TOPIC: Soundboard heating up

Ive run across the issue of my sound board heating up when the battery is installed, also the speaker is clicking after the startup. has anyone else run into this issue or know of why it would do that?

I take the battery out of the hilt when not in used for a "period of time". I am guessing the soundboard draws a small current even when not in use if connected to the battery.

im not trying to store it I'm trying to test the components and this issue is happening

If this happened straight out of the box as new, then please send SF an email. Warranty will cover it.

I'm already in talks with them but was wondering if anyone else has run into this issue also

I've run into the same issues. Does your soundboard get so hot that you have to pull your hand away as you install the battery? I feel that there might be a short or something. Anyway, I've sent the soundboard back under warranty.

I just did some testing on my ASP driver board. It's running at 200mA to 240mA while the blade is off, and one of the chips stays painfully hot (hurts to touch longer than a couple seconds). Idle current seemed higher with lower voltage, so it might be regulated or boosting.


(label appears to say "BPU 621 AE9L")

I assume the board must go into a lower-power mode after a while, because such a high standby current would drain the battery in less than a day, and I still had a little bit of charge left after leaving a battery in for a few days. Not sure how long that takes though, since it didn't happen within 10 minutes and then my fingers got tired of holding leads onto a battery.

Here's a graph of my ASP saber's power use. The test lasted 10 minutes, but I'm only showing the first 2 minutes because the rest is just a flat line at 200mA. I connected the battery, slipped, connected the battery again, let it drop to idle power after boot, turned the blade on (pulse pattern 3, sound enabled), left it on a few seconds, then turned the blade off. After that is standby. My Samsung 20R cell started at 4.06V and ended at 4.03V ten minutes later. Peak power draw was about 6W (on a 12W+ green emitter), but I'm not sure that's accurate because the leads weren't as solid or as short as I'd like so it may be artificially low.


On a modern flashlight, that much current (200-240mA) would put out about 90 lumens, or about an eighth of a light bulb. For comparison, some of my older lights have standby up around 0.3 to 0.6 mA, the latter with an always-on tailcap LED. On newer models we've got standby down to 0.016 mA. So with a Sabercore board idling at 200+ mA, it looks like it doesn't even try to conserve power. It's about 1000X as much power as I'd expect from a sleep mode. It's constantly burning off nearly a Watt as heat, mostly from a single small chip.

That worries me. These ASP sabers really need a kill key.

The tiers with a charge port come with a 3A charger, according to SF's site. This should charge a 3400mAh cell in just over an hour. However, 3A is probably too much for a 3.4mAh cell, especially when it's enclosed and unable to shed heat well. The general guideline is to charge at around 0.5C, meaning 1.7A in this case. Perhaps lower when heat is trapped.

I'm adding kill/charge ports to mine, and plan to charge them with my standalone li-ion charger at 500mA (Nitecore D2). It takes longer, but it keeps the cell healthier. And I'll put in a kill key any time the saber isn't in active use, because 200mA standby is way too high. Perhaps one of those twisty kill keys which can stay inserted during use.

If I can fit it somewhere, I'd also like to put in a speaker kill switch. The sabercore board seems to keep the speaker powered up even in "mute" mode, so it emits a quiet hiss and uses extra power when the blade is on. Maybe that's what you're hearing?

Anyway, probably a good idea to pull out the battery except when in use. Or add your own kill switch.

Thanks for the research and excellent write-up. This is important because there are a few thousand boards out there potentially drawing high current at idle and risking burning out.

Here's a question. In your opinion then, how long can the 12W+ LED be switched on for use (i.e. continuous use without risking frying the sound board)? Assume the battery was placed immediately into its holder just before use in this scenario (i.e. everything was cool to begin with).

ToyKeeper, you put my "seat of the pants" testing mode to shame! But, yeah, I was really surprised that for something that's supposedly "off", and just sitting on the shelf, the battery drained so quickly.

It a shame that, to our knowledge, no one from SF is on this forum. This is valuable insight into the product. Perhaps someone like Brax can pass along this information.

I agree about the speaker kill switch. Aside from conserving power, it would be useful to be able to turn the sound off without going through the settings, at least with the Sabercore boards.

Execute66 wrote: Sorry, I have no idea how long it could run at full power without heat issues. I don't have a way to measure temperature and don't really want to fry my saber.

At absolute full power, the battery should last about an hour. In real use it'll likely last more like 2-4 hours, especially if you have the blade pulse effect enabled. Longer if you use a RGBA emitter with only one or two colors turned on at a time.

The emitters need decent heat sinking at 12W, a solid thermal path from the emitter all the way to the outside environment. On SF's ASP sabers, the heat path seems pretty good except for very minimal contact between the drop-in light module and the saber body. So it might be a good idea to wrap aluminum foil super-tight around the drop-in LED module until it barely fits. But it also might be fine as-is at just 12W. I usually deal with higher-powered lights where the thermal path is much more important.

Otherwise I just found the one chip running hot. Granted, that was with the blade off. It probably wouldn't hurt to put some thermal transfer material between the driver board and the saber body, especially over that hottest chip. It'll make pulling the battery difficult though, so I'll probably wait until I have a charge port wired up.

My Saber, which is about 2 days old, just started acting up, and upon battery installation begins clicking and starting to say "sabercore crimson" but just loops the clicks and "sa-- sa--- sa---"

After reading this post, I found that the chip that toykeeper mentioned was also painfully hot on mine. Not only that, but if I pressed on it lightly, the clicking/looping went away. Release pressure, and the issue returns.

It appears that the excess heat has caused a loose connection in the chip....

You are going to want to e-mail customer service (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ) about this. Anything you might do to remedy this particular situation would almost certainly void your warranty.

Yes, I have no plans to try and remedy this myself. Just waiting on a response from customer service.

I did notice, after my first post, that even gently blowing on the chip returns the saber to normal function for a few moments. 10 seconds later or so, it returns to the looping clicking/startup. I believe it wasn't so much the light pressure from my finger that 'remedied' the issue, but rather the fact that my finger acted as a heat sink, lowering the temperature of the chip.

Does this chip get excessively hot on a normally functioning sound board? Curious if the heat is the cause of my issues, or if the heat itself is the result of a malfunction.

lostinperiphery wrote: FWIW, that can also be caused by a low battery. If you have a DMM, I'd suggest checking the voltage. (also a good idea to check voltage after a battery is charged, to make sure the charger isn't going too far)

Full is 4.2V, empty depends on discharge rate and interpretation but could be anything from 2.7V to 3.3V. Brand new cells are usually kept around 3.7V or 3.8V, and would easily be drained in 2 days even in an idle saber. I've seen boot issues on mine on a low cell, but it's probably nothing to worry about.

This graph should match the cells SF uses:


I'm not sure how long SF's cheapo external battery charger takes to charge a cell, but a typical 500mA charger would take about 7 or 8 hours. Several decent chargers are available for decent prices at Illumn. My favorites include:
* Nitecore D2 (~$14, 2 slots, nice display)
* Nitecore UM10 or F1 ($10, also works as USB power bank)
* Xtar MC1 (currently just $3) or MC1 Ant Plus (~$7)

Unfortunately, I do not have a multimeter, however this battery as well as a few other 18650's I have, all provided similar results. Charged on a Nitecore D4 (purchased from Illumn, coincidentally enough! great site!).

Gave the battery a full charge since the issue arose this morning, and the problem persists. It definitely seems to be heat related, as it takes 20-30 seconds to appear when the battery is inserted into the "cold" board. I've also since noticed that the clicking/restarting momentarily goes away if I gently blow on or touch the hot chip (sinking heat away), and the saber functions as normal for 10 seconds or so until the chip temp rises again and the clicking/restarting returns.

lostinperiphery, did you leave your battery in the battery holder for the two days and then the problem arose?

More or less, yes. Recharged the battery at one point while the saber was still in working condition, and again after the problem arose.