I've decided to start this thread from the end result of spinning, I will upgrade my saber sooner than I planned which is fine with me.
Before I get started, I only spin inside the house or at work where there is carpet or in my backyard where there is grass and soft ground.Sabers that get spun a lot (flow art), tend to get beat up quite a bit due to smacking yourself, the ceiling, wall, objects, the cat, and dropping it. First thing to go are the cheaply made stuff like the battery case but before proceeding further, let's talk about the patient at hand.
My Dark Initiate V4 is my very first UltraSabers and lightsaber. It's what got me both started on my collection as well as spinning although I prefer the Aeon and Dominix V4 versions better but I have sound in mine and rather not beat them up. It holds a special place in my heart and will always do. I'll never get rid of this saber. On to pictures
My Dark Initiate the day that I pulled it out of the box
It sat there with me spinning it here and there until I got really serious with spinning last month.
First to get damaged was my battery case. It cracked on two different points, I glued it back together, replaced the batteries, and then Velcro the case horizontally and vertically so that there's no movement in the hilt. When I'm learning new moves, I tend to drop the saber more often than usual and the casualty this time was.....(drum rolls.........)........... you guessed it! The battery case, I didn't know until it was time to replaced the batteries again. Everything was intact until I removed the all of the Velcro and this is what happens
So I snipped off the rest of the battery case which leaves me with just the AV switch and the LED within the hilt. I then spun for another week to 2 weeks and started to learn some new moves which I started dropping it again. This time, the AV switch got damaged
I tried to fix the AV switch, but it appears that it's stuck so I had to pry it out which I didn't care about the face of the switch cover itself, it's going to get replaced since the switch is broken.
Here's the AV switch shroud and curved piece. The thin wire like piece is a piece of the AV shroud that just fell out (I used a plastic tool so that wasn't me)
Luckily, the glue was pulled from the hilt so all I had to do was push the LED and the rest of the wiring through the emitter's end
Up close view of the electronics for those of you that has never taken one apart before
Look at the glue!
Back together again
I took Deca's idea and used electrical tape to cover the AV switch hole since it has a bit of a sharp edge until new parts come in for me to install. This is how it looks now
Spinning it to test. Feels good
Stay tune for the build of my Dark Initiate as soon as all parts come in.