3D Printed Guardian Sword

Creating a 3D printed Guardian Sword from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Dylan Lu

Aug 4, 2023 • 4 min read

I was looking for some cool things to make with my new 3D printer (thanks PAUSD) and I stumbled upon this awesome sword. It's a full-sized guardian sword from Breath of the Wild and it even lights up!

If you want to make it yourself, here is an in-depth guide. I used some cheaper parts, but the result is similar.

Important: If you use the LED strip I did, you're sword will not fully close because the strip is too thick. I did not realize this at the time, so you have to judge whether that's worth saving $40.

And if you're like me and have a smaller printer, then use this STL file instead. You'll need some more screws though (around 20 of each kind). https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2311491

My (cheaper) Materials

Everything else is the same from the guide, but I probably saved about $40 using these instead (NeoPixel Strips are really expensive!). Also, if Amazon prices are too high, you can buy some of the Arduino parts from DigiKey.

Attempt to save more money

I was going to save even more money by stacking coin cell batteries in series (3V + 3V + 3V = 9V) and using my sister's old LED strip, but I ended up spending some more money to get a rechargeable battery and a brighter LED strip instead.

Printing The Parts

I don't remember exactly how long it took to print, but it used up about 0.5kg of filament. Looks pretty cool though!

Screwing The Parts

The screwing part was really annoying though. It took several days to get each screw to fit in the tiny little hole. The walls of the sword get in the way of so you need a really small screwdriver and a lot of patience.

Circuits!

Time to hook up all the wires and stuff. Like the guide suggested, I used a Trinket M0, a Lipo Backpack, and a Lithium Ion Battery.

You'll need to have some decent soldering skills to wire them together since the pads are very tiny and closer to each other. Hook it all up and you get something like this.

Programming

This part was annoying because my PC would not detect my Arduino for the longest time. I have no idea what drivers I installed while debugging, but I eventually got it to work about one-third of the time. Since I'm using a different LED strip, the code is different.

Some prerequisites:

Arduino IDE setup according to this guide (you'll need to install Adafruit SAMD) - https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-trinket-m0-circuitpython-arduino?view=all#arduino-ide-setup
Fast LED Package - https://github.com/FastLED/FastLED

#include "FastLED.h"

#define NUM_LEDS  288
#define PIN       4

// Color Segments
#define APIXELS 25
#define BPIXELS 180
#define CPIXELS 250

CRGB leds[NUM_LEDS];
int delayval = 5; // ms

void setup() {
  FastLED.addLeds<WS2812B, PIN, GRB>(leds, NUM_LEDS).setCorrection(TypicalLEDStrip);
  FastLED.clear();                                   
}

void loop() {
  for(int i=0;i<APIXELS;i++){
    leds[i].setRGB(255, 50, 0);
    FastLED.show(); 
    delay(delayval);
  }

  for(int i=APIXELS;i<BPIXELS;i++){
    leds[i].setRGB(0, 250, 200);
    FastLED.show(); 
    delay(delayval);
  }
  
  for(int i=BPIXELS;i<CPIXELS;i++){
    leds[i].setRGB(255, 50, 0);
    FastLED.show(); 
    delay(delayval);
  }
}

Choose the Adafruit Trinket M0 (SAMD21)

Program it and boom. Look at what we have now!

Putting It All Together

Use super glue and screws to put fit everything inside the handle. If you look at the slide switch, you can see that I just 3D printed a small cube and glued it onto the switch. That way, I can actually get to it once I close the sword.

Now, just close the case, screw it together, and boom! You have a really cool Zelda sword.

Conclusion

This was a really fun project, but I'm kinda sad that my sword doesn't fully close (there is a gap because of the thick LED strip). When I tried fixing it, I ended up screwing up some of the LEDs, causing it to be dimmer overall. Hopefully, I can learn from this and make my next sword even better!