Pool Noodle Lightsabers!
Happy Star Wars Day, everyone!
My kids are huge Star Wars fans. They are also at the age where every stick, with imagination, is a weapon. Realizing that they will continue to duel with whatever they can get their hands on, I decided to create for them a relatively safe pool noodle lightsaber so that they can smack each other to their heart’s content.
The OnShape CAD is here. OnShape is a cloud base CAD package that anyone can sign up for a free trial account on, as long as you are willing to share your files. I share the native CAD along with the 3D Printable .3MF files to encourage people to customize their own creations. I am also sharing the PrusaSlicer files so that people can see how the files are set up for 3D Printing.
To build the lightsaber, in addition to the 3D printed parts, you will need a length of 3/4” SCH 40 PVC pipe, as well as some foam pool noodle. I used Ninjaflex Cheetah for the flexible safety plug. As far as easy to use flexible filament, Cheetah fits the bill as it is rigid enough to not have feeding problems in direct drive extruders, but still result in soft, flexible parts.
The lightsaber models presented here is actually a version 2 design. In the original design, the PVC pipe is glued into the handle with the pool noodle. Shortly after presenting that to my kids though, they wanted to swap blades around. So I went back to the drawing board and came up with a reverse taper design that is 3D printable. I then developed the tooling and fixture block for modifying the PVC pipe and the adjustable taper plug that allows for an adjustable, positive lock of the blade into the lightsaber handle.
If you end up building one, please let me know!
