This is my review of the new Ultraproffie board. Note: it’s not a review of the sabers themselves, I’ll do those separately, but just of the board itself.
I have three sabers with the new board in them, from two separate orders. They’re these sabers:
The Aeon and Dominix both have Utlraproffie Lite with an in hilt RGBW LED and 36” midgrade blades. The Fallen has the Ultraproffie Lite with the Ultrpixel setup. I’m going to do this review by talking about what’s good and bad on this new board, what’s just okay, as well as some other thoughts.
The Good:
Lots to talk about here. I have to start with price. For what you get, nobody else is touching Utlrsabers when it comes to the price of this setup. Even before the sale that was on when the Ultraproffie was released, the price of the Fallen with the Ultrapixel setup was great compared to other saber smiths. Also, I love that you can decide to have a saber built with the RGBW in hilt LED, as most smiths doing Proffie board preinstalls always sell them with pixel blades. Not only does the battery last longer in the RGBW setup, but this also adds a less expensive option. And that’s how Ultrasbers thinks. Instead of assuming everyone wants the same setup, they figure they’ll give people options to fit different tastes and budgets.
Next on the list is the features. 16 fonts preinstalled with more able to be added easily. I’ve not messed with adding any, but they’re there. Not only are there more fonts than we had with Obsidian, but they also have multiple sounds for the same event, such as activating and deactivating the saber. Also, there’s a music or talk track that can be activated on the fonts by holding down the button. There are also loads of color presets to get the blade whatever color you want. Or, if you don’t want to go with the presets, you can hook up to a computer and use the web software to change it, I also haven’t done that. But, I did hook up to the computer running Linux and I was able to use the web software, which was great. This is another improvement over the Obsidian boards, as Obsidian required proprietary software running on Windows or Mac OS, while Ultraproffie uses Google Chrome, which is available for any OS. And, of course, the other features like smooth swing and various other motion effects are nice. Stab and tip drag are cool if you have a saber with the pixel blade, and of course you can do different blade effects with the pixel setup. The Fallen in the pics above has the Final Fantasy font enabled, showcasing a multi colored blade, made possible with the pixel setup. But, the Aeon and Dominix can still do things like flicker and pulse with the in hilt LEDs. The onboard menu is nice for changing things like color, brightness, volume and sensitivity.
The Bad:
Really only one thing to talk about here, and that’s where all three boards have a bit of a static crackle in all of the fonts. With some fonts it’s less noticeable due to the sounds used, but it’s there on all three boards, so it’s not a one off issue. Hopefully, Ultrasabers will do a revision that cleans this up in the future.
The Okay:
I’ve noticed on all three boards that they’re finicky when it comes to reinserting the battery. Often, the board doesn’t boot right away, and there’s a delay. However, it often won’t boot at all after inserting the battery, forcing me to either move the battery around in the holder or take it out and put it back in. Also, batter life is decent on the pixel saber, better than my Obsidian with Ultrapixel setup saber that I have. And I have the higher capacity battery on the Obsidian setup, but not with the Ultraproffie setup. So, you get more runtime with the new Ultraproffie. However, the board still doesn't have a sleep mode. So, your saber can be running fine, then you set it down for a few hours or a day or two, and you come back to a dead saber that needs recharged. Sleep mode helps cut down on batttery drain when the saber is idle.
Other Thoughts:
I’m looking forward to this tech eventually being available in the store to buy and install on sabers I own already. I really like the new board and I want to install it on other sabers. Another note on the battery thing. As I said, your batter has a limited runtime, particularly with the Ultrapixel setup. If you’re at a con or other event, you won’t have a saber that will last all day. However, with Ultrasabers, you get a removable battery, allowing you to pack extra batteries. With a lot of other smiths, you have to have in hilt recharge. So, if your battery dies, you have to plug it in and charge the saber for hours. However, Ultrasabers gives you that battery swap option, which allows you to have more than just a big stick that doesn’t light up if you’re at an event all day. That’s really nice. Again, Ultrasabers thinks of things that other companies don’t.
I had two assembly errors that were easily fixed on my sabers with the new board. First, I initially tried activating the Fallen and I got sound but not light. I thought maybe the battery was going dead, so I pulled it out and charged it, but it didn’t take long because the battery was actually pretty full. I put the battery back in and got the same result. I decided to loosen the set screw and see if the blade wasn’t in fully. This was the culprit, as I was able to push the blade in an inch or more until it contacted blade connector and then the saber worked fine. Ulrasabers assemblers need to be more careful about this with pixel saber builds, as they’re not like in hilt LEDs. This also tells me they didn’t test the saber after they assembled it, which is bad. The other issue I had happened on both the Fallen and Dominix. After I solved the blade issue with the Fallen, it was still exhibiting erratic behavior. I finally took the electronics out and inspected things. I took the battery out and saw the MicroSD card flopping around. I didn’t have this on the Aeon, so I took a closer look at the Fallen. When you put the MicroSD card in, you have to push it down slightly toward the negative terminal on the battery holder until you hear an audible click. Whoever assembled the saber didn’t do this, which is why the card was flopping around. When I got the Dominix, I checked for this and when I pressed down on the card, I heard that click. So, neither saber had the MicroSD card properly inserted.
Final Verdict:
This board is a big win, in my opinion. In fact, I loved it so much after buying the Fallen and Aeon in one order that I turned around and bought the Dominix with a setup like the Aeon. There are a couple minor things I’d love to see them tweak, but the positives far outweigh the negatives. I’m glad to see Ultrasabers changing to a Proffie setup and offering it with the usual set of options that longtime consumers such as myself have come to expect from Ultrasabers. In my opinion, there’s no reason to buy a Proffie board from anyone else.
If you made it all the way through by very verbose review, thanks for reading.
