Crystal Chamber v1

Note: I did not use any digital effects whatsoever to accomplish the "lighted" look in the above-right image. The picture, however cool it may look, does it no justice compared to seeing it in person.

I built this at the same time I built Design XII. The idea behind this was exposing one of the chambers inside the lightsaber containing one of the crystals through which the energy from the hilt's power supply focuses before it reaches the emitter, at which point you get the blade. If you refer to a cutaway of a lightsaber, you'll see where I got the idea.

Originally, I had wanted this same effect with Design XII when you took it apart, but concluded that it'd be impractical since there were going to be some electronics packed in there already, and there wouldn't be enough room.

So, I fabricated what looked like the bottom few inches of the hilt, built in a high-powered LED, tossed in a power supply, on/off switch, and attached the "Crystal Chamber" over top of it.

I'll tell you, this thing is bright. Not as bright as a luxeon, but bright enough to work as a small flashlight in a dark room. I used a real quartz crystal in there, too. I happened to find some that are the perfect size. Of course, I could have used just about anything, including one those little acrylic "lightsaber crystals" you see floating around the net, but I decided to go with a real crystal, which works just as well.