Luke's ROTJ Lightsaber

A printable replica of the Lightsaber Luke Skywalker uses in Return of the Jedi designed to be electrified.
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updated July 29, 2024

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After attempting to use several existing models to build an electronic version of this Lightsaber and struggling to get things to fit, I designed this one from “scratch” based on drawings of the original prop.  It's not a perfect replica, but it looks pretty good and the parts fit inside nicely.

The electronics consist of an Adafruit RP2040 PropMaker board, a length of addressable LED's, a small speaker and a lipo cell.  The firmware is a modified version of the code written by Liz Clark of Adafruit and I'm going to say right now, it's not pretty.  

The blade is made from a clear plastic florescent light protection tube and a piece of threaded rod.  The rod is fastened with nuts through the guard and the blade tube slides into a groove in the guard.  The threaded-rod-top part is fastened to the other end of the rod.  An LED strip is fastened along one side of the rod, threaded through this part and back down the other side (depending on the length of the blade and the number of LED's in the strip, the firmware may need to be adjusted).

The blade is held in place using a nut in the tip that is screwed-on to a bolt placed in the other end of the threaded-rod-top part(do not over-tighten!).

The speaker is placed inside the grip at the top, facing the blade (there are slots cut into the handle that function as a speaker grille).  The wires from the blade are fed around the speaker using these slots (see photos).

There is a hole in the grip for a pushbutton to activate/deactivate the blade.  I used a common metal momentary button for this but any SPST momentary you like will do.

The PropMaker board mounts on a carrier that is part of the pommel.  This slides into the grip and is held in place with two small self-tapping screws.  The lipo can be slid into the grip before inserting the pommel.  There is a hole at the base of the pommel exposing the USB-C port on the PropMaker for charging/programming/etc.

The SCAD file can be used to render the parts several ways.  I've chosen to upload STL's for the arrangement I found to work best, which keeps the parts count and assembly steps low while still making assembly possible.  Of course if you don't plan to include the electronics or blade you can print it as a single piece.

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