ASP Lightsaber
ASP Saber on Stand
A departure from the usual miniature table-top gaming to talk about a package that arrived today: My ASP lightsaber. I kickstarted this about a year ago and they have very slowly been delivering sabers, much to the chagrin of the nearly 2000 backers who have been waiting since the original expected date of November, 2015.
After the Kickstarter ended we were given access to a virtual saber builder to be able to visually design our sabers. Here’s what I designed:
Oregon to New York in three days
Contents
- Blade
- Stand (Ziplock bag)
- Lightsaber (Blue taped bundle)
- Electronics, shims and Battery (lower right white bag)
- Battery, belt clip, allen wrench (middle white bag)
- 3 posters of cosplay lightsaber folks
So right to the main attraction the lightsaber hilt:
Pre-assembled hilt, empty
It turned out just like the virtual saber build above, except of the addition of the belt clip knob at the bottom below the grip. The grip is made of brown leather, which is quite nice. I was torn between a leather grip and a standard metal one. Since they are all made out of interchangeable parts, I can always order a metal handle in the future.
Hilt Breakdown
The typical ASP hilt breaks down into four pieces: handle, emitter, switch and pommel (clockwise starting from top).
Bag #1
Here is the battery charger, belt clip and an allen wrench used to tighten the set screws that hold the blade or blade-plug and the LED emitter.
Bag #2
The shims on the left are used between threaded sections to get the rotation alignment you want. As with other backers, I wished they’d sent more shims, but I got it pretty close.
Electronics
Inside the electronics bag is a large battery (not pictured above), an LED emitter (upper right), the switch (bottom right), switch hole plug (bottom left) and the battery-holder with main electronic board and speaker on the upper left.
Wired Up
Here’s how the electronics plug together: the longer red/black wires go to the LED emitter while the shorter blue/black wires go to the switch. The battery fits tightly in the holder with a piece of velcro to hold it in. The bottom of the battery holder is a speaker, so be gentle when handling it to prevent rupturing it. (Note that I assembled it externally just to make sure it all worked, to actually assemble the saber you have to take it apart again first) Also, the speaker is very loud when it’s not in the hilt, I started myself when I accidentally hit the switch.
Off
On
The saber is very bright and the speaker is still quite loud in the hilt.
I still have to install the switch plug, but I think I may move the switch button to the bottom hole to make it easier to get at. Pushing it once turns it on. Pushing it again makes a blaster deflection sound. Push and hold to turn the saber off.