Saber Forum

I'm going to build my first Saber, I have a basic understanding of the electronics but housing them is where I'm finding some confusion.

I have decided on an US empty hilt.

I want to go straight into having an LED and sound.

I have the parts I need picked out but struggling with an appropriate Chassis.

Is there an aftermarket chassis maker for the US internal dimensions?

You can find different parts for building a chassis at TCSS. The Custom Saber Shop. Getting everything to fit correctly in a us hilt may take a little ingenuity. They also offer a plastic holder that can take a sound board and 28 mm speaker together. You would most likely have to think of a way to attach the board to fit however.

I've seen some of the modular chassis parts and how they fit together with certain sound boards.

I'm just not sure if these discs are the same dimensions as the interior of a US hilt.

Yes, as long as you get the discs from the MHSV1 section of the store and you're not trying to put it into a V2 hilt.  Ultra Sabers are MHSV1 compatible, or at least partly.  For the single piece hilts, where just the pommel is removable, the back end is MHSV1 compatible, but then the inside narrows down a ways in.  But, there's enough room for a battery pack, sound board, etc.  You can build a chassis out of MHSV1 chassis discs to go on there.  For hilts where both the emitter and pommel are removable, the entire inside of the body conforms to MHSV1 standards, so you can put a chassis in there as well.  There are a few hilts (the Bane, for example) that aren't fully MHS compatible, despite having a removable emitter, but the store pages say if they're MHS compatible, and which parts are.  IE: it will say "Removable pommel (MHS compatible)" under the Item Description section.

What about V4 hilts?  I'm interested in getting empty Sentinel LE V4 hilts to build 2-3 sabers, and I'm hoping to include crystal chambers in the chassis.  Will the V1 and V2 stuff from TCSS not work in the V4 sabers since the hilt's description says that only the pommel is MHS compatible?

Anything Prophecy and cheaper has a single body hilt, meaning only the pommel unscrews, the emitters are part of the body.  With the V3 and V4 hilts, you can replace the pommel with any MHSV1 pommel you find.  However, that's all you can replace.  Adding a crystal chamber to a Sentinel would require either placing it beteen the pommel and main body or cutting through the side of the hilt somewhere else.