WOW!! JUST WOW!! Ok sorry everybody lol!! WOW!! what a rollercoaster ride, holy indescribable moly lol!
Like this project turned into such a series of unfortunate events haha, i've never been pushed/ challenged like this before, not even close.
Ok so heres why i didn't have time to keep the updates coming in the home stretch- here's the final saga of Ethan's saber lol! I even had to split this post into 2 because it was too long- wouldn't let me post it in one lol.
we left off last weekend with all the port, led and accent wires run and out the switch hole, and the board side about to get cleaned up before put inside and joined with the rest.
wiring cleaned and batteries secured in.
shielding all secured around board etc.
and finally, it's time to slide the board side in. Now i have all the wiring in place and it simply needs to have all the excess trimmed and connections made.
This took me all the way till Tuesday. had to call it a day at that point and get a few hours of sleep before work.
i came home from work that following day determined to have this thing finished since it had become Wednesday lol, and Ethan's last treatment (the occasion for this hilt) was friday- so in my mind i needed it done Wed so that i had thursday to clean it up and put everything together nice etc, not to mention i figured Charlie might wanna grab it before the actual day.
so the name of this game was intensely staring inside through the switch hole with a light shining in and visualizing exactly how to fit everything. it's not always as simple as triming the slack out- sometimes i had to leave more wire to save space, to allow it to rest better/ deeper, especially wherever resistors were connected, sometimes you're actually better off leaving a little more slack if that leaves the bulkier parts of the wiring back inside the hilt out of the way more- hard to explain but the key is in thinking things out a few steps ahead like a chess game or something. you spend a lot of time just positioning wires prior to connecting and eliminating space waisting tangles and overlaps etc. and making sure that whatever you're doing now, and where you're planning on putting it, won't become a problem 5 steps from now lol. ton of time pushing wires back inside the hilt and fighting to reposition them and fish them back out prior to connections so they're not ending up all knotted/ crossed etc.
like here:
it took like 45 mins just to get those blue and brown wires (led channel) to that side of the hole and not mangled up in the rest before i could even do anything with them lol.
little by little i worked my way so that only the port and switch wires were left.
and finally- by about 5pm, all that remained was the switch. and somehow all the careful packing worked out like i thought and the switch could fit unhindered.
So, moment of truth lol... this was a tense moment because i had just spent the last few days on this install, and i had one day left as far as i was concerned- so no time for anything but clean up and presentation really. This had better work lol.
SWEET!!! look's good! now i'll just fire her up, and...
...AHEM! i SAID, i'll fire it up...
...
...
the foc worked fine, but the main blade was so dull you couldn't even tell the led's were firing at all until you looked right into the module- all diodes were lit, which they totally shouldn't have been, should have just been the green (i preset the emerald before i grabbed it in the first place). Needless to say this was a pretty dark place for me right here lol. even looking at that pic gives me the shivers lol and brings me back there to what it was like. it was messed- something more than just a crossed wire, big time- and the worst part was i simply didn't have time for any of it- who knows how long it was gonna take me just to get stuff out again, it took me till 5pm (was home from work at like 6:30 am), let alone figure out what was wrong/ damaged etc, and what to do about it?! All i could think about was that i was gonna not have this thing on time, it just didn't seem possible, and i was freaking out lol. such a terrible feeling- i was just like OMG i'm gonna let this little boy down
. cause you know no matter how gracious Charlie was gonna be about it, no matter how patient/ understanding etc, the fact would remain that Ethan wouldn't be receiving the saber when we had planned... just like yoda said, do or do not, right? I can't hand Ethan my best effort/ intentions lol. And i just couldn't accept that.
it was wild cause for all the whacky stuff i've done, all the harebrained ideas etc, i've never had this happen before. sure i've fried some led's and stuff like that- but i've never had a failed moment of truth before this- and this was the one time where i just NEEDED it to be good lol, AND it was the eleventh hour no less. So after running the gambit from kylo tantrums to panic attack and back a few times, i crashed hard lol- cause that was just about a 24 hr day at that point (not to mention every day since the weekend had been nearly the same).
Step one: set ridiculous old school london clock co alarm for a couple hours and keep it out of reach so i can't shut it off in my sleep. can't even be in the same room or i simply won't remember shutting it off and going back to bed lol.
Step 2: call in sick to work lol. hey, i'm not encouraging shrugging off responsibilities or anything like that- but my moral compass is pretty clear on this one lol. of all the things i could say, believe me theres a lot if you knew my work, it's as simple as this- fast forward 10 years- is anyone gonna go 'o wow, remember when rev came in and saved our butts here at work that one time?!' or even 'o wow, remember when rev screwed us that one time by calling in sick and we got behind?!' hahhaha!! NNNNOPE. That's like everyday day in that place, it's a circus lol. One day they're up millions one day they're down millions, blahbadyblah blah. It's all nonsense lol.
but in ten years, say my name comes up in conversation- is Charlie and fam gonna be like 'o yeah isn't that the guy who really went the extra mile to do that thing for Ethan?' you bet. to me, the call on which of these things is actually meaningful/ important was a no brainer.
Step 3: Hail Mary- time is the essence- i've got one full day, one night and one day before i needed to be back to work again the next day, and that would bring me to d day. So i was better off just gutting the whole thing outright and starting completely fresh with all new parts- i couldn't risk reusing the stuff i may or may not have pooched lol.
took me all night to just get everything out pretty much lol. by morning i was starting to build again. I had to shoot for something a little more doable this time- both due to time constraints, but also just because i think i tried to fit too much last time, and that was a big part of the problem. I need to keep a little more room this go around so things aren't getting too squished. Plus i ran out of emeralds lol.
So is this all starting to look familiar to everyone lol? well it ought to lol, cause it's like the fourth time i've done it for this saber lol! This RGBW led came from a BR module i had for something else.
popped the wires off the red and threw some on the green- blamo! green with silver foc.
pop it back in our module and wire up another 5mm.
I wired up the green even though i wasn't gonna use it this time- but its there for future expansions at least. gonna do something diff this time with the accent- i spotted an opportunity in the wiring of the board/ speaker that i'll be using this time, and i'm gonna try something with it.
theres the v4 rig i'll be using- taken from one of my pending personal projects. those black and orange wires at the bottom come off the speaker and foc, but it's a diff config than i've been doing for the accent on this the last times. It'll just be red and purple, but it will still be a 3 stage indicator with the second stage articulated through speaker.
getting all that stuff mounted and run into position ready for connecting was a lot easier this time- i must have learned a thing or two in all these redo's lol.
so now here it is with everything awaiting connection- significantly less congestion than last time, that was encouraging lol.
again, i set about connecting and packing everything carefully. By about 4/5pm it was done and ready for the moment of truth, again lol... my hands were literally shaking when i pulled the kill key lol.
SUCCESS!!!! WOOOHOOO!! it's alive!!!
that's the crate i'll be using to help make it a cool presentation, but i'll have more on that shortly.
here's the new accent set up indicating standby.
a very low light- just enough to get the red colour. this is a more true to life indication of the status, as this accent is actually running off the idle current. a few mA.
then when you ignite, it jumps to the 'animated' blaring red of second stage that matches what the sabers doing atm. still rock'n the rgb switch.
3rd stage is purple for foc/ lockup/ overdrive.
first time realizing the chosen one is it's own stand lol. rests perfectly on the covertech and knurls.
love the way the plug looks illuminated.
with a shoto blade in just so you can see it.
trying to catch the foc but not having much luck lol, you'll have to just take my word for it, it's a nice dramatic white flash.
