Constructing a Real Lightsabre
(Plasma Sword - employing arc wave energy)


What damage can this weapon do

Unlike the lightsabres in the starwars movies, the energy in this lightsabre is quite unable to cut through a 3 foot solid steel door. It however, will cut through and cautarise any type of organic material. Which is good enough for close quarters combat.

Who should have this weapon

Only a highly trained psychic or jedi knight should ever posess one of these weapons. They're not meant for an end all weapon. For example, you can't kill an enemy from 800 meters away with one of these things. It's only meant to be a weapon for use in closed quarters. Sure, anyone could turn it on and start harming innocent people with it, but that's a discussion of far greater scope than will be covered here. It's definately not something you want to turn on if your are near a high power electromagnet or anything with a greater magnetic stregnth than the plasma containment field.

How do i learn how to use it

There are several ways that you could learn how to use one of these. The first and most direct way to learn how to use one would be to become a Jedi Knight. Which can be done, but you will have to send an application to the JHC (Jedi High Councel). You can do this go to [ur]Http://JediReligion.com[/url]
Another way would be to take Kendo lessons, or any other type of martial arts system that teaches the useage of sword-type weapons.

Circuitry Description

Power Source

Although, this design uses a 18 volt powersource, there are almost endless configurations and battery types that could be used. For example, newer a Power cell composed of Li2So4 (Lithium Solfoxide)or H3O (hydrogen trioxide...also called hydrogen peroxide except that the kind that's used for medical purposes is 97% water) and and alumnium cell can create as much electricity as a Led Acid battery that is 5 times it's size (not to mention several times lighter).

Oscilator

The oscilator circuit is what drives the lightsabre. It's a circuit taken out of a book from radio shack. A DC-DC converter circuit that uses the 555 timer/oscilator chip. The circuit takes the input voltage (9 volts) and multiplies it by a certain ratio (determined by the ratio of Primary to Secondary windings in the Step-Up transformer. This high voltage is then put through a bank of 4 photoflash capasators (i use photoflash capasators because you can recycle disposable cameras with flash units in them to get them). The high voltage that has been feed into the capasators, now holds a enormous amount of current as well as voltage (so don't go puting your fingers where they shoudn't be when you energize the circuitry - bad things could happen...TO YOU!). This stored energy is fed into the electromagnets to create the containment field, and the arc wave for the blade.

Creating The Magnetic containment field

To create a magnetic containment field for the plasma, fasten 4 electromagnets around a metal ring. The point where the electromagnets contact the ring is where the magnetic force is transfered to the ring. A cylindrical magnetic field is then created. This by itself would be quite dangerious, if you were to inject plasma into since there is no mechanisim preventing the plasma from flowing backwards into the hilt. This is where the magnetic plate comes in. It is an electromagnet fastened to a ferious piece of metal just as the ring, except this does not form a cylindrical electromagnetic field, it forms a magnetic 'plug' of sorts. It forms a magnetic barier at one reigon of the containment field, preventing back flow of plasma. This plate also plays a very large roll in propigation of the plasma into the containment field.

Tesla Coil and Arc Wave Plasma

Using a Tesla Coil to produce an arc wave of plasma is the basis of designing lightsabre that operates with low power consumption. In order to create a rod-shaped blade (or the appearace of such) of plasma, one of electrodes must be shaped as a ring (outer electrode), and the other as a pin electrode (centered inside the outer electrode).
When the tesla coil is turned on energy will ark across the electrodes. This energy is shaped like a ring of plasma (because of the geometry of the electrodes). Since it is plasma, it of course has a certain polarity. Although the frequency of the tesla coil is quite high, you do not notice the plasma flicker on and off. A pulsating electromagnetic field can be used to push each cycle of generated plasma to the end of the blade. This is the second reason for the magnetic plate. Also, by varying the frequency of electricity in the electromagnetic plate, the length of the blade.

Cautions of Magnetic and Plasma Polarities

Strong caution should be used when turning on the sabre for the first time. If any polarity in either the tesla coil or electromagnets are inversed...the weapon will most likely destroy itself (due to the wrong polarities pushing plasma in the wrong direction). There is also a good chance that it could seriously injure anyone that is in the immediate area.

Diagrams





Parts List

Quantity Description
1 push on / push off switch
2 9v batteries
2 9v quick snaps
1 555 timer/oscilator
1 mineature tesla coil (from amazing1.com)
1 1/4" (outer diameter) metal -low resistance (read instructions)
1 >1/4" electrode - low resistance (read instructions)
1 3/16" x 2" metal (ferious) ring (read instructions)
1 3/16" X 2 metal plate
1 5"x7" Double Sided PC board
1 bottle PC board echant soluation
4 330 volt HV capasators (electrolytic)
1 .01 mf capasator
1 47k resistor
1 1k resistor
1 roll of hook-up wire
1 roll of magnet wire
1 step-up transformer (read instructions)
4 12" x 1/8" threaded rod (standoffs)
1 ~12" x 1.75- 2" length of Alumnium Pipe (1 end closed off)
35 1/8" bolts (inner thread)


All this infomation taken from
http://geocities.com/lasersword2001/...struction.html