THE Battery Setup for Stunt stabers!

[jhazard]

Just wanted to chime in say thanks for posting such a useful idea.

This evening I finished converting my two stunt sabers over to the cell phone charger.  EASY, and at least on my sabers, the LEDs are obviously brighter.  My Initiate, for instance, is so bright, it actually is now BLUE.  Before, it was always this weak blue/green.  Since it was a christmas present, I didn't know what color the blade was supposed to be.  Well, now, it's definitely Guardian blue, lol.  My red saber is also obviously brighter, (its a stunt built up from mhs and various parts with a 1up red cree led).

Anyhow, for anyone on the fence, don't worry.  If I can solder a few wires and have the leds still light up, anyone can do it.  This is just brilliant, thanks again!

some photos:

The red saber, with usb:





And my modified Initiate with usb, and BLUE led, lol:





My Initiate led color before the swap:

[RevanReborn]

very cool!  thanks for posting.  I think that colour shifting has to do with how it's resistored.  There's more current available from the bank, and the voltage changes ever so slightly as well, so depending what diodes are in a given led and how its resistored the mix could be affected like this.  But the V change isn't gonna be dramatic enough to do harm or anything in a stunt. 

[Master Medwyn]

My first conversion is done!
The Dominix v4 has an even brighter and shiny red blade!
I ordered 2 more banks immediately and will convert the Aeon v4 (CG) and my wife's Dark Apprentice (FO) too.
I'd be happy to do the trick on my silver Prophecy too but I'm afraid it has not enough space in the back of the hilt to have a nearly 2x size battery pack tucked in. Although I can swap its think standard pommel to the one on the Aeon, still it's pretty small inside so I'll leave it as it is.

Thank you for the great tip and all the descriptions, I'm very happy with this conversion, well worth it! A huge point for Nihilus!
(The pics show the progress not the result, at the end I covered the connector with a better load of stuff )

[RevanReborn]

Very nice, medwyn!!  Usb charging opportunities are everywhere, such a handy mod... Great work . point awarded.

[Calculon]

Such an awesome mod. Great job on everyones mods. Points! Excellent work jhaz and med!

[Grey Owl]

My first conversion is done!
The Dominix v4 has an even brighter and shiny red blade!
I ordered 2 more banks immediately and will convert the Aeon v4 (CG) and my wife's Dark Apprentice (FO) too.
I'd be happy to do the trick on my silver Prophecy too but I'm afraid it has not enough space in the back of the hilt to have a nearly 2x size battery pack tucked in. Although I can swap its think standard pommel to the one on the Aeon, still it's pretty small inside so I'll leave it as it is.

Thank you for the great tip and all the descriptions, I'm very happy with this conversion, well worth it! A huge point for Nihilus!
(The pics show the progress not the result, at the end I covered the connector with a better load of stuff )

Where did you get that from?

[Master Medwyn]

Thanks guys for your support!

Where did you get that from?

You can buy these battery banks (of that's what you're looking for) on amazon and ebay. 5000 mAh capacity is considered to be the smallest kind so it's also the cheapest (and at least it's small enough to be tucked into the back of some hilts).

[Grey Owl]

Thanks guys for your support!

You can buy these battery banks (of that's what you're looking for) on amazon and ebay. 5000 mAh capacity is considered to be the smallest kind so it's also the cheapest (and at least it's small enough to be tucked into the back of some hilts).

Thanks. I will get one eventually to use withmy first saber.

[Calculon]

As some people will have probably noticed I'm a bit of a battery life freak I've been posting around a lot to find out solutions to batteries for all day trooping and general ease of use.

Well FINALLY I have the answer to ALL of these problems (or so it would seem after initial testing)!!

If you have a stunt saber with EITHER the standard set-up 4xAAA (4.8-6v) with a resistor, OR the Li-ion Buckpuck setup this should work (Works on my Buckpuck stunt and Resistor grab bag sabers). What you CANNOT do is directly drive the LED's with this because it runs at 5v output it will probably kill your LED.

So down to the nitty gritty, what is this all mighty battery? Well simply put its a lipstick shaped USB mobile phone charging bank... yes you heard me a USB mobile phone charging bank... it pumps out 1.5A @ 5v and has a 5000mAh capacity, so should do nicely for ~5hours of continuous use!

The big bonus is that it pumps out the 5v, meaning that you don't need to alter the resistor or buckpuck - like you mostly have to do if you run a single 18650 Li-ion setup (because that only outputs ~3.7v). Compared with a single 18650 hooked up to a 1000mAh buckpuck on a TRI-CREE setup this USB Battery bank is FAR brighter - due to the higher voltage being able to actually drive the buckpuck properly.

So how do you do it, well its pretty simple. Cut the wires to the existing battery pack (there are only two - the red and black. Red is your + and Black is the -). Then solder the Black wire to a USB connector at the Ground/Negative end and solder the Red to the +5v connector.



I suggest buying something like this: (im waiting on them arriving so I cut the one in the photo from an old USB cable.)



The Battery bank:



Battery Bank in a Sentinal V4 - note this is not pushed all the way in!! I also have thick velcro on the inside of the hilt which makes it a very snug fit.



And side by side comparison of Fully charged Battery Bank vs Fully charged 1x18650 3400mAh battery (both with Buckpucks and identical TRI-CREE Fire Orange LED's).




As you can see from the pictures the USB bank is MUCH brighter... in fact when I did another test it was still brighter than a 2xAA Li-ion setup... which is good!

The Battery banks are cheap as well, I bought four from Amazon and they were £6.99 each (~$10)... which to me was excellent value, I already have a soldering iron, solder and heatshrink but to buy those your looking at maybe £15-20 and then you need the USB connector ends which I got a pack of 10 for £2.99...

Overall a conversion which was cheaper than buying a load of 14500 Li-ion batteries or NiMh AAA's... and cheaper than the 4 18650 batteries I bought... wish I'd thought of it sooner!!

Dimensions of the Battery bank is 2.8"x0.8"x0.8" and it fits with a good 3-4mm each side in the hilt (so some thin fluffy side velcro will hold it perfectly to stop rattles!).

Way overdue; POINTS! Thanks for taking the time and sharing. I will post mine here for sure. I'll occasionally get left over swag bags from business cons and get a bunch of these. Pretty sure I know where 2 are, 1 for sure. Really excited to get this working lol.

[Master Medwyn]

Round 2 has done, I bought 2 more battery banks and modded two other stunt sabers.
Again, pretty straight forward job and the results are great.

There's one thing I think worth mentioning: with the new battery banks installed I can feel the hilts warming up when the sabers are switched on. I guess it's the LED itself. Funny thing is that the BR Dominix LE v4 is somewhat exempt from this effect while the identical Aeon V4 warms up. Also does the Dark Apprentice.
Another thing I recognized that the new power supply brights up the CG quite much and now I rahter have an Emerald green saber Which I actually like so that's fine - no colour change on the others.

Here are some pics of the modded sabers: Dom LE v4 in BR, Aeon v4 in (used to be) CG and Dark Apprentice v4 in FO.





This pic below shows the windowed emitter of the Aeon - I like how the FO echoes back from the hilt



Again, thank you for all the help, I'm very happy with this conversion!
I wish the battery bank was smaller so I could put one into the Prophecy too...

[RevanReborn]

Great work medwyn!  quite the arsenal you've got there . 

[Hardly Ideal]

I guess I really should use this for my scratch build. It sure beats the floppy in-line battery pack I was trying to make. Should make the goofy power pack I have on mine look better with a charging port, too.

And while I'm at it, I might even be able to use USB connectors instead of those Molex ones I've been trying to use. For whatever reason, I could never get those to crimp right and I get an unreliable connection as a result. I'm not sure if USB is the best connection choice for sabers, but it should definitely be easier and more readily available.

But... this is safe for stunt sabers, right? I'm not as learned in my small electronics as I should be, so I'd like to make sure first. I'm currently using a single silver LED with the regular resistor and x4 AAA battery pack.

[RevanReborn]

Did your led and it's resistor come with that aaa pack? If the led came resistored for that (6V), like a US stunt, then your all good- power banks put out 5V. 

See that pic in my sig?  That's a power bank- dressed up with circuit card and 5mm led's inside a cutout in the grip section of a sentinel.  I'm still working on it- I'm running USB recharge in hilt as well- but that's just cause the bank's use USB ports, and it's an easier, sturdier connection than anything else you could use- you could even solder your lines right to the pins on the female USB port on bank- you can easily hack the end off your USB charge cable and replace with any type connecter you want tho.

[asrah]

This looks like it would be a good thing to do for conventions. My Phantom V4 stunt staff would appreciate it! Anyways, are the wires in a USB cable able to be hooked up to the corresponding wires in the saber? I would think so, but i dont know if the wires have a different ground or what not. It would make things immensely easier to just splice wires than to do soldering. I have a few USB cords i never use, and i can find the power banks for as low as $5 on sale at walmart.

[Hardly Ideal]

This looks like it would be a good thing to do for conventions. My Phantom V4 stunt staff would appreciate it! Anyways, are the wires in a USB cable able to be hooked up to the corresponding wires in the saber? I would think so, but i dont know if the wires have a different ground or what not. It would make things immensely easier to just splice wires than to do soldering. I have a few USB cords i never use, and i can find the power banks for as low as $5 on sale at walmart.

I was just testing this yesterday and they absolutely work. It was tricky because the wires were so fine, but I think that's because I was using a cable normally intended for phones. I don't know if other USB cables have thicker wires, but it should definitely be doable. As for which wires, they should be the left-most and right-most ones, one of which is silvery with no insulation.