TOPIC: Acolyte Stunt+ Upgrade Diary

I am the lucky owner of a 12w Red Acolyte (Warrior).

I really like stunts for two reasons: They don't freak out my cat, and they are less scary to upgrade.

Avoiding sound meant looking for a way to improve on the basic features of a stunt (without having to pay the price of a sound upgrade). After some searching, I found a custom blade controller (on JQsabers) which has the potential to add the following:

• Fade ON/OFF
• Blade flicker
• “Contact Flash”
• Blade lock-up/Instilock (Uses “Contact Flash” LED)
• Delay off (Hold for 1.2 seconds to turn off)

As all my LEDs are red, I have made the call to NOT implement the CF and Lock-up. I prefer 4LED 100% of the time, over 3LED 95%of the time; with the fourth kicking in on 5% of the time
(If i had a mixed colour LED, I would have been more inclined to make use of this, using the controller to turn 1LED off on clash for a dimmer, but obvious color difference).

To clarify, the features I am implementing are: Fade ON/OFF, Blade Flicker, and Delay Off. I'm calling this STUNT+ (if I had the full set, I'd call it STUNT++)

I have deconstructed the Acolyte and Pre-soldered the controller PCB. Now I am playing the waiting game for JST connectors, a momentary switch, and some shrink tubing.
Also considering adding a low RPM motor... unsure...

Here is the board:


And here is a shot of the empty Acolyte and parts:



The most fun thing about the build so far was removing the Latching switch that SF use on their warriors. Basically I just popped it out from below with a long flat-head driver.

I'll keep this updated as best I can, and provide a video of the PCB in action.

Do you have a link for the PCB? This looks like an awesome diy upgrade. I would love to have the benifits of this PCB.

PM sent

UPDATE

I have learned two things today:

1. The contact flash feature can't simply be ignored
2. The ID of this hilt is smaller than I thought. (

The contact flash thing is interesting. I tested wiring to exclude "CF-". My thinking was that without a circuit, the feature wouldn't work. What I forgot to account for was that the board will auto-dim the main LED by 30% to allow the CF to come through more clearly. As such my clashes will dim; not flash.

I'm now looking for a way to resolve this without either double feeding the negative from my LEDS to both LED- / CF- (I need to test the behaviour on this - might be ok)... or separating my LED into 2x 6W where the 2nd 6W is used for contact flash. (which I originally said I didn't want to do).

I'll experiment when I get home from work and update as this progresses.

EASTER UPDATE:

I experimented with the board for a while, even split my 12w into two 6w to see how the FoC behaved/looked. The board includes an aux trigger to do lockup effects. In fairness it all looked quite good. But having the aux wired seemed to interfere with the flicker in a way I really didn't appreciate.

In the end the solution was to simply remove the impact sensor and ignore all the FoC options.

I've now wired it all up, mounted the PCB on the battery pack with a socket made from sugru, and assembled the saber.

Sadly I ordered the wrong size switch. So I'm waiting on a replacement before I can end this build.

The Saber looks great; the ramp-up/down and the flicker add a great ammount of depth to this stunt.

were do you purchase your diy parts from

He said the board was from JQsabers. I think he is from london and JQsabers is based in Europe somewhere maybe England. The electronics can be purchased here in the states. There many supplyers but
The Custom Saber Shop has most of what you would need.

Thanks