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Gladius : a saberforge lightsaber hilt with PC V1.6 install

 
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Ki-Djowac
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Joined: 23 Feb 2012
Posts: 164
Location: Belgium

PostPosted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 2:54 pm    Post subject: Gladius : a saberforge lightsaber hilt with PC V1.6 install Reply with quote

Hi everyone,
Not Blade Runner or Alien (working on something Blade Runner too though atm, but that's for another topic), but wanted to share a Gladius lightsaber build i recently finished. As a big SWTOR fan i couldn't resist this model and liked it straight away as i passed lvl 10 a couple of times with my Jedi chars Smile

So here's a short build overview and what i did with it.

Gutted the orginal 'stunt' install to start over for my own sound install. Gave the hilt a mild 600grid sanding job and polish. Then started thinking internals.

Here's a parts overview :
Lower left corner are the original internal parts that came with it. The switch is latching and i sourced a same size (but shorter) push button instead as this one got damaged while taking the saber apart for it's sound install. Secondly a push button felt a bit nicer too. Lower right the PC V1.6. Upper left remaining screws and rings from the hilt with it's original alu blade plug. Upper right my parts.



Some details on the new custom parts :

1 inch heatsink holding a lux III Royal blue with lens/lens holder. Had a couple of these machined so i could do more projects with this kind of setup. Inspired by Acerocket's design but i added grooves in the main heatsink for wire passage and drilled and tapped M3 holes where needed myself so i could go with any star led which may vary in thickness or not. Remains to be seen as i get more different types of led's in hand.



Next up is a 1 inch 3D printed tactile setup ring as the hilt remains 1 inch until about a bit past halfway through. Grip end is slightly wider. The tactile would be positioned right under the main switch in this build.



Custom designed 3D printed 'white Nylon 12/bronze infused stainless steel combo' kill key. This look in particular is called 'Antique Bronze Glossy'. The idea was to have it match the leather and flow in the design that was already there. Colorwise a bit of a gamble at the time but it worked out pretty good in the end. Smile



3D printed custom tube to house the speaker/pommel inlay, battery pack and PC V1.6. Made a mistake on the design as it needed a cutout for the micro SD holder on the PC 1.6 pcb for example. A few other tweaks here and there i would have done different now that i've done the install. Dremelling gave the solution though, so no new tube was necessary Wink The battery pack is a 2 x LR 123A 2000mAh 3,6V pack with protection pcb. A big shoutout to Daren from JQ for the tip. Gonna use the same batts in my Alliance build. In the end it all barely fits, but it fits so there's no rambling of parts inside the hilt ;D



The install itself was a matter of careful planning, clean wiring etc... as in any install i can imagine. The hilt was drilled and tapped to house the kill plug/recharge port which was pre-wired and placed into position and slowly turned in the hilt. This was done with great care and patience as the pre-wiring also turns of course and things get tangled up really fast if you don't take time for this. The fiddle-fu must have been strong at the time Very Happy Some connections were made at the emitter end of the hilt while pulling back wiring through the switch hole to get the heatsink into position etc ... The area undernath the main switch was empty anyways more or less and was used to roll all that wiring up underneath the main switch area.



Some minor drilling/tapping :



2W speaker setup. The piece of tube was originally attached to the main tube and this is where the dremmeling got involved too for example. Also had to sand out the inner hilt on that end to make this setup fit.



The easy micro SD access. Using the tweezer back end to push against the micro SD card so it clicks and then grab the card.



Some beauty shots :



Some detailed shots. Blade plug is one of our own Force Relics designs, more specifically a 'Black Vortex' blade plug.



So the final specs for this hilt :

- Saberforge Gladius hilt
- custom Force Relics parts inside the hilt
- custom Force Relics kill key
- custom Force Relics blade plug
- 2W speaker
- new 1 inch alu heatsink combo
- PC V1.6 with micro SD access
- 2 x LR 123A 2000mAh 3,6V = 7,2V pack with protection pcb for in hilt-recharge
- Lux III royal blue main LED
- TOR Jedi Echos Of Tython soundfont by Nightstorm purchased at SABERFONT.com - SABER FONT PAGE (The one stop shop, for all your soundfont needs)

Thoughts, comments ? Feel free to share Smile

http://youtu.be/n7rI_o2765Q


Last edited by Ki-Djowac on Sun Jul 22, 2012 2:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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joberg
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Joined: 06 Oct 2008
Posts: 9447

PostPosted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 7:23 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Very good build Cool What I like about this sabre in particular is the leather handle, it's the old- meets- the- new kinda thing
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Ki-Djowac
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Joined: 23 Feb 2012
Posts: 164
Location: Belgium

PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2012 2:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Indeed, and the fact that it's inspired by the lvl 10 SWTOR saber in the Bioware MMORPG. Like bringing the game into real life Very Happy

Edited first post with a new vid.
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joberg
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 22, 2012 2:55 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Love the vid...keep up the good work
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Ki-Djowac
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Joined: 23 Feb 2012
Posts: 164
Location: Belgium

PostPosted: Mon Jul 23, 2012 5:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

thx Very Happy
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