Converting MR-FX Sabers????

[bounty treasure]

Have read that blades can potentially be 'changed out' or converted.

What options are available, what price range, what's involved, etc.... (And are all models candidates?)

Thanks for the info

 

[xwingband]

ALL can be made blade removable to a certain degree.

Certain ones like the Vader ANH can be made to have a removable blade without changing any of the electronics, but most will require a "conversion" to luxeon or another after market tech. Unfortunately the only one you can know for sure that can be made removable with only stock parts is the Vader ANH. Some ESB's and Anakin ROTS's (supposedly, haven't seen one of those yet) have the same setup too, but there is NO way to tell if you have one of those or not.

Most you'd have to go with a luxeon conversion. A luxeon conversion changes the strip for a single high powered luxeon LED. This makes the blade hollow and thus much better for dueling. The downside is that you can't get the ramp up/down with any vanilla conversion. Upsides are the removable blade, dueling and more color choice for blades.

For getting it done there is www.ultrasabers.com if you don't like to DIY. He's just about the only one I'd recommend, I wouldn't deal with any of the other eBay dealies... they're usually shoddy work. The downside is Ultra is not the fastest, his business is booming and thus turn around is getting to be more.

If you have any DIY inclinations go to www.thecustomsabershop.com where there are conversion kits for a couple of the current sabers. I know the Obi-wan kit is coming sometime soon and plans are being made for a Maul kit too.

 

[bounty treasure]

Thanks for the input... (Any other thoughts welcome)

Here's another question. Can the MR's be set up (altered) to light up and stay on, without the sound, to be used as a decorative piece?

 

[xwingband]

The MR's have an automatic shut off feature so that idea isn't going to work all that well. It's built into the chip so there it's much of a way around it while still using the existing electronics.

Getting rid of the sound isn't too hard though... I routinely just throw a strip of electrical tape over one of the battery pack pins to shut it up while I'm just testing.

 

[Mados]

As far as telling which version of Vader ESB you have, if the sides of the control box are plastic, you have the one with the DIN plug in the blade, which can be made removable. The newer ESBs have solid cast control boxes, to cut down on manfacturing costs, I'm sure.

 

[hyperdyne]

You can also consider my Hyperblade conversion: http://www.hyperdynelabs.com/hyperblade

It's hands down the brightest blade available (even brighter than the venerable plasma blades). You can also duel with the blade, as it was custom engineered to take a beating.

Features include proper ignition/retraction effect, plug and play sound modules, CorePulse "pulsing" blade effect, MovieFlicker effect (emulates the original trilogy saber effect), bright blade flashes upon a clash event, programmable blade brightness, programmable blade ignition speed, etc.

I pride myself on offering very high-end saber solutions, so I know its not for everyone. I also engineered the blades to look like they do in the movies, so any camera shots or video are hard to see some of the effects (since the blades are so bright they tend to saturate all cameras I have tried so far). Heck, I've even been accused of photoshopping all the blades in my pics (by some of the Luxeon guys) - which is a compliment I suppose. :lol

At any rate, we are almost ready to offer up conversion services. And with our setup you can definitely do something that is for display only. In fact we are working on such a display for the LFL X-wing fighter... It will have a motion sensor to activate the saber, and it will stay on as long as you like.