After a bit of a hiatus, I am back on this saber. One of the things that bugged me was the state of my main canister, the part that sits under the clamp. I had cobbled it together while figuring out how I wanted things to go. I was hesitant at first, but knew I needed to remake this piece. Mainly to allow for the activation/aux switch setup and a little more support for the crystal chamber mount. The extra lip around the brass chamber mount also mates to the step I machined in the grenade section, for a bit more stability when it's closed. I just lathed the threads out of that spot to make a smooth shoulder.

You can see the clamp in the top part of the picture. It is cut out for the recharge port that you can see floating in the rear of the canister. In front of that, is a pivot that is hinged in a milled out spot.

The arm that is attached swings between the two 90degree tactile switches. One will be for activation of the CFLS, one will be for the aux button. I had to machine a 'transistor' button that is threaded into the other end of the swing arm. This will go through the square tab in the graflex clamp from the outside, and tie into the arm, letting me push the transistor down for activation, and up for aux.

This whole setup fits within the inside diameter of the clamp, and the inside diameter of the battery compartment.

To mount the switches, I have a set of 1/16 holes drilled in the flat spot, where I will crimp the switch mounting tabs to. I also have a spot milled out under the switches for the wires to clear.

Here you can see the inside wall of the battery can, and the bottom of the switch area. Sort of.  Sorry for the crumby cellphone pics.

Here's the inside of the battery can.  I had to machine it quite a bit more than my previous model, to account for battery placement, but still leaving enough material for mounting screws for the crystal chamber mount and the graflex clamp (more on that later)

Not sure if it's too visible in this shot, but I am beginning to mark with a sharpie all the spots I need to cut. I need to drill and tap for set screws, holes for the springs to sit, and shave off a few bits around the plug connector.

Ok so I am working on the LED strings for this beast... and here I have a few drilled out.  This will be sort of like the novastar string, except I am not making it as dense and therefore power hungry.

What I am doing, though, is drilling into the dome of these LEDs to widen the spread of light.  I couldn't figure out how I wanted to get these centered and clamped in the drill press, so I decided to try it in the lathe.

Works great.

This is about an 1/8 second exposure of a stock Hasbro/MR Obi AOTC Force FX saber with fresh Energizer batteries.

This is the same exposure, with the CF-LS on setting 400 out of 511. The camera doesn't quite do it justice, it's slightly painful to look at the CFLS blade in my office at night. In real life, you almost can't tell the Hasbro/MR Obi is even on.

This pic is closer to what my eye actually sees when I look at the CFLS. The Hasbro is not as bright to my eye in this pic, but you can really tell the difference in the two blades by looking at the reflection underneath them. The REFLECTION of the CFLS blade on the leather couch is as almost as bright as the BLADE of the hasbro.

Beginning the final fit of the hardware, I still need to shave off about 3/16 from the crystal chamber DIN plug housing so the grenade shell will fit flush against the battery can when it's all closed down. Wires are long enough from Erv' to fit all the way from the soundboard around the battery pack, through the chamber mount, across the chamber, and into the top of the chamber plug housing. I'll wrap the exposed wires in some fine scale braided steel hose.

Once my hardware is done and working, I'll weather it and install the electronics.

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