Disclaimer: I totally voided the warranty on my Aeon V3. If you're thinking of doing something like this with a saber that's still under warranty, that needs to be considered. Ultrasabers' 1 year warranty covers any electrical faults, not anything that you do by trying to modify things. To say I know what I'm doing is an understatement. I've wired dozens of sabers, from stunts to complete sound installs from parts. I've never done anything with pixel blades because I'm not fond of that tech, but when it comes to in hilt LEDs with or without sound, I know what I'm doing. I'm not saying people shouldn't try this, I'm just saying: know the risks and be prepared to either fix any mistakes you might make, or pay someone else to do it.
So, one thing I used to love to do but don't really do much anymore is to order high end hilts in a stunt configuration and then upgrade them to sound. When it comes to low end sabers, I generally prefer stunts or to do my own custom sound installs. However, when it came to the new Ultraproffie board, I bought two sabers right off the bat with that setup. One was the Azure Fallen in with the Ultraproffie and Ultrapixel setup. To try the in hilt LED configuration, I ordered an Aeon V3 in the Ultraproffile Lite with the RGBW in hilt LED setup. That's all well and good, but that setup deserves to be in a higher end hilt and the Aeon needs to be available to just mess around with without having sound. So, I decided to swap the Ultraproffie to my Empress and the Pyrestone Orange stunt setup from the Empress to my Aeon V3. This is what I started with:
A couple hours later:
It was a pretty straightforward swap, but I did make a few mistakes and I spent way too long looking for my electrical tape.
(note to self: put it back in the toolbox) The Empress has way less internal space, so I really had to shove the wiring down in there. If I were to do it over again, I would have shortened some of the wires. I didn't have to solder the board or anything because it was already wired. In fact, I took the tape off thinking there would be a wiring harness underneath like on the Obsidian boards, but the setup was a bit different. Since that was a moot point, I just cut and spliced the wires. Then I re-wrapped it in electrical tape (hence, needing to find my tape.) With the next one I do, I'm not going to bother unwrapping it.
Also, I've never before or since opened up an Utrasabers stunt and had it running on two AA batteries. That's a first. When I got it, I thought maybe they were doing a different setup for stunts. But, when I got other stunts afterward, they all were running on four AAA batteries.
And, speaking of the next one, this is what I'm going to swap after lunch:
