Guardian and Aeon Quick Review

[Drifter25]

I got in my sabers!  I ordered the Guardian, which had everything except the recharge port installed.  I then was entered into the Winter Raffle 2, and won 4th place!  DING!  I had to wait a bit for the Emerald Driver's to get in, as US had a shortage.  Once they DID get in, the sabers shipped and were here the NEXT DAY!  For the record, I DID NOT order any special shipping, it was the standard shipping.  It was delivered to my house while I was at work.  A good friend of mione was nice enough to bring it to my workplace so I could open it here.  So without firhter blah blah blah I'll start talking about the sabers.

They were wrapped very well!  I opened one end and still couldn't get the sabers out since it was so well packed in there, so I had to cut the box length-wise, hoping I didn't catch the sabers.  When I did get them out, the Guardian was immediately noticeable, but the Aeon was my winning prize.  The Aeon came with an Arctic Blue blade, which I love the color of.  The feel of the thing is downrigth amazing.  The balance is phenomenal, and the hilt is just teh right size for a two-handed grip.  It feels nice and sturdy.  I know I could beat the crap out of this thing with no fear of it being damaged.

I opened up the pommel and found the saber was running on standard batteries.  No problem there as the saber has no sound and no emerald driver.  The hilt has the regular activation switch, no AV or lit stuff.  I decided at some point I'll be getting a new pommel, since the one on the Aeon looks rather bleak and I want a vented one so I can upgrade it to an Obsidian.  I'll also be upgrading to an Emerald driver and a lit AV switch, probably blue to match the nice AB color.  I swung the saber around a bit and it was way too much fun.  The blade is nice and bright, and when the light is turned off it's amazing.  I found the blade slightly odd though, as it relects the light at the tip of the blade, making it a noticeable difference.  I can't really explain it any better than that without pictures, but I'll get them to you all.

THEN I got to the Guardian.  Aw YES!  This thing is an amazing saber.  The two handed design fits me perfectly.  The fabrication of this thing is top-notch.  When I turned on the blade, the Obsidian driver was incredibly crisp and loud.  I orderd the Guardian with an orange lit AV button.  It looks sick with the orange button.  I ordered the saber with the Sentinal Yellow blade, pulsing to orange.  Absolutely loved it.  The silver FoC was an amazing pick, and I was totally digging it.  Swinging this thing around and hearing the sounds makes you feel like you're in the movie!

The holes near the emitter allow the color to bleed through adding brillitany vibrant touch to the saber.  Add to that the red 'button' which is really just a big screw and the jewelled gold button, it makes this saber look like a work of art.  The black and silver touch to it allows the use for either light or dark side weapon.  EIther one would work just  fine with that.  I used the Emerald program and began playing with the colors.  I programmed it to go from red to a amethyst color, which looked really awesome.  I then gave it a blue color, sort of in the color of Luke's original blade in A New Hope.  The secondary color was a slightly less blue (more green in it) with the pulse being set to .004 seconds.  It gives it a really cool effect like the blade is actually a saber pulsing.  I tried the Obsidian sound fonts but I'm having issues with it.  I used the Classic fonts and placed a few of those in there, and mixed and matched a few different types.  When starting it up though, the idle isn't working, and the sounds seem to be clashing with each other.  I'm going to have reset it I think.  I will say this, having the Wilhelm scream as the start-up sound is just downright hilarious.

All in all I love both of these.  I'll post pictures when I get home (I'm at work right now).

[Drifter25]

[Drifter25]

Obviously I can't get any of these stupid pictures to post.

[Crowman76]

hope you dont mind thought i would help, not in original order but think they are all showing now 

[Darth Burgaar]

Mate! Nice Pick up! I got a Dominix as my 4th prize in the raffle. I LOVE the orange AV on these sabers, it just looks awesome! no matter if you go Sith or Jedi colors 

Point! + 1

Oh and Point to Crowman for the assist! nice one dude. 

[scraver]

Indeed, point for Guardian. I have one too, also with everything bar the recharge port.
And point for the assist, Crowman.

[Jedijosh]

Indeed, point for Guardian. I have one too, also with everything bar the recharge port.
And point for the assist, Crowman.

I'm quoting scraver cause I'm feeling lazy, and cause my guardian is also set up that way:).
Edit* I just gave everyone points:).

[michael1968]

awesome man glad you like them well check out your pics when you post them im going to order the malice with sound after my English mastiff has her pups well be a few months anyway have fun with your new sabers my friend.

[Drifter25]

hope you dont mind thought i would help, not in original order but think they are all showing now 

Thanks for the assist!  Obvious point!!!  In an update, the Guardian is having issues.  The batteries are maybe loose or something else is going on.  When I turn on the saber, it works great for about a minute.  After that small amount of time the sounds stops, the LED's stop working and the lit AV Switch turns extremely dull instead of it's bright orange.  It doesn't activate again unless I remove a battery and replace it.  So I don't know what the deal is there but it's quite irritating.

[scraver]

Thanks for the assist!  Obvious point!!!  In an update, the Guardian is having issues.  The batteries are maybe loose or something else is going on.  When I turn on the saber, it works great for about a minute.  After that small amount of time the sounds stops, the LED's stop working and the lit AV Switch turns extremely dull instead of it's bright orange.  It doesn't activate again unless I remove a battery and replace it.  So I don't know what the deal is there but it's quite irritating.

I haven't had that happen with mine but I'd guess it's a battery issue, perhaps they aren't charged enough. Could be something else though. As you have only recently received it, would suggest contacting US direct on Monday. [email protected]

[Drifter25]

Ok so a quick update.  After some talking with Ultra, a new set of batteries were sent to me as they were testing as only pushing 3.6.  Ultra got those new batteries to me rather quickly, which was awesome.  Once I had them I charged them all night, just in case.  The next day I inserted them into my Guardian and it worked beautifully!!  For about 10 seconds.

There was a slight 'pop' noise, then I could smell burning WAFER BOARD!  The blade shut off, then randomly turned itself on and off, but with no sound.  I was able to get the batteries out and saw a melted part of the board.  I was not happy.  By this point I was getting extremely frustrated and was contemplating asking for a refund.  I had spent 500 dollars on this thing and it had done NOTHING but give me trouble.  So I contacted Ultra.  Again.

Ultra had me send it in to him, and they replaced the sound board free of charge.  They sent it back to me with yet another set of batteries.  Now, my saber has worked WONDERFULLY ever since.

I normally name my weapons (Remember I'm a former Marine and a current cop in San Antonio), having named my M-16 Yen-Lo-Wang, my M249 SAW was named Isabelle, my original SAPD Duty pistol (A Glock 22) is named Winona which is my current favorite, and my current Smith and Wesson M&P 40 duty pistol is named Sif.  So I was trying to think of a name for the Guardian and my 2 year old decided it for me.  It's 'Daddy's Lightsaber' lol!  Creative.

Anyway, Luke and Abram (my sons) and I have some pretty epic lightsaber battles.  I use the Guardian as Luke, who is 2, swings it too hard and smacks his little brother with it, who is 1.  So I get the Guardian, Luke gets the Aeon (which he loves) and Abram gets either the MR Mace Windu, the Hasbro Vader, or one of the 40 dollar lightsabers.  The 40 dollar ones are much easier for him to handle.  The point is, the lightsabers hang in there very well.  We beat them up pretty significantly and I have no worries about them breaking.  The guardian is starting to show some wear and tear though, and that kind of bothers me.  The red screw on the hilt (looks like a big button) is having the red wear off.  Same with some of the other parts that I thought wouldn't wear off like spray paint.  It still looks good, and frankly it gives the saber character.  It's just kind of disappointing to see.

The programming of the colors works flawlessly.  I usually choose one color depending on what color Luke decides, then I choose the second color to be slightly darker than the first.  I then set the strobe (I forget what it's actually called,the flash maybe?) to .04 seconds on all the options.  This gives the blade a really awesome look like it's the tiny flickering you see in the movies.  I love this color option.

The sound is a bit more difficult.  The Obsidian program is really finicky about how it connects.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  I usually have an error where the program says it can't find the saber.  I just give up because it's not that important.  All I've really changed on the sound fonts is the level at which the saber recognizes movement and impacts and activates the sounds accordingly.  I also changed the default time in between sound activations to make it play the sounds in faster succession.  It seems to work really well.

Lastly, the Aeon.  Lukes favorite saber.  The only beef I have with this one is the LED's seem to be finicky.  The color that it's set at is arctic blue.  I LOVE this color.  The problem comes when the LED's start shining at different brightnesses.  The AB then turns into this kind of ugly mint green color.  I at first thought it was a battery issue, that maybe they were going bad, so I replaced the 4 AAA's.  This fixed the problem for about a day, then it went right back.  It doesn't stay that color, but it happens way too often.  If anyone has any ideas on this I'd love to hear it.

This is pretty much it for the update.  I plan on doing a comparison between quality of the Hasbro Vader and the Guardian.  I'd RATHER do a Chosen One vs the Vader, but I don't have that kind of money to drop on a new saber.  Anyway, thanks for wasting all your valuable time reading this!  Hope it helps someone int he future!

[Racona Nova]

Excellent and precise review, point for that! I have two Aeons in AB w/ Obsidian and I can agree with you 100% - it's just amazing, the hilt and the colour!

I decided at some point I'll be getting a new pommel, since the one on the Aeon looks rather bleak and I want a vented one so I can upgrade it to an Obsidian.  I'll also be upgrading to an Emerald driver and a lit AV switch, probably blue to match the nice AB color.

Just to clarifiy one thing (not that you're disappointed when you want to upgrade your Aeon): The Aeon is one of the hilts that CAN'T house both the Obsidian Soundboard and Emerald Driver. You can only have one board. It's because the Aeon is not as wide in diameter as some of the hilts that can house both.
Maybe this might change later when there are upgrades on the boards (for example combining both boards into one, which I would love to see - then I'll immediately upgrade all my sabers with this new board, and add some AV switches to my Aeons ), but currently only the sabers in the "Emerald with Sound" section on the website can have both boards.

[Drifter25]

Thanks, Racona, I did not know that.  Makes sense though.  I love the Aeon, it works very well as a fast-dueling saber, not like my Guardian which is not-so-quick.

Here's a question you might have an answer to.  The Guardian has the sound board and the Emerald driver.  The problem with the Guardian hilt is to get the dang thing out to plug it in you have to shake the hilt.  Once the batteries come out far enough you have to grab the battery casing and pull it the rest of the way out.  Then, to get the batteries out to replace them I have to use something to pop the batteries out, wedging it between the battery housing and the battery itself.  Between doing all this and plugging/unplugging the USB cords in and out, the boards are coming unglued from the battery casing.  This leaves them extremely loose and I'm worried the wires will come loose.  Do you have any suggestions to keep the boards in place on the housing?  Would electric tape work or would that be a problem since the tape would be touching the emerald and obsidian boards?  Thanks in advance!

[Racona Nova]

No problem, always glad to clarify those things one might not think about at first

For boards getting loose you can use simple double-sided adhesive tape to reattach them. I would not use hot glue since it might be, well, too hot for the boards and can damage them. Or you take duct tape, put it around the pack (make sure to not circle it around the pack but rather follow its shape while you put the tape on, especially in the section where the batteries sit - otherwise you won't be able to take your batteries out again )