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I had a little argument with a friend of mine, who doesn't really know much about Star Wars. We were playing the Star Wars Roleplaying game and he wanted to cut through a few blast doors with his lightsaber, and I said that about half way through the second one, it started to get dimmer as it was running low on power.

That's just background. He said to me that he didn't think that lightsaber power cells were cannon (I guess he thought lightsabers had an infinate supply of power). I listed three sources: starwars.com, the Star Wars Technical Journal (I know, great source =P), and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game books (also another great source =P), but two of them are really bad sources, and one of them he has not believed as a good source in the past (he didn't believe that there were ducks in Star Wars even when I told him that they were listed at starwars.com ).

I was curious, what is the highest level of cannon that comments on the power source of a lightsaber? Also, about how many blast doors do you think one could go through before it at least began to run out of energy?

The SW novelisation makes a comment on a power cell in Anakin's lightsabre.

Regarding the RPG incident, while it's not impossible to occur, it's very unlikely that a lightsabre would suddenly begin to run out of power. While the lifespan of a charge is unknown, lightsabres have been known to maintain a charge for upwards of 4000 years between activations.

IIRC they were mentioned in ANH novelezation and as for blastdoor probaly a lot as there's very little loss of energy from the powercells unless your cutting something.

I don't really think it's a question of how much they can cut through but of how long they can remain activated, and most of what I've read suggests that they have very long running times.

We know that Darth Vader's lightsaber uses Supervolt batteries, and runs out of juice just before he can slice the Energizer Bunny.

It's possible that cutting a very dense material (whatever metal blast doors are made of) could draw a much greater current.

Energy must be conserved, cutting a material will of course draw considerably more power than not cutting something. Ability to hold a charge between activations really doesn't say anything useful about total energy capacity--just how long it can store its energy. AFAIK there is no good source from which total energy capacity can be determined.
I say, if you are story teller, and you think his batteries are running low, go with it. Cutting through a blast door uses many orders of magnitude more energy than say, cutting through several railings or small fixtures, and doing so will drain the batteries at a correspondingly greater rate.

In the ANH novelisation, Luke (who was somewhat familiar with normal weapons) was amazed by the energy level of the light sabre and it says that its power cell looked like a crystal.

Later in the novelisation a standard (stormtrooper) blaster was able to 'cut' trough a body thick prison door. While it was close to the limits of the weapon, it was only because heat, not because energy requirement. But since it was omitted from the movies, it is only infinite level.

In TPM Qui did not worried about that more than one meter thick door after a 'short' fight.

So, if the sum thickness of the doors is not beyond several meters or the energy level of the sword was not iniially extremly low, find an other way to stop the characters.

Just say the door has a cortosis inlay.

Thank you everyone, this has been very helpful

vakundok wrote:Later in the novelisation a standard (stormtrooper) blaster was able to 'cut' trough a body thick prison door. While it was close to the limits of the weapon, it was only because heat, not because energy requirement. But since it was omitted from the movies, it is only infinite level.

Wrong, it is lower canon.

Iceberg wrote:We know that Darth Vader's lightsaber uses Supervolt batteries, and runs out of juice just before he can slice the Energizer Bunny.

canon

Messon wrote:I had a little argument with a friend of mine, who doesn't really know much about Star Wars. We were playing the Star Wars Roleplaying game and he wanted to cut through a few blast doors with his lightsaber, and I said that about half way through the second one, it started to get dimmer as it was running low on power.

That's just background. He said to me that he didn't think that lightsaber power cells were cannon (I guess he thought lightsabers had an infinate supply of power). I listed three sources: starwars.com, the Star Wars Technical Journal (I know, great source =P), and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game books (also another great source =P), but two of them are really bad sources, and one of them he has not believed as a good source in the past (he didn't believe that there were ducks in Star Wars even when I told him that they were listed at starwars.com ).

I was curious, what is the highest level of cannon that comments on the power source of a lightsaber? Also, about how many blast doors do you think one could go through before it at least began to run out of energy?

Didn't you see that commercial a few years back? Darth Vader's lightsaber runs on Duracell, and it died before he could kill the Energizer Bunny.

EDIT: Dang, too late.

Dang it, I want that commercial.

Howedar wrote:

vakundok wrote:Later in the novelisation a standard (stormtrooper) blaster was able to 'cut' trough a body thick prison door. While it was close to the limits of the weapon, it was only because heat, not because energy requirement. But since it was omitted from the movies, it is only infinite level.

Wrong, it is lower canon.

Really? Well, thanks.

OK, folks, I mentioned the Energizer commercial way way back in post #3. You snooze, you lose.

Iceberg wrote:OK, folks, I mentioned the Energizer commercial way way back in post #3. You snooze, you lose.

It was only unnecessarily re-introduced once, since I was responding to this:

Rogue 9 wrote:Dang it, I want that commercial.

I remember a SW comic with Luke field-recharging his saber by borrowing a blaster and screwing something akin to fiber optic cable to the blaster's muzzel and pumping blaster bolts into the saber handle.

Messon wrote:I had a little argument with a friend of mine, who doesn't really know much about Star Wars. We were playing the Star Wars Roleplaying game and he wanted to cut through a few blast doors with his lightsaber, and I said that about half way through the second one, it started to get dimmer as it was running low on power.

That's just background. He said to me that he didn't think that lightsaber power cells were cannon (I guess he thought lightsabers had an infinate supply of power). I listed three sources: starwars.com, the Star Wars Technical Journal (I know, great source =P), and the Star Wars Roleplaying Game books (also another great source =P), but two of them are really bad sources, and one of them he has not believed as a good source in the past (he didn't believe that there were ducks in Star Wars even when I told him that they were listed at starwars.com ).

I was curious, what is the highest level of cannon that comments on the power source of a lightsaber? Also, about how many blast doors do you think one could go through before it at least began to run out of energy?

You know, if Lightsabers didn't have any type of battery or fueled generator, it would be a perpetual motion machine and in complete violation of the laws of physics...so that right there proves it