Many factors went into making my cut-away, the first of which was admiration for Howard’s version:
Howard’s cut-away OBI saber remains my favorite, and for respect for his design, I chose not use any green circuit boards, or any gears and axels, which I believe lends a certain sophistication to his design. If Howard had not built his, I probably wouldn’t have been inspired to build mine.
I remember hearing years ago that, in the Star Wars universe, there were no buttons (for clothes) or screws/bolts, so I made sure no screws were visible.
Also – no red components.
I then read up on light sabers, these two articles in particular:
wikipedia
sabres article
I also gave consideration to how a cut-away would have been used in the Star Wars Universe. It occurred to me that it would have been found at Jedi Labs in the lightsaber development department to explain to young Padawans how the sabers work, and to help them in developing there own. I also realized that this particular saber must have been developed by that young mechanical genius Anakin Skywalker, who may have assisted Obi Wan in building his.
The completed cut-away has a removable power cord and will light up with the upper halves in place.
The upper halves come off in three pieces. The activation and mode switches were mounted on the side of the box for ease of accessibility.
The activation switch (transistor) illuminates (not very bright though) to indicate power’s on. The mode switch rotates through four positions (demonstrative purposes for the Padawan). With the lettering vertical all segments are off. Rotation one step clockwise illuminates the “electron beam” and the crystal.
One more step clockwise and the “plasma generator” lights. One more step with the lettering horizontal, the collimation and output gems illuminate.
Looking from the power end. And why do I think Anakin had something to do with the design? His initials are on the end cap :lol.
The power reactor, power coupling and electron beam source.
Close up of the fuel rod actuators.
The Mandaclorian Detector and associated circuitry. Below that the field coil for focusing the electron beam.
The plasma focusing field coil and associated sensors and control circuitry. The collimation gem is visible in the neck.
The output gem and sensors that focus the output reflector.
From an earlier picture, the “fan” does spin, but I couldn’t come up with an easy way to motorize it
.
Looking into the beam (a Luxeon 5 Watt LED).
Each of top half pieces contain magnets to hold them in place, but for travel, I secure the pieces with double sided Velcro.
I gave serious consideration to drilling a hole in the clear acrylic cover to keep the muggles guessing…….
…..but while drilling a test hole, I decided against it.
I also thought about adding a sound board, but because of the “selector switch”, triggering the sound to come on and go off at the right time would be difficult.
ATL Kenobi
