Introduction

This might seem a little weird on a website for radio controlled hobby products, but I recently built a custom lightsaber and it required many of the same tools and skills we use in the RC hobby. I had such a great time making it, that I wanted to share and our DIY Electronics section seemed like a good fit. If you are a Star Wars fan at all then you might be interested in making one yourself. It's really fun!!

Video

KR Sabers Flagship Lightsaber with Verso Sound Board (6 min 49 sec)

Parts Used

Here's an extensive parts list of what I purchased for this project.

• KR Sabers KRS V2 Flagship DIY Empty Hilt $82.29
• Verso V1.0 FX Lightsaber Soundboard + 16GB Micro SD $37.18
• GOTH-3D KR Sabers Flagship FDM ECO Chassis $17.43
• Keystone 18650 Battery Holder – For Button Top 18650 Battery $4.65
• 12mm Black AV Illuminated Momentary Switch White Ring $4.36
• ShtokCustomWorx NPXL LED Strip PCB Holder – Hilt Side – 1″ – LONG PINS $7.74
• ShtokCustomWorx NPXL NeoPixel LED Connector PCB Kit - LONG PINS - Unassembled $18.59
• 2W 28mm 8ohm OD Bass Speaker $5.81
• 470ohm 0603 SMD Resistor X2 =$0.50
• Sony Li-Ion 18650 3.7V 15A 3120mAh PCB Protected Rechargeable Battery $15
• Skinny LED RGB Strip - Addressable, 1m, 144LEDs (SK6812) X2=$59.90
• 1" Thin walled Trans White PolyC 40" long $10.25
• Foam tube for 1" thin tubes V2 $9.50
• 1" Thin Walled Pixel Blade Adapter $4.00
• 1" Thin walled Trans White parabolic Pixel blade tip $6.50
• 40" LED blade diffuser for 1" thin walled blades $3.95
• Genuine Cowhide Leather Wrap $7.00

Total Cost ends up a little over $300 with shipping. You'll also need some wire, a soldering station and an 18650 battery charger if you don't already have those items laying around your shop.

The Fun Part - Building Your Lightsaber

This isn't a how to article, but I did want to document the build process in photos so others could see how it was done. It's pretty simple to do and just requires some basic tools and some soldering skills.

• The main parts for the hilt construction
• Parts for making the LED blade
• This is an in hilt LED connector that the blade will make contact with to light up.
• Soldered the pins in place
• Pins are spring loaded
• Soldered 2 positive leads, 3 negative leads and 1 data lead to the board
• Connector housing and light diffuser
• Assembled and ready to install
• The connector housing goes inside the emitter
• Slide the wires down first
• Connector in place and secured with a set screw
• 3D printed chassis
• Slide the chassis in place
• 18650 battery holder
• Battery holder will fit into the chassis after attaching wires
• Adding more wires for the switch and sound board
• Positive wires soldered together
• Switch wire is routed to the switch hole
• Positive wires will attach to the positive battery plate
• Positive wires soldered in place
• Negative wire soldered to negative plate on the battery holder
• Battery holder snaps into position
• Speaker and wire
• Solder wires to the speaker pads
• Speaker fits into the end of the chassis
• LED momentary switch
• Soldered wires for the LED and the switch
• Adding the positive wire to the switch
• Route switch wires through the hole into the chassis
• Getting ready to solder the Verso sound board
• Wires shortened and soldered to the Verso
• The Verso snaps into place on the chassis. A little CA glue can be used to secure it. Still need to clean the flux off the board.
• The main body is threaded and screws onto the emitter section. The switch is pushed fully into position and is secured as a friction fit.
• I wrapped the handle in some nice leather
• Neopixel LED strips are cut to desired length and attached to each other back to back
• Blade side connector soldered to LED strip wires
• Connector housing installed and wires secured inside with hot glue
• Foam sleeve for light diffusion
• Foam sleeve slides all the way down the LED light strip
• A white diffusion tube slides over the foam sleeve and is ready for the main outer tube
• Main outer tube is installed and secured to the connector with contact adhesive
• Foam sleeve extends past outer tube slightly for compression when the tip is installed. The LED's extend past the tube to light up the tip.
• Blade tip installed and secured with contact adhesive
• Blade slides into the emitter and is secured with a set screw
• Added some O-rings for more contrast to the hilt
• The hilt side connector lights up with the same colors as the blade
• There are windows in the emitter that glow with the blade color
• Verso board allows unlimited colors. Here's Orange
• Green Saber blade
• Blue Saber blade
• Pink Saber blade
• Purple Saber blade
• Red Saber blade
• Teal Saber blade
• Yellow Saber blade
• White Saber blade

So that's the build. It's pretty simple and just about anyone can do it. It might be just the project you need during this time. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to post below.

Wow!

Awesome work and in honour of this the following is very appropriate. Enjoy,

Star Wars SC 38 Reimagined (6 min 11 sec)

That is pretty cool, my son is going to flip when he sees it.

Very, very cool! Awesome job, Jason!

Fun stuff!

Where do you get the supplies

Originally Posted by SwampFlier

Where do you get the supplies

Look up in the main article. I have all the parts linked in the "Parts Used" section.

Wow i love this.

i have One more request.

How about a handheld Lazer build ?

^ x10!

is it a problem if i take the led strip of saberarmory ws2812b ??

thanks for your respond

Should work the same, but I believe those LED's are spaced further apart so may have some dim spots down the blade. The more densely packed the LED's are on the strip the better.

thanks i searching a thread for long of building a saber diy i found all the components and i wait the deliver, ~300 € for me
the hilt only in gold but nice too

i see an heatsink you use it ? on the first image

The heat sink is only for using a regular LED system at the base. When using Neopixels in the blade, the heat sink is not required.

are you soldering the resistor 470 on the pcb hilt ?