Daylight bright saber

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

Before anyone 'shoots the noob' over the topic title yes I already know that "we arent there yet" - that none of the Luxeons out there now can make a saber prop that is bright enough to look 'saberish' like in the movies in full sunlit daylight...that's not what I am going to ask about...rather I am wondering if anyone has ever figured out/calculated how bright a prop saber's light source would NEED to be TO look 'saber bright' as in the movies but in full daylight?

Would a 1000 lumens saber do it? 1500 lumens? 2000 lumens?

Anybody have an idea?

[jjshumpert]

check out pics of do-clo's atlas lux saber in the gallery, it was daylight bright, in fact he has pics of the saber stood against an outside wall of his house and it appears brighter still than any 5w i have

[987654321a]

http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2599

check out the video in that the led is 4000 lumens. but you have to figure out a heatsinking opition.

[pockets]

yeah and have a blade forged in the fires of mount doom. hahaha i wouldnt dare put a polyc blade near that thing. can you imagine you light it up and 3 minutes later the blade just droops over and sticks to the ground haha.

[987654321a]

haha i dont think it would do that necesarily, newspaper is really thin so for it to burn like that would be typical.

[pockets]

haha i know, its just an over exaggeration for comedy's sake, but it may melt a film diffuser lol

[987654321a]

yea. it might but you can always sand the inside of the blade.

[pockets]

yea. it might but you can always sand the inside of the blade.

maybe melting a film diffuser to the polyc tube would make an awesome diffusing medium? lol

[TimeRender]

The melting temperature of polycarbonate is lower than the ignition temperature of paper. For anyone building a 4000 lumen saber... you've been warned...

[Novastar]

Time--can you point out the data for that... on the melting of poly-carb? I'm interested to know just how far the poly tubes can be "pushed".

Certainly setting ANYTHING on fire is not a good idea with anything related to sabers, lol

Besides, we all know that there are MANY LEDs out there that are much brighter than Luxeons... but:

1. Take THRONGS more fwd v and thus... current
2. Usually much larger in overall diameter to set up
3. Many of them require more heatsinking

Although it's true that ONE day... we'll have some sabers that you literally will WANT to wear sunglasses during usage.

Sort of like Matrix meets SW. 8)

[TimeRender]

Certainly different formulas have different thermal properties, but if you check the websites of a few manufacturers or if you just google "polycarbonate melting temperature" you'll find that most of the results are somewhere between 300F and 400F. I don't know the exact temp for Tim's blades. Paper very famously burns at 451F, and if you're not completely convinced that Bradbury got it right this is a fact that can be found in college chemistry textbooks. If you're not sure of the reliability of your internet sources for polycarb, you can pretty easily prove that paper burns at higher temps simply by lowering a piece of paper and a piece of polycarb over a candle and observing the reactions. The plastic should begin to deform before the paper ignites.

Disclaimer

If you are reading this post, please do not go setting fire to pieces of paper or plastic. I don't need to feel guilty when some young saber builder burns down his house, kills his family, and gets third degree burns all over his body.

[Novastar]

Lol... I know Bradbury's F 451. Guy Montag, heheh.

I expected it to be apt to burn well AFTER paper. For what's it's worth, I believe you, and there is no need to test when things have been (and yes, can be googled).

EDIT: A SOURCE I FOUND LISTED THAT POLYCARB'S BURN TEMP IS AROUND 446F.
http://www.ptsllc.com/pcmsds.htm

I'm hoping this will be good info for people as the future of LEDs increases. Because the last thing on people's minds... ends up to be burning the poly I bet!

They're normally thinking "brighter" + "more sound" + "how do I get 4 or 5 LEDs in there" and all that.

So... GOOD INFO!!! For safety. And LED saber limits.

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

4000 lumens???

WOW!!!

[pthomas625]

oh my gosh! what would happen if you put a focusing lense to make the light come to a point? it would be like a super magnifying lense/sun set up!

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

pthomas i think they are suggesting the polycarbonate tube would catch fyre is what would happen.

:lol:

[Novastar]

Unless the thing gets up to 400+ degrees, I doubt the polytube would melt.

Then again--poly specs differ from one brand/type/style/thickness to another.

Only way to know--would be to do tests... but it's hardly something practical. If anyone plans on doing this... PLEASE be safe and do it RIGHT.

Or send it to MythBusters, will ya??? :P

[pthomas625]

pthomas i think they are suggesting the polycarbonate tube would catch fyre is what would happen.

:lol:

oh, i wasn't talking about having a blade on it. you know how a magnifying glass can focus sunlight to fry stuff? what if you did this with the light(without the blade)? how much damage would it cause?

[Proximal]

yeah and have a blade forged in the fires of mount doom. hahaha i wouldnt dare put a polyc blade near that thing. can you imagine you light it up and 3 minutes later the blade just droops over and sticks to the ground haha.

polycarb is naturally flame retardant. It can withstand high heats. 300 degrees celcius is the temperature used to run a melt index on it. Lexan resins are about a 17.5 melt (in grams based off of 10 minutes), which basically means, it is a relatively slow melt even at that temprature. Just FYI.

[Novastar]

Agreed, Prox. In fact, I found a guide stating that polycarb tends to have a 446F degree melting point... at least at some level.

The hilt would get WAAAAAY too hot to handle well before the poly-c would melt. If you heatsink the LED(s) properly, there is no reason your polycarb should melt no matter how you do it.

If you can burn the polycarb... you'll probably be unable to even HOLD the hilt/saber... and it would be unusable well before turning the poly-c to mush.

Shut that crazy thing DOWN! :)

[Proximal]

yep. I hate knowing so much about plastic sometimes. Reading data sheets for material has become second nature, mainly because I have to run the same tests pretty much every day.

But I would be more worried about the hilt, like you said. Also what that kind of heat is doing to all of the other materials inside the hilt, not to mention the diffuser. The only way you could diffuse something like that would be to beadblast the blade.

Still a fun idea to play with none the less.