The Electronics
First a test of the neon, very bright.
The inverter is small, but still way to big for my light saber.
I decided to freestyle the inverter. Freestyle means: no board, just a jumble of parts soldered and hot glued together.
It is very interesting that they only used on transistor, and used part of the transformer to make a timing circuit.
After frying two transistors, and shocking my self once this is the tiny result.
I used terminals to connect the Neon, power and Switch, so if the inverter need to be removed it was not permanently connected to wires.
I connected a Push-on-push-off switch to turn the inverter on and off.
The two batteries were connected in series to give me 18 volts.
It is made to run off 12 volts, but ran fine for two hours off 18 volts.
I mounted the batteries to the middle part of the handle.
They are wrapped in electrical tape and then hot glued to the plastic.
I didn't like having them external, but ended up being a good thing when I had to change them after two hours.
All I have to do to change them is split the electrical tape open, insert new ones and close the tape over them again.