F/X ANH Vader Lightsaber w/Detachable blade. I troop with it all the time, but with padawans always wanting to take on Vader, I need a brighter, louder, combat saber. Is there a kit out there or work that could be done to upgrade my saber with these qualities plus have the detachable blade function still?

regards,

SL-20461
CCG

Jeff,

There is a conversion that could be done to put in an in hilt LED and use a duel worthy blade that would be detachable.

That is a service some of us offer as sabersmiths, or also could be something you could try on your own.

SF doesn't sell or offer that conversion kit or the device to convert. TCSS sell the kit, it's about $50-80 in parts depending on what LED you put in and whether you buy or build a blade.

I'll offer my experience from going out as Kylo.

First off, yes, there are options for brighter blades and louder sound. Sadly, it won't be enough.

Sunlight will still wash out the brightest blade. Crowds will still drown out the loudest speaker. You need to go beyond hilt internals.

Best display would honestly be a red polycarbonate day-blade. SF offers a thick-wall, pointed-tip red day blade, but Vader would probably be more accurate with a rounded tip, and you'll appreciate the lighter weight and brighter light of a thin-wall blade. But to make such a blade light up, you'll need to rework the LED system your saber uses.

String blades offer the brightest solution, at the expense of durability. That said, they should hold up fine for trooping, as your current experience with the ForceFX shows. A properly built string blade would be much brighter than your current ForceFX blade, but would require heavy modification or replacement of the stock soundboard. Depending on setup, an LED string blade may or may not retain the current extension/retraction effect. Can be assembled to be removable, similar to the FX blade.

In-hilt LEDs offer greatest durability, and while not as bright as a professionally-assembled string blade, will still be brighter than a stock ForceFX setup. Blade is easily removable since it holds no electronics - held in place by the emitter thumbscrew. In a pinch, a bladeholder for the Vader hilt can be fashioned from a piece of 1" SCH40 pipe, but TCSS sells an aluminum conversion kit that is a purpose-built solution.

Your board and AA battery pack can support a single-Cree easily for a slight increase in brightness. For maximum brightness with a Tri-Cree star, you'd need to modify/replace the soundboard and replace/modify the battery holder to accept an 18500 or 18650 lithium-ion cell.

Sound is still an issue. Hobby boards like Petit Crouton, Crystal Focus, Spark, Spark Color, and Igniter will provide a much louder saber, but it still won't be enough to extend sound more than a couple of feet, and it still won't compete with a croud.

My solution was to install an audio jack hooked into the speaker wires. This lets me run an audio wire into one of the Aker amps I use for Kylo's voice changer. This will be very loud, louder than the mic input, so I need a separate volume control wired to the saber to prevent blowing out the amp. This makes saber effects loud enough to be heard across a convention hall.

What about Naigon's Hornet and Hive products for good sound in a con?

Jas-Ot wrote:
I actually bought a Hornet bundle on Black Friday for that exact purpose. Haven't gotten around to installing it yet as I was refurbishing my first Kylo hilt for sale and keeping the stock board for the second in case I need a rush hilt. Should be able to go into the third.

The sound issue comes down to a 20-28mm speaker being nowhere near loud enough to carry sound over a decent distance. My plan is to eventually replace the audio cables with a Hornet module that will plug into my portable amps. Same principle as my original mod, just without the wire.

Someone could take it even further and build a giant boom box type setup for convention saber battles. Or maybe hide the speakers in a droid.

Mouse droids that are basically just a rolling Bluetooth speaker.... could swarm them...

Hi all,

Or maybe get a couple of Gonk Droid replicas, they could be made into decent speaker cabinets!

For

forget sabers and blasters, speaker droids, that's the next big thing

And Gonk Droids even have a shuffle mode

But seriously I have seen a Gonk modified to be a Saber recharge station so turning one into a speaker cabinet isn't too far fetched.

For