Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; a sublime weapon for a extra civilized age. That’s proper, we’re trying out some lightsabers at present which have been despatched over to make use of from Encalife, an organization in all probability higher recognized for its star projectors and telescopes, however now they’re getting into the Kyber crystal sport it appears.
Duplicate lightsabers are extremely widespread amongst Star Wars followers, particularly amongst cosplayers and conference goers who wish to gown up as Jedi Knights and Sith Lords. Whereas many individuals need precise reproductions of the lightsabers that Obi-Wan and Darth Vader use, others wish to create their very own force-wielding characters and that’s the place corporations like Encalife are available.
However how do the Encalife lightsabers stack up towards the best lightsabers on the market? There’s lots of competitors on the market already, with corporations like Sabertrio and Vader’s Vault providing high-end, excessive value sabers, whereas locations like Kyber provide nice entry-level choices for Star Wars followers. Encalife is clearly aiming extra on the latter class with these sabers which retail at $199, however can normally be discovered for $150.
Encalife lightsabers: Design and meeting
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Encalife was type sufficient to ship us over three of their completely different lightsaber hilt designs to take a look at and mess around with – black, grey, and purple. The black saber is a comparatively easy design with indented rings and silver banding including a little bit of aptitude. There’s additionally a protruding hexagonal design on the underside of the saber that appears lots like the top of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s lightsaber.
The purple design is definitely primarily black, however with sinister purple banding for the accent particulars. There’s much more texture to this saber’s deal with, with a number of grooves the place your fingers naturally sit if you’re holding it. It has a extra intricate design on the prime the place the blade comes out, with a slanted emitter port that has a number of slits in it, permitting the lit blade to shine by way of.
The grey blade is someplace between the opposite two when it comes to design. It has a grey steel physique and silver trim, however shares the slanted emitter port with the purple saber, although the cutout design is formed as an inverted T, moderately than the three slits.
All three hilts are constructed from strong steel and have an appropriate heft to them. They really feel nicely made, the end is clear, and the entire varied screw-on sections and connecting components are nicely machined. All of the sabers feel and appear nice, though they’re nowhere close to as intricately detailed as official lightsabers which could put some folks off, particularly in case you’re after one thing extra elaborate primarily for show.
Meeting is a bit of cake. The saber blade comes separate from the hilt within the field, however that is simply hooked up through two included screws and an Allen key. The blade can simply be indifferent afterwards too, so you may put on your saber in your belt with out the blade getting in the best way.
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Encalife lightsabers: Options & efficiency
Encalife’s web site makes lots of claims about what these lightsabers can do, so we rapidly set to work on testing them out – aka we began swinging them round wildly, pretending to be dueling Darth Maul.
These lightsabers use a single button management system, however there are not any directions offered on the best way to use this. Fortunately for you, we have managed to determine all the pieces out so there’s a information for you beneath.
You flip the saber on by urgent and holding the button. As soon as turned on, the surface of the button will illuminate and you’ll hear a noise, at which level you let go of the button after which press it once more to ignite the blade. From there, in case you press the button and maintain it down then the button gentle flashes, and every variety of flashes will take you to a special operate.
By default, the lightsaber is in blaster deflect mode. Now, every time you hit the button the saber will flash and make a blaster sound, letting you imitate deflecting blaster bolts. Holding the button down for one flash after which urgent it can activate the “clashing” impact that occurs when two lightsabers lock up collectively – that is nice for dynamic photographs throughout cosplay shoots or throughout choreographed duels.
Two button flashes will allow you to cycle by way of the 12 colour choices obtainable for the blades. It’s good to see some selection past the same old purple, blue, and inexperienced, and so they’re all equally vibrant. There’s even a purple possibility, so Mace Windu followers gained’t be disenchanted. The colours of the lightsaber are all tremendous vibrant and vibrant, so you should utilize these lightsabers in broad daylight and nonetheless clearly see their illumination, and so they look phenomenal at evening.
The fourth flash will put the saber into standby mode, retracting the blade however not turning it off fully. This implies it may be reactivated with a single button press, moderately than an prolonged maintain. While in sleep mode you may fiddle with the quantity controls. Holding the button for one flash will cycle between low quantity, excessive quantity, and mute. The loud quantity mode might be too loud, to be trustworthy, although that is perhaps a very good factor for the conference crowd who need their sabers to be heard in a corridor full of individuals. The quiet mode is a bit softer, however truthfully, it’s nonetheless a bit too loud. A 3rd quieter possibility between quiet and mute would have been good (you possibly can hack this your self by placing some tape over the speaker output on the pommel of the saber).
Holding it down for 2 flashes throughout standby mode will change the sound profile of the lightsaber. You get a voice line indicating which character’s lightsaber profile you’re choosing – a few of these are fairly naff impressions, however the Vader one is so good that I couldn’t inform it wasn’t the actual deal. Every saber profile has completely different sounds for the start-up/shutdown, idle hum, swooshing, and clashing sound results that will help you individualize your lightsaber. It’s a pleasant contact, permitting you to go for the extra crackly, violent sounds of Kylo Ren’s saber or the class of somebody like Luke or Yoda.
Additionally they have influence detection, flashing and making a noise in case you hit them towards one thing with sufficient power. The reliability of this detection isn’t good although, so that you wish to smack issues fairly exhausting to verify the sound goes off.
The entire single-button system is a little bit of a ache to be trustworthy with you. You’ll be able to’t rapidly ignite or extinguish the saber which makes utilizing them for choreographed fights awkward – you may’t precisely ask Darth Vader to politely wait whilst you maintain down the on button for 3 seconds.
The blade itself is only a tube for the sunshine to bounce round in, with the saber deal with successfully functioning as a coloured flashlight that illuminates the polycarbonate tube to offer the lightsaber impact. There are execs and cons to this strategy. On the plus facet, the blade is straightforward to detach for if you simply need the hilt. There are additionally no fragile, breakable electronics within the blade that might be broken by dueling. The draw back is that the sunshine is brighter on the base and will get just a little fainter in the direction of the tip. We’re truly impressed with how minor this distinction is in these sabers to be truthful, however it’s nonetheless noticeable, particularly in images.
Encalife Lightsabers: Battery life and charging
You may be delighted to listen to that there isn’t any want to purchase batteries for these sabers, as they arrive with rechargeable batteries built-in.. Encalife claims that the lightsabers final for 4 hours of steady use on a full cost. We’ll stage with you pricey reader, we didn’t spend 4 hours swinging a lightsaber round to check this declare, however we will say that not one of the sabers have wanted to be recharged after their preliminary cost within the two weeks that we’ve had them.
Once you do must recharge them, it’s a comparatively easy process on two of the three choices: the purple and black sabers have a charging port on the surface of the hilt – merely use the included USB to charging port cable that comes with the sabers and go away them to cost. The sunshine on the ability button pulses when it’s charging and stays strong when absolutely charged.
Weirdly, the grey saber doesn’t have the identical system. As an alternative, you must unscrew the underside of the hilt after which plug in a micro-usb to USB charger. We don’t know why this mannequin is completely different.
Encalife Lightsabers: Value
We should always in all probability get one thing out of the best way early on – Encalife doesn’t truly make these lightsabers – they’re partnered up with Ciel Tan, a Chinese language model that makes an entire host of lightsabers, usually on AliExpress although you can even discover them on Amazon.
Encalife could be very up entrance about this on their web site, stating that they’re partnered up with Ciel Tan however truthfully, that is overstating issues. We assumed that these designs/colour combos could be unique to Encalife, however that doesn’t look like the case as we discovered the purple saber on Amazon underneath a special title. We couldn’t discover the precise grey or black fashions wherever else although, so these two designs is perhaps unique to Encalife.
Now, none of this may be a difficulty if it wasn’t for the worth disparity between different Ciel Tan sabers and those that Encalife are promoting. Encalife is promoting all three variants at a typical value of $199.97 on their web site, although at time of writing all three are at present reduced to $149.97 (opens in new tab). Against this, the identical purple saber that we discovered on Amazon is selling for $75.99 (opens in new tab).
Must you purchase an Encalife lightsaber?
In the event you’re in search of a sturdy lightsaber prop for cosplaying, photoshoots, or simply to swing round the home if you wish to really feel like a Jedi, then these lightsabers are an ideal alternative. They’re nicely constructed, have vibrant blades and loud sound results, and so they include a great deal of options like influence flashes and blaster sounds. They’re not good – the designs are a bit plain and the single-button controls are a ache – particularly with the entire lack of directions, however these are irritations, not deal breakers.
Nonetheless, except you really need these precise designs, you will discover the identical fashion of lightsabers made by the identical firm, on Amazon for less expensive. Nonetheless, these are good worth, good high quality sabers and in case you see them on provide, then we might fortunately advocate them.