Silver wrote:Lightsabers (well most of them, anyways) have "deadman switches" built into them for safety reasons. I've read before that many small single person vehicles in the SW galaxy also have that feature. Swoops and speeder bike engines will cut off if they no longer detect a person manning the controls. How they do that I have no idea.
A finely tuned pressure sensor in the steering device (wheel, lever, throttle, whatever), with a timer - so casually letting go of the thing won't shut the device off.
I don't know if there's any relation, but the Han Solo blaster toy had a button in the grip. You needed to push both the button and the trigger to fire it (and make cool buzzing sounds, wee!) so you needed a firm grasp on the gun.
Gandalf wrote:Is it possible that when Qui- Gon's Lightsabre dropped, it got knocked into off?
Also, as for the pressue sense thing, how come when Luke lost his sabre is stayed on, I always thought it funny that on the surface of Bespin there is an activated Lightsabre lying around.
His hand was still holding it, maybe the preasue was still on the switch.
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Gandalf wrote:Is it possible that when Qui- Gon's Lightsabre dropped, it got knocked into off?
Also, as for the pressue sense thing, how come when Luke lost his sabre is stayed on, I always thought it funny that on the surface of Bespin there is an activated Lightsabre lying around.
His hand was still holding it, maybe the preasue was still on the switch.
I don't think a lobbed off hand would maintain pressure. Though that is funny.
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Slartibartfast wrote:I don't know if there's any relation, but the Han Solo blaster toy had a button in the grip. You needed to push both the button and the trigger to fire it (and make cool buzzing sounds, wee!) so you needed a firm grasp on the gun.
The orginal gun from the movie has the same button but for another purpose.
It signaled the user with a gentle vibration that the gun's energy cell will soon run out.
The best idea is that lightsabers had a switch that must be pressed and hold in that position in order to use the saber. When the saber is thrown the jedi uses the force to keep the blade on.
The scene when Luke lost his hand on Bespin and the lightsaber remains on, can be the result of the traumatic effect itself.
It's a common thing that grip can remain in lost limbs after they have been cut down from the body.
The lightsaber was on? No. It was turning off. It merely seem to be on because it was falling and seem to be twirling. A twirling hilt will make it difficult to see.
Which edition did you see this? The old version (which I did not watch) might not have the technology to show a saber turning off. But the Special Edition did not show it any clearer.
Let us just review the sabers in the films, ok? The EU stuff would only mess things up.
I'm sure the lightsabre turn off everytime a Jedi is dead or when the sabre falls out of grip. One example is Mace Windu in the Genosis Arena. He got knocked down by one of the beasts and his sabre fell. Kenobi's sabre also deactivated when it was knocked off in the Kamino scene when Jango was attacking him.
What about anakin's saber? When Dooku lobbed off Anakin's arm, the sabre deactivated. I don't think Anakin's lobbed off hand would be able to deactivated the sabre.
But, why was the sabre still activated when Lord Maul fell into the 'pit'? This is strange indeed.
I assume Maul was dying, and the pressure exerted on the hilt was still there. But in the same shot (NOT the shot showing Maul split in half.), the sabre was turning off. I think Maul finally died in that scene.
One way to explain it would be to say that different lightsabers have different "ignition" mechanisms (Bob Brown's page confirms this, with the whole "buttons vs. thumb switches" bits) and there may be "locking" mechanisms in some sabers, and the Force can play a role in "keeping it on" during certain circumstances.
Lightsabers sure have a lot of mysteries attached to the, and brain bugs... like the crystals thing, the blade mechanism and construction, how "hot" they are, colors, working in water, etc. ; )
my guess is that they have some sort of sensor that detects if theyr'e beign held by someone, maeby they detect body heath or something, so when theyr'e not in somebody's hands they shut down. This must have been developed as a safety mechanism, because it would be very dangerous to leave one of them turned on, as seen in the "tales of the Jedi :Ulic Queldroma and the beast wars of Onderon" comics (about 4000 years before ANH), when a jedi called Cay is shot in the hand while holding his lightsabre, it flyes away and cut another guy's leg. They must have developed this safety mechanism to prevent such incidents.
