Sounds good I’ll go ahead and get the stuff I need ordered, thanks Fredrik! 
I have news!
I desoldered the hilt side PCB and taped off the wires individually, shoved them back in the heat sink/pcb holder and put the hilt side PCB back as a dummy. I then put the hilt back together with the blade in and clashed repeatedly with no crashing this time. I had previously tried to just tape off the blade side pcb connector to ensure there was no connection to the LEDs in the blade, but they still resulted in crashing. Now key the hilt side pcb disconnected, the crashing has ceased.
What the hell? Lol
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But you tried two different hilt side PCBs, right?
That is correct.
Good news!
A short while ago I designed and 3D printed a new NeoPixel PCB holder for this saber and completely rewired it with one of the proffie boards that I had the crashing issue with previously. Stuck a battery in and tested the clashing on it. No crash on clash this time.
Dunno what it was, but I’m glad it’s working.
Here’s a video of the finished saber:
Thanks to all here for your assistance =)