Lighting up HT Rey's Lightsaber

Drilled out Rey's lightsaber, added an LED and battery to make a standalone light-up lightsaber which doesn't need wires going up the sleeve or owt. It's a very weak light but looks cool in the dark at least. I've also sandpapered the blade, which unfortunately makes it less blue but adds a nice, more spread-out glow to it.

Side by side comparison to the HT Finn arm with light-up function shows how much more powerful having the larger batteries hidden in the forearm makes it, but I like having the lightsaber as a standalone little thing.

Nice mod I've been thinking about trying this on Vader's.
How'd ya do it if you don't mind sharing?

Pretty cool addition. Nice work.

Great job!

Thanks guys!
It's a pretty simple job to do, on this model of lightsaber anyway. There's already a hole in the hilt for the blade to go into that is pretty much the width you need, just get a 3mm drill bit and keep on digging out down through the whole handle. Hand drill it! I used a dremel the first time I tried this and melted a none-too-cheap HT lightsaber in the process. The sabre splits in two nice and easily, I don't know if it was glued by HT initially but it certainly just naturally fulls in two during drilling. That suits us because it means you can get the battery and LED out again easily to "turn it off"; no need for any fancy switches or anything.
I used a white 3mm LED and a CR322 battery. The battery fits perfectly in the 3mm hole but the LED requires filing or sanding down because while most of the LED is 3mm there's also a little sort of collar part on it which makes it too wide. The cathode and anode (the metal stalks) on the LED need trimming and bending like you can see in my photos so that when they're next to the battery in the handle one is touching the centre stalk of the battery and one is touching the outer part. The 3mm cavity should hold them snugly together but if they rattle apart you can wad the cavity with strips of paper until it's just right. And you're done!

Nice mod. Well done on the illuminated saber.

Nice job cloudlifter and thanks for the tutorial. I might attempt something like this sometime but hopefully by then the sabers that come out will have them

Yeah I'd been thinking of doing the mod for people as a service, but tbh I think the light from this method is so weak that most people will be happy just waiting for the Last Jedi Rey which comes with a light-up arm.

Very nice, cloudfilter! Reminds me of the ANH on-screen appearance.