So the wife unit and I have recently introduced our son to the Star Wars movies. He likes all six of the movies equally well but we are still working on instilling an appropriate disdain for the prequels. That said I decided he should have his own lightsaber to defend himself against the dreaded Jedi. Yeah, he's a Sith.
The design is really simple and consists of a flashlight attached to 3/4 inch red PEX plumbing pipe. Early designs were simply PEX electrical taped to micro mags and run with eneloops. This design does not stand up to long term hellion use. The quest for a more durable design led me to my plumbing parts bin. I began by drilling a hole in a brass water spigot cap and opening the hole with a stepped bit to accept the clicky cap from a cheap 9 led "flashlight". These were fused with JB Weld. The pipe cap screws right on to a 3/4" copper pressure C X MPT male adapter. Filing the threads shorter makes for a nice flush "tailcap" fit.
Add enough length of 3/4" copper pipe for 2 eneloops and a brass copper to PEX barbed fitting and we have a complete outside shell. The PEX pipe slips onto the barbed end and can be secured by a copper pressure ring if needed. The guts of this beast is a p60 pill loaded with Fasttechs 800ma single mode driver and an old beat up XM-L T6. A couple wraps of aluminum foil tape makes for a nice snug fit in the copper pipe. Negative contact with the body is made by a stripped copper wire soldered to driver negative and pinned between the pill and the copper pipe A 20mm narrow TIR lens focuses the photons up into the PEX pipe. A barbed brass end cap at the distal end of the saber blade helps reflect light back into the PEX pipe. The fittings on either end of the copper pipe were secured with super glue. A roll of paper is used as a spacer inside the body to keep the eneloops in line.
This is probably the lowest tech, least fussy, and perhaps ugliest "flashlight" mods I have done in years. It was also the most fun and most rewarding. This post is not about the new or about the most lumens but about the real world application of the knowledge we share with each other and the fun it can create. Now on to the Darth Maul double ended lightsaber!
In fun,
Brian
