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View Full Version : New Photon Green Blade Testimony



.: SparrowHawk :.
09-02-2015, 07:57 PM
With the very exciting news that Tim recently posted (http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showthread.php?18402-Photon-green-and-trans-purple-tubes-in-stock) about stocking the Photon Green blade (woot!), I thought I'd share my brief encounter with the magical blade and its genius inventor, in case anyone is wondering what all the buzz is about or considering ordering the blade.

Last weekend here in Albuquerque at our annual Mini Maker Fair, I had the privilege of meeting Photonic Bladesmith (as he's known over on FX-Sabers), the creator of the fluorescent green blade, as well as seeing the blade "with my own eyes." And wow! There is absolutely nothing like it. Even while the main LED is off, the blade fluoresces in daylight with a noticeable green glow. And with the main LED fired up? It is blinding. It retains an intensely green hue rather than fading to an off-white like other high power setups I've seen.


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(Here I am peering at the magic, with Photonic Bladesmith eagerly explaining the setup.
Unfortunately, this is the only photo I got! :/ The Photon Green blade is in the saber 3rd from bottom, and is switched off, showing the fluorescing effect in daylight).

I will note that the specs of the saber Photonic Bladesmith was demoing the blade on were seriously robust, notably the light element running at 30 amps, and generating so much heat that operating the saber required wearing leather gloves (even with a custom behemoth of a heatsink). I should also mention that this blade pictured above is Photonic Bladesmith's original acrylic prototype, and the TCSS Photon Green blade is duel-worthy PolyC. In any case, this fluorescent blade material is truly brilliant for super bright dedicated green blades, and I'm very excited for when I can use one in a build.

If you haven't already, you can check out Photonic Bladesmith's original post on the research and development process and see photos of the finished blade on the FX-Saber forums here: Part 1 (Saber) (http://www.fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=46064.0) and Part 2 (Blade) (http://www.fx-sabers.com/forum/index.php?topic=46065.0).

I'm super curious to hear what others think of this blade! Thoughts? :D

Forgetful Jedi Knight
09-02-2015, 08:36 PM
Well, as you noted, running anything with 30A and that requires gloves is a bit of an issue.

Regarding the blades themselves, Vader's Vault has been diligently working on furthering these developments and "mass producing" finished blades. I believe we will see stock here is the store before too long, though I don't know how the tips will be handled just yet.

Noyl Wendor
09-02-2015, 08:37 PM
I like it. I'm a fan of green blades. So seeing this and now seeing TCSS stocks them I'm really interested in getting my hands on one. Doing a bit of research atm. I posted else where on the forums some of my Q's out loud.
I'm definitely looking into getting a couple.

snilam
09-02-2015, 09:10 PM
Just ordered the new blade. I've been curious ever since I read the thread over at FX and thrilled tcss now has them and in polyC to boot! I'll report back but all I've read is great things about the new blade tech. Good thing I already have a rB saber to test with.x

.: SparrowHawk :.
09-02-2015, 09:44 PM
Well, as you noted, running anything with 30A and that requires gloves is a bit of an issue.

Regarding the blades themselves, Vader's Vault has been diligently working on furthering these developments and "mass producing" finished blades. I believe we will see stock here is the store before too long, though I don't know how the tips will be handled just yet.

Haha, yep! Definitely a bit of an issue there. I can imagine the runtime is suffering quite a bit as well. :-?

It's great to hear that Vader's Vault and TCSS are doing R&D on this new blade, it seems really promising. The link that Tim shared from Vader's Vault mentioned the possibility of other colors for fluorescent blades...can't wait to see how these might be developed.



I like it. I'm a fan of green blades. So seeing this and now seeing TCSS stocks them I'm really interested in getting my hands on one. Doing a bit of research atm. I posted else where on the forums some of my Q's out loud.
I'm definitely looking into getting a couple.

I agree, I've always been found of the green blade. Regarding one of your questions about the diffusion material, Photonic Bladesmith used the good ol' clear cellophane gift wrap in the prototype, and it seemed to work fantastically. :)

And as to what to color LED to use...from what I can gather from Photonic's posts, he used a blue LED is in the right frequency to cause "fluorescent wavelength shifting" in the blade, producing an excited green color. So... we would need to use a blue or royal blue LED of the right wavelength frequency with the green blade, I think I'm getting this right...?

.: SparrowHawk :.
09-02-2015, 09:48 PM
Just ordered the new blade. I've been curious ever since I read the thread over at FX and thrilled tcss now has them and in polyC to boot! I'll report back but all I've read is great things about the new blade tech. Good thing I already have a rB saber to test with.x

Ah, very interesting! Looking forward for your report, and to hear how it performs with the a rB die (Cree or Rebel?).

Askew Wai
09-02-2015, 10:24 PM
I am really excited by these developments. With regards to blue light being turned green, do you get a sense of any blue light leaking through? Is there a teal tinge to the blade?

This could be a feature not a bug considering other flourophores like Texas Red (blue-ish light becoming red-ish glow). Although the level of the excited color in the blade may vary slightly with the level of ambient light.

.: SparrowHawk :.
09-02-2015, 11:17 PM
I am really excited by these developments. With regards to blue light being turned green, do you get a sense of any blue light leaking through? Is there a teal tinge to the blade?

This could be a feature not a bug considering other flourophores like Texas Red (blue-ish light becoming red-ish glow). Although the level of the excited color in the blade may vary slightly with the level of ambient light.

As far as I could tell, there was no blue or teal hues from the blue light element visible at all in the blade. The green is very richly and evenly saturated, even compared with a LED string blade setup (see the FX-Sabers posts linked above for some good comparison pics).

And I think you're right about ambient light sources changing the excited blade color ever so slightly, perhaps most noticeably in hard daylight/shadow settings (although I'm speculating at this point!). ;)

Strydur
09-03-2015, 07:49 AM
We are working on a solution for matching tips. If you use a clear tip and a blue LED the tips will obviously be blue while the blade is green.. great if you are a Seahawks fan. You can get matching paint that will work like the blade.. Testors part# 9465

.: SparrowHawk :.
09-03-2015, 11:39 AM
We are working on a solution for matching tips. If you use a clear tip and a blue LED the tips will obviously be blue while the blade is green.. great if you are a Seahawks fan. You can get matching paint that will work like the blade.. Testors part# 9465

Haha, Seahawks fans would go wild! Maybe that's a new untouched market for sabers. :) Hmm, that fluorescent Testors paint looks like a good match. Just airbrush on the tip and seal with a clear-coat?

Silver Serpent
09-03-2015, 12:56 PM
If/when the paint chips off, you'll have glowing blue areas on the tip. Might be a cool effect. Not sure how to get around that, until Tim can find a source of dyed stock to make the tips out of.

.: SparrowHawk :.
09-03-2015, 08:27 PM
If/when the paint chips off, you'll have glowing blue areas on the tip. Might be a cool effect. Not sure how to get around that, until Tim can find a source of dyed stock to make the tips out of.

Ah yes, chipping could give cool effect with the blue showing through. Seems like a few clear enamel spray coats would give enough durability for medium dueling purposes. It'll be interesting to see how many different ways the saber community will use this new blade material :D

Miraluka
09-03-2015, 11:23 PM
I ordered a completed photon blade from VV the day they added them to their store (2 weeks ago) and the blade has yet to be shipped. Seems pretty likely that if you order the photon tube from TCSS, you'll get it before the VV crowd.

Photonic Bladesmith
09-04-2015, 01:10 PM
The tips of the prototype acrylic tube fluorescent green blades glow green when the blade is illuminated by blue LEDs.
Apparently the scattered green light from the blade coupled into the clear translucent tip overwhelmed any blue LED light leakage shining through the tip's rear reflective mirror.
Hopefully the tips of the new fluorescent green polycarbonate blades will illuminate similarly.

The blade is being illuminated by a royal blue quad CREE XP-E2 LED star with each LED being driven at 1.5 amps (6 amp total current).

http://i1283.photobucket.com/albums/a558/photonicbladesmith/FluorescentBladeTip_ON_zps7khz2vvj.jpg (http://s1283.photobucket.com/user/photonicbladesmith/media/FluorescentBladeTip_ON_zps7khz2vvj.jpg.html)

http://i1283.photobucket.com/albums/a558/photonicbladesmith/FluorescentBladeTip_OFF_zpsogtra8jn.jpg (http://s1283.photobucket.com/user/photonicbladesmith/media/FluorescentBladeTip_OFF_zpsogtra8jn.jpg.html)


The fluorescent acrylic tubing is 1/8" wall 1" OD fluorescent green tubing ordered from K-mac Plastics.

The tip is a Custom Saber Shop product: stip1Thin-R Shouldered 1" thin walled blade tip with reflective disc
The end of the thick wall acrylic tubing was thinned on a lathe to accommodate the tip.
The tip was glued in place with Weld-On acrylic cement.

There is about four feet of clear cellophane gift wrap rolled up and inserted into the blade tube.

Strydur
09-04-2015, 04:00 PM
Welcome to the forums Photonic Bladesmith.. Yes if the mirror covers all or most of the tip it would be green. On the newer tips we have smaller mirrors to help light the tip better and that is why on the test blade I did the tip was blue.

Bry
09-05-2015, 03:22 AM
I have dumb question/idea, would this same effect be possible with a fluorescent cellophane wrap (if we could find such a thing), and or a thin insert? Then, if you wanted, you could have the core appearance, and the light qualities.

.: SparrowHawk :.
09-05-2015, 11:25 PM
Greetings Photonic Bladesmith, we meet again! :) Interesting about the mirror size and tip color change. I suppose as a temporary solution, a larger reflector (like highly polished aluminum veneer) could be installed in the new tips that have the smaller mirrors to reduce the blue bleed-through.

When I get a chance, I'd like to try out the fluorescent paint, I'm curious if it can be applied in a thin enough coat on the tip to still let light through, yet thick enough to have good durability. Or...maybe the paint could be applied to the "inside" area of the tip around the mirror?


@ Bry, a fluorescent film, that would be pretty interesting indeed. More research, the future holds. :D

Bry
09-06-2015, 03:00 AM
Yeah, cause that was the thing that struck me. If these tubes are dyed, and not made of colored material, then the colors would only go so deep into the materials surface which would limit the effectiveness. So with a film, you might be able to tune the effect of the fluorescent, based on the number of wraps to make it even brighter. and the film would also diffuse the light even further to balance the blade.

Edit: Another question that just popped into my mind is, can you increase the fluorescent effect yet again by adding another fluorescent color over the first. Example being, if there is another fluorescent color that reacts to the light put out by the "photon green" shade.

This is the problem with new tech, so many ways to play with it, and not enough answers lol.

Photonic Bladesmith
09-06-2015, 11:50 AM
Yeah, cause that was the thing that struck me. If these tubes are dyed, and not made of colored material, then the colors would only go so deep into the materials surface which would limit the effectiveness. So with a film, you might be able to tune the effect of the fluorescent, based on the number of wraps to make it even brighter. and the film would also diffuse the light even further to balance the blade.

Edit: Another question that just popped into my mind is, can you increase the fluorescent effect yet again by adding another fluorescent color over the first. Example being, if there is another fluorescent color that reacts to the light put out by the "photon green" shade.

This is the problem with new tech, so many ways to play with it, and not enough answers lol.


The fluorescent acrylic and polycarbonate that I have used in the past had coloration throughout the solid material. It was definitely not just a surface coat.

_______

Optimal fluorescent material thickness or dye concentration is a major issue:

The fluorescent "day glow green" acrylic tubing I ordered seems to have a near perfect dye concentration for its blade thickness.

Too high a dye concentration for the tube thickness and the tube goes opaque and starts to self absorb its own fluorescence.

Too low a dye concentration or too thin a blade and the LED color driving the blade shines through.

The fluorescent red acrylic tubing that I bought exhibits this pump light "shine through" effect.

This "shine through" bug for the fluorescent red tubing can be turned into a feature if the fluorescent red blade is driven by a bright white LED. The white LED illuminates the cellophane diffuser inside the blade which shines through the center of the blade tube as a white core and the red fluorescent plastic at the edges that have no white diffuser behind it glows red. This produces the effect of a white core saber blade with a red edge visible simultaneously from all directions for anybody who may desire a blade producing this appearance.

_______

Cascading fluorescence, if the goal is making the brightest possible blade, is counterproductive. Fluorescence does not generate new photons. Every time you use fluorescence to transform one color photon into another you convert with an efficiency less than 100%. Fluorescein "day glow green" emits its light at a color where the eye is maximally sensitive so the same amount of optical power at any other color will appear dimmer.

Mixing different fluorescent compounds however might be a way to generate unique blade colors with higher brightness than using tri-color LEDs or filters.

_______

The combo of a Fluorescein "day glow green" dyed blade driven by blue LEDs has unique features that makes it generate an extremely bright blade:

- The current generation blue LEDs are extremely efficient converters of electrical input power to optical output power. I have measured the latest generation CREE XP-E2 at 36% efficient at its rated current of 1 amp. This is over three times the efficiency measured with the CREE XP-E2 green LED. The human eye however has very poor sensitivity in the deep blue so the green LED at the same current still visually appears brighter despite having less than one third the optical output power because the sensitivity of the eye in the yellow-green part of the spectrum is over twenty times greater than in the deep blue.

- Fluorescein dye emits its light in the yellow green part of the spectrum where the eye is the most sensitive. Fluorescein is also highly efficient, up to 92%, in converting photons in its excitation band of wavelengths into this yellow green light. The increase in brightness when Fluorescein dye is used to convert blue LED light into the green can be dramatic. At 450nm (royal blue), 5 watts of optical output power in a normal blade will produce a 130 lumen blue blade. The same 5 watts of blue light transformed into green light by a fluorescent blade will generate a 2,200 lumen green blade.

- Fluorescein dye has an excitation band in which absorbed light is converted into green light that is extremely wide extending from cyan to the ultraviolet. As a consequence, a large fraction of the background diffuse or direct Sunlight drives the blade to emit even more of the same color that the LED makes it emit, rather than just washing out the color as is the case with a white or translucent clear blade.

methos2523
09-06-2015, 11:54 AM
this is very intriguing...

does anyone have photos of these photon blades being used in a BBW setup or similar?

definitely thinking of getting a pair :D

FenderBender
09-06-2015, 06:47 PM
We have actually found that the BBW's actually work better than the royal blues. The Fluorescin dye has a peak excitation wavelength of 495nm, whereas the Cree royal blue is 465nm, The shade is richer with the royal blue, but the normal blue Cree is brighter.

Also, to those that ordered Complete Photon blades from us (VV), MANY have shipped, and while, yes, we are behind on orders since we sold about 2 months worth of blades in 48 hours, you can imagine that we are a tad behind. All should be caught up and shipped this week however and many have already received theirs.

jtsteph
01-28-2016, 08:01 PM
My photon blade pics:
CSS blade with photon round tip

Some pictures are in normal room lighting.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/jtstephens/IMG_7057.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jtstephens/media/IMG_7057.jpg.html)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/jtstephens/IMG_7053.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jtstephens/media/IMG_7053.jpg.html)
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/jtstephens/IMG_7048.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/jtstephens/media/IMG_7048.jpg.html)


Video:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/jtstephens/th_IMG_7052.mp4 (http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v260/jtstephens/IMG_7052.mp4)

CET
01-28-2016, 08:23 PM
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What's the deal with the pink blade? Is that another variation of the photonic blade?

Kouri
02-03-2016, 12:39 PM
Here's my own tinkering with a generic blue LED:

http://i.imgur.com/sTTw4V3l.jpg

Haven't had the chance to try with a Cree blue, that's on my to-do list. Currently I prefer the color I get from the Cree Royal Blue in my converted Anakin.

Actual color of the blade when lit is somewhere between Green and a Rebel Lime. Kind of blends with whatever blue is used to light it. Without sanding the blade, it's got a really neat "inner core" look to it.

That cheapo blue I used gave it an aqua/cyan-ish core with yellow-green aura. The Royal Blue gave it a cool-white core with yellow-green aura. Stupidly bright in-person, giving off an almost-white light even though the blade is clearly green. Sanding the blade down for diffusion made the core less defined and the blade more green overall.

Arkanjel
02-27-2016, 01:47 PM
Has anyone tried these with a UV led yet? Seems like the results would be stellar.

Silver Serpent
02-28-2016, 08:43 AM
Peak absorption for the dye in Photon blades is in the blue range, not UV. You'd still light up the blade, but not as brightly, and there would be a significant amount of UV leakage that could be bad for your eyes.

Arkanjel
02-28-2016, 09:02 AM
The amount of UV (coming through a saber blade) of any reasonable wattage would be less than what you get from a nightclubs blacklights.

Silver Serpent
02-28-2016, 07:51 PM
I'd still be careful about the particular wavelength of the UV LED you pick. Don't get the ones that are hazardous to vision.

Arkanjel
02-29-2016, 07:32 PM
Yes.

I didnt realize they were designed to work with such a narrow band. If they are specifically designed to work with blues the best, UV's may well be lackluster. As long as they arent too far down the spectrum you should still get some results though.

Arkanjel
03-06-2016, 06:11 AM
Thick wall blade with Cree royal blue and standard blade diffuser. Im impressed.

https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1516/25435472992_5db2e15f0e_o.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/EKDrXN)photon test run (https://flic.kr/p/EKDrXN) by Simon Rivers (https://www.flickr.com/photos/eclipsephotographyllc/), on Flickr

erlomd
03-06-2016, 07:49 AM
wear your sunglasses! cause thats bright!

Arkanjel
03-15-2016, 06:04 PM
I am confirming that UV spectrum doesnt do much for the Photons. Even white looks more brilliant.