Lightsaber Battery Pack: 18650 Battery Holder

thingiverse

I'm currently figuring out the voltages and I can't guarantee that the saber will function properly on the 3.7v typical that a 18650 would supply. I'm conducting testing now, so while this may be an intriguing concept, it may require some extra circuitry to actually work. Out of curiosity, I wanted to explore and see if I could design a functional battery pack for a Savi's Workshop saber chassis. I'm working on the circuit board to go in this - just to bridge the contact points - but this takes an 18650 rechargeable battery. Unfortunately, the 18650 battery is large, and therefore there's not much space to locate the speaker that goes in the battery pack. I'm currently evaluating using a different shorter battery - like perhaps an 18500 battery or something of that type. As it is, there's a channel alongside the battery compartment, to route a wire from the top down to the spring at the bottom for the ground wire. IMPORTANT: The proper orientation for the circuit board that contacts the pogo pins is that the 'top' (the negative terminal - the one between the speaker pins) should be aligned with the groove I have running down the inside of the chassis. This is so that the negative terminal of the battery's wire can run up along the battery, and contact the copper near the appropriate pogo pin. The photos above feature a hand-etched circuit board - I just took some copper on a silicon substrate and hand-scratched the gaps between the contact pads with a sharp knife, and then used my bench press to drill the holes for the contact wires to enter from the bottom and be soldered to the copper. Only one-sided board needed, no vias. I'm also planning on designing a usb-powered charger base socket that you can just insert the 18650 battery pack into to recharge. Here's a video of this working as a sort of 'protosaber' - with the 18650 external, connected to some dangly wires instead of internal. https://cloudup.com/cR7Goe0RxHD More to come!