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!).