Building a Real Retractable Lightsaber 

Thank you!!

Still looks like it has some post FX on top of it.

@@RefractArt Tbh I think the saturation has been increased and contrast decreased but apart from that I think its all practical

It's too slow

​lol yeah, looks more like the Schwartz, if you know what I mean #spaceballs MisterPotter

🥳🥳

Yeah you just schooled Disney

I like the Disney version a lot too!

Disney can't even swing theirs around they just hold it gently straight up

@@jacobmedinaayall hating on the brand like the engineers that actually made it did anything wrong to yall lmao

Thinking of ways to move forward! Built IRL has done a fantastic job with his already though

​How about building a wall covered in gecko tape and recording a bunch of people climbing on it, with a specific interest in studying their contact points so that you can make a real spider suit?​@@herotech

​@@herotechthe most important question: will it keel?

Interesting! Not sure if gecko tape would hold people tbh

@@herotech Yes, they hold up very well, so much so that the channel "the action lab" has already made a video putting them on gloves and trying to climb walls... However, I don't know if they would still have all that strength when thrown, I think the shot would not put enough pressure to fix it and allow it to swing

Right?! Ahahaha it looks so good in person too

Dude I really wanted to ask this: Why do you think the demonstrations from the disney retractable lightsaber make that version look so fragile? Do you have any idea why they barely moved that thing and hold it like it can break at any second? At the end of your video you're swinging and spinning this saber like it doesn't affect the blade quality at all. My question is if you can spin your retractable lightsaber why can't they?

My best guess is that they're using two opposite tape measure blades for the blade structure itself - unfortunately the problem with that is that they're a bistable structure that can crumple if pushed too hard. Now, they could make the plastic thicker to make it more stable, but the problem there is it would greatly increase the size of it stored inside the hilt and it would affect the light diffusion so the blade would not be as bright. It's a difficult problem because you run up against the material property limits of using a clear plastic as your blade structure, and you can't switch to a metal because then you lose the transparency that lets the LEDs shine through. I think their design is still really cool though, and I don't doubt Disney Imagineering's ability to come up with solutions to these things.

@@herotech That's awesome. Thanx for actually taking the time to reply. Maybe if you guys worked together you both could come up with the perfect saber. But your results without disney/lucasfilm resources are already incredible. I might not know you but I'm really proud of u guys.

Thanks and no problem! A Disney collab would be awesome, their resources and engineering talent are really next level

Ahahaha thank you!!! Maybe we'll actually make a darksaber version lol

Thank you so much for your kind words!!! It means a lot to us and has made my day :) Will continue working on this

That is a sick idea, thanks!! :) Yeah that is exactly how the first hilt melted, all the LEDs wound on the spool tightly packed and then being overdriven

You could seriously make a lot of money if you could manufacture and sell these to the people sign me up for pre-orders

Ah thank you so much!! When people say our stuff looks like CGI it's such a high compliment :) Yeah it looks great even now, but I think it can look even better haha

Saaaame I thought it was a test footage or a reference footage or something.

@@herotechwas it enhanced using vfx, even if it was still impressive

Thank you so much! This means a lot to us, will continue improving the design and sharing it 👍 and will also make different color blades in the future :) May the force be with you too!

As a 54 year old man who saw the first Star Wars in theatres in 1977, I completely echo this sentiment. Between this and the Bay Transformer movies......my wife thinks I've regressed. Can't wait to see what you do next, and also wait to see if they become available for production. Take my money, price be damned!

@@wickedwarlock1 I would love to have a couple myself.

I will add my name to the list. At 59 I was there for Star Wars and was hooked! I have always wanted a light saber and no it might be possible.

What’s this I hear about the purity rings????? IYKYK

They should not have ruined Star Wars

@@Niaaal They own it. They can do whatever they want with it

Disney's retractable lightsaber was developed in 2018 or earlier and was first demonstrated in March 2023 at SXSW by Josh D'Amaro, the Chairman of Disney Parks and Experiences.

@@DisneyCorpsmannow what haha

Paying homage to the OG design 🫡

Thank you! And congrats on graduating as well!!

Thank you!!

That's awesome, glad to hear that y'all were thinking about this too and that you want to start working on it again! And thank you for the well wishes :)

Thank you so much!!

Thank you!!! Hopefully they aren’t too mad 👀

Thanks so much man! I appreciate it and looking out for more videos from you too!

@@herotech we still gotta do our collab on the TASM 2 shooters. 😢

True!! Been so busy lately but now that I've graduated I should hopefully have more time in the coming months haha

Thanks Chancellor :) and thank you so much for the kind words. Yeah I kept waiting for footage of the Disney prototype being swung or even light dueling but sadly I'm not sure if their design can take the forces. We'll keep improving our design and keep everyone updated. Once we have two of these sabers a choreographed duel is definitely in the cards!

@@herotech It was really cool to see a retractable lightsaber but it almost looked as if the blade swayed back and forth, and he looked very careful not to move it too much. That's to be expected on an early prototype, but I really wonder what their goal is with it! Hopefully they will be able to refine it well enough for some light dueling! I can't wait to see future updates on your projects, give everyone on the team a pat on the back hahaha

@@corellioncrusaderproductio4679 Totally agreed! Excited to see what Disney comes up with, with their infinite resources ahahaha. Thank you again!

Thank you so much! Will continue improving this design, making it better and easier to make at home 🫡

Thanks man!!

Thank you!!

Thank you so much!!

Thank you so much for your kind words!!! It really means a lot to us. Will continue working to turn fiction into reality :)

Thank you so much and thank you for watching my videos all this time! Very appreciated and happy to know that y'all enjoy other science fiction projects as well

Thank you!! Happy to see people appreciate all the engineering that makes simple designs work

They weren't the first, Hacksmith already made one about.. three years ago?

@@Anixerusyou mean that blowtorch thing 😂?

We're going to make it as real as possible :)

Thank you so much!!! That means a lot, glad you liked the project and we’ll continue making it even better 🙏

Thank you!!!

Paying homage to the 1977 original 🙏

it's what they TRIED to do to keep it as an in-camera effect. They ultimately decided it didn't work and roto'd an optical effect over it in post. There's some footage floating around of the un-roto'd shots and it doesn't look great.

@@Fafhrd42 Damn, at least they had reference 😂😭😭

Thank you for the kind words and suggestion! Our proffieboard actually has an accelerometer, we just need to make use of it :) will continue improving this!

Thank you so much!!! That means a lot, will continue improving this design :)

Paying homage to the OG!

Agreed :)

Thanks so much Kat!!! Was really great working with you

Thank you!!! Couldn't have done it without them and glad you liked the video :)

Thank you so much! Excited to keep developing this and pushing it further :)

Thank you, glad you liked it!

Thank you so much! Really appreciate the kind words. Glad that you enjoyed the engineering journey, and will work hard to implement the saber improvements!

hehehe

If Disney is smart they’ll hire these kids or buy them out.

Disney can't do shit to them unless they commercialize the product. Even then they can just call it "lazer sword" and Disney legally can't touch them. There's a reason Disney couldn't touch Gundam series' beam sabers, as long as the hilt design is different they're SOL.

@@benjaminperez7328lmao except they have prototypes that far exceed this home made kit.

@@icisz Was it really that funny what I said?

Are you dumb?

Thank you so much! Excited to keep refining it.

Thank you!! And you’re totally welcome to use the same design/modify or improve upon it! Super cool to hear you had a similar idea with this

Someone knows their stuff :) The original spinning blades were one of the inspirations to have the blade structure not only be reflective metal but also to spin and create the POV effect. Yeah still trying to make the hilt thinner, making them out of metal should help with that but it will also take longer and be more expensive haha

I wonder if you’re gonna need such powerful leds now that there will be a spinning factor.

I wonder too! Will definitely test and see :)

Thank you so much!!

Hacksmith’s is better ngl

@@slipperyant7199 Been watching Hacksmith for years, but it’s just a big plasma cutter, it doesn’t look like a lightsaber, this does

Totally agree, working on all those right now :)

Thank you!! Will keep improving it, and paying homage to the original 1977 ones :)

Thank you! Would love to collab with Disney haha

Hahahah

Thank you so much!!!

Thank you!! Still working to improve it 🙏

Thank you!!! Working on it :)

Thank you! Yes really happy with the effect it could produce. Paying homage to the original 🙏

Thank you so much!!

Thank you so much!!!

Thank you! Working on them currently :)

Agreed! Working on improving it!

Thank you! Working on it :)

Thank you so much!!

Thank you!! Hopefully as we continue improving the design it gets easier to make for others at home!

Agreed!

Would love to see yours too!

Thank you so much!!

Good idea! Definitely need to find a way to reduce strain on the LEDs over time

Thank you! I appreciate it a lot :)

Thank you so much!!

Thank you!! Yeah will definitely make more videos about it and improve it as well

Thank you! Yeah hopefully we can make a version that’s fully duel-capable

Thank you!!! Will keep improving it further!

Thank you so much!!

Thank you! And yeah making it duelable would be interesting, if there was a way to reinforce the LED strip coating so that it's more impact resistant I could see it happening!

Thank you!! :)

So cool! Would love to see your version as well!

Thank you!!

Thank you! Totally agree that as we speed up, we’re fighting the centripetal force that will make the led strip look more like a globe than a cylinder haha. We’re hoping at a sweet spot of 1200RPM, it’s enough to create the POV effect but not too fast that the led strips pull away from the cane - we’ll see! We are also exploring adding a second diffusion layer like you mentioned :)

@@herotech , What you've done already is really cool. You've managed to pull off a great effect similar to Disney's version. But where theirs may extend faster, Theirs can't retract on its own like yours, and you did it in what appears to be a smaller package. Disney's hilt looks almost comically oversized. If you're able to speed yours up *and* put it in a smaller hilt, that will be quite the achievement. I really hope you're able to come up with a protective defusion layer to protect all the working parts. I have a feeling that the next problem you'll want to address will be a way of cooling the whole thing. I believe you'll be able to save a lot of room inside if you can find a way to have a custom board made to replace some circuitry and a good amount of the wiring inside. Smaller modular connectors would be so much easier to fit in such a small package, and it might even make enough room for some kind of ducted cooling fan in the pummel. I'm curious. What if you were to try using addressable LEDs? That way you could program them to only come on once they unwind from the spool, and would turn off in succession as they're wound back up to keep them from cooking the parts, and from cooking themselves. That might be more than you would want to mess with and might require more circuitry that you have room to fit inside, though. And, they may not be available in 12V, or be as bright as the ones you're using. Just figured it might be worth thinking about. Great work so far! Really well done. Can't wait to see the follow-up.

Thank you ahahaha! Yep definitely looking to speed ours up and make the hilt even thinner. Definitely agree with your point about the cooling - with some initial thermal tests, the main concern is the LED strip. Big failure mode is when all of the strip is on the spool and the strip is turned on without extending the blade: lots of heat, nowhere to dissipate effectively. Part of the problem is the slow extension, which hopefully switching to a more powerful motor can lessen the time that all the LED strip is spent cooped up in the hilt together. Love the point about the addressable LEDs as well, that would definitely be another solution - as you've pointed out, it just comes down to whether we can spec ones that are as bright/durable as the ones we are currently using. Now part of what gets me excited about spinning the internal chassis is that hopefully, at that speed we can actually effectively air cool the LED strip: instead of a fan where we move air over the strips to dissipate heat, we are moving the strips over the air to do so :) Would need to provide some ducts in the pommel/hilt design itself to allow for airflow but hopefully those same ducts can be used for the soundboard/speaker to allow for better sound projection. Of course this doesn't work as well if we have the diffusion layer over it, but definitely something to be explored IMO. Thanks for the feedback/input, love reading these comments!

Thank you, will keep working on the design and improving it!

Majulah!

:)

Thank you so much!!

Thank you! Glad to be back

thank you!!! Yeah definitely love making all kinds of fictional stuff real, glad you liked this project!

Thank you!!!

Hahaha thank you! I appreciate it 🙏

Thank you so much!!! Your kind words really mean a lot to us. Will continue improving it and sharing it!

Thank you!!

@@herotech nah bro, thank YOU

Good idea! We're exploring that too right now

Thank you so much for joining! Will continue making new projects and let us know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see!

Thank you! I'm excited to speed it up too, totally agree that 2.5X or 3X would be perfect

Yeah they have a cool design! I think their design may have slight issues with structural integrity, with the tape measure blade being a bistable structure and the necessity of using a plastic for the material (for it to be see-through) there's a limit to how sturdy/rigid they can make it. I could totally be wrong though! I would love to see footage of Disney dueling with their version or swinging it around, that would be so cool.

We’ll see! Already having a proffie chip, the dueling will need to be worked on

Thank you! We’re still making it better :)

Thank you!!

That might work as well! Yes as another option we’re exploring some kind of transparent material that goes over the LEDs to diffuse the light and make the blade solid, however there are some challenges to that as you can imagine haha

Thank you!! Am working on it :)

It's the same thing Disney made

@@justusashcraft9930 then why couldn't the cast member's at Galaxy's Edge rotate them? lol

Agreed! Working on making it faster

Thanks for watching all this time! Really appreciate it