Fix Broken Ultrasaber
Hi there! First off, I want to say thank you for Brickstuff for existing and for this community of enthusiasts. I am posting about a problem, but I am not looking to blame anyone but myself. I am asking for help with coming up with a solution.
I bought a couple Ultrasabers (https://www.brickstuff.com/store/p307/ultra-b.html) from Brickstuff at the BrickCon in Bellevue, Washington a few weeks ago for my son's birthday. He opened it and, making the mistake of thinking it was a toy, broke it about 10 minutes later. I'm a little upset about how fragile they are, but they look so dang cool! After all, it does say on the box that it isn't for playing with, so I'm honestly surprised it lasted as long as it did. For those 10 minutes, he was the happiest kid in the whole galaxy!
My question to the group is whether you have ever fixed one of these yourself before. I have experience soldering and working with microcontrollers, so I think I have the tools one would use to fix this sort of thing. When I plug the Ultrasaber into the USB-C power adapter (kind of like this one but for USB-C: https://www.brickstuff.com/store/p288/branch24-2pk.html) and touch the broken ends to each other, the microfilament lights up. It does not work if I lay the wires across each other (kind of obvious... if it did, you'd get electrocuted any time you touched the wire!). TL;DR: The unit does still work, the issue is that just this one wire is severed.
Would a dab of solder connect the two wires? Or is it a lost cause? It's only $15-ish, so it's not the end of the world. But I like to fix things when they break instead of tossing them in the trash, especially electronics -- and especially really cool electronics!
Thank you in advance!
2 replies
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Hi Mark, thanks for your post and for the detailed information. I'm sorry the wire broke! And unfortunately it looks like it broke in the worst possible spot (right at the base). I'm afraid iFixit wouldn't give our Ultrasabers a very high repairability score-- the only way to make everything compact and also semi-durable is to glue the protective cover on top of the hilt, so I don't think there's a way to reliably fix that joint. One thing you could try (assuming you have a very small tip on your soldering iron) is to tin both ends of the broken wire (the wires have an enamel coating that needs to be burned off before the wires will attach), carefully re-solder using flux, tuck the re-soldered joint into the hole at the bottom of the hilt, and fill with UV glue or some similarly strong bonding adhesive. That *might* work-- if you feel up to taking that risk, have at it and let me know how it turns out.
Worst case, I'm happy to send you a replacement saber for free if you'll pay shipping. If that sounds good, send us a message through our support e-mail (support (at) brickstuff dot com) referring to this post and letting us have your address and e-mail for sending the invoice for shipping.
Once again, I'm sorry about the disconnected wire-- hopefully you'll have luck repairing it via the steps above, or again let us know your info and we'll send a replacement.
Thank you.
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That's so generous, Rob! Thank you! I'll see what I can do this weekend and let you know. I'll try to burn the enamel coating and solder them together. I'm no expert solderer, but I'm always willing to try!