Guess the proper place for this reveiw should be in this thread rather than in the other one.
I now have Erv's board in place in a sabre. Actually for the second time
Its been upgraded to the latest firmware.
The board is now in this -
Heres a few technical spec's, the lightsource is a white K2, one of the high code ones with 130 lumens output. Its powered from 4xAA nimh rechargeables cells with 2400mah capacity. It also has a recharge port (which you cant see in the pic as its on the bottom of the silver activation area opposite the switch.
The on/off switch is totally recessed and the 3mm green led in bezel mount you can see is wired to the Crytal Focus board as the low power indicator.
Ive got mine set to run the led at 1.2 A and its very bright
Internally the sabre is constructed from some thin walled 1.25" tube with machined emmitter, pommel and other parts. The board fits perfectly inside the tube and with a bit of persuasion so did the batteries.
Unfortunately I dont have access to anything to record a video of it in action so all I can do is discribe it.
The electronics are superb. When you first try the board out before putting it in a sabre the sound isnt that impressive in volume. If I didnt know how much difference properly housing the speaker makes I might have been disapointed. Luckily I do know and once it was actually installed its impressively loud.
If I switch my Mace FX on I can barely hear it over the sound from the Crytal Focus.
The syncronised sounds work great with the defaults, although I did have to tweak the setting to get the luxeon to light up a bit faster to match the startup noise (very easy to do). I think thats because Im using the K2 which has different operating characteristics to a normal 3w led.
The sounds are very responsive on both swing and clash, in fact I turned the sensitivity to clashes down slightly on mine. Again this is more to do with how I have the board mounted in the hilt.
One of the things I absolutely love about the crytal focus is the shimmering effect. Its very well implemented and really does look great. It feels just like Old Bens sabre in ANH.
The clash flickering is also really cool too. The latest version has a slight improvement over the original due to some customer feedback. Originally the auxilary button could be used for either a blaster deflect sound/light or a blade lockup effect (selected in the config settings). With the latest version it is used for both. A quick press gives you the blaster deflect and a press and hold gives the lockup.
Until you see and play with one its hard to get across just how awesomely cool the Crystal Focus is. Im like a kid at christmas again
I havent had time to test for operation time/battery consumption but I will get around to timing it from a full charge.
While it isnt the cheapest option out there I think its the best and I will be picking up a second at some point.
One other thing to mention is that Erv's customer service and attention to detail is simply put, spot on. He goes the extra mile to make sure everythings alright and is very responsive to customer feedback. Could ask for a nicer guy.
Its been upgraded to the latest firmware.
