I need ideas

[Darth Tollo]

I am in need of help...and on to my Star Wars related problems. I am going to attempt a saber whip. EL wire seems like the best option so I posted here. But will that even work? Has anyone done this before? Please, help me find a way to do this. Thanks.

[987654321a]

it would work but the small wires on the EL wire itself might get disconected during the whipping action and therefore you would have to keep resoldering it. People here have had ideas of it, I believe it was either Barmic Rin or Ryma Mara (now known as Hasid Lafre) As far as i know none of us here have attempted such a thing.

[Barmic Rin]

I did think about it, though I can't see the results being too impressive unless you're using a decent colour for it like green.
If you were doing Lumiya's red one, then be prepared for a disappointing end result if using EL.
I suppose you could use a form of fibre optic cable maybe, but the lack of weight would hinder a decent whipping action.

Did Hasid want to try it? I can't remember, but then he posts so much on here..... :wink:

[Lord Maul]

you could use sideglow fiberoptic cable. look in the new tech forums and there is a thread on it.

with a lux and not to long of a whip it could work well

[Hasid Lafre]

Theres a thread on this already.

But it wouldent be to diffacult, when you have the el wire comming out I would directly connect it to the inverter sence taking it of would be kinda pointless cause of how oyu would have to keep the wire attached.

But as the wire comes out wrap it around a pin thats mounted to say the hilt piece. then after a couple wraps or so you want to gett another pin mounted to wrap around that then I would find something to secure the wire so it dosent come off or fall into the hilt or come out cause of some unforseen event.

Its possable but unless you get thick el wire then its not gonna brake form "whiping" it.

But I think with el wire the thicker it is the less bright it is.

[Barmic Rin]

I'm just thinking of the main problem of weight. To get a decent whipping motion, the cable would need some weight to it.

Lighting IMHO wouldn't be too major an issue if I researched a little more on it, my main concern would be the getting the right effect when letting loose with it.

I'm sure it could be overcome, but to be honest, I doubt i'll ever attempt this myself.

Good luck with it though.

[Hasid Lafre]

I forget who it was but someone on ny jedi made lightning gloves. turned out pritty neet.

[Darth Tollo]

I've done some research and I think i am going to go with the side glow fiber optic. the only thing I am unsure of is the weight and "stiffness" for whipping action. I did find the old thread on this and there were some good pictures.

[Hasid Lafre]

Ask jaygon he used fiber optic cable he might be abel to tell you how well it whips.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Well, the stuff I used in my blade was 14mm thick (over 1/2", close to 5/8") so it didn't whip very well. I suppose a smaller dia. will work, but keep in mind the side glow cable still transmits most of it's light to the other end, so it's intended to be used with either dual light sources (one at each end) or looped back to the original light source. A 100 watt light source is recommended, but I've had pretty good luck lighting up 3 feet of it with luxeon led's. I think 4 to 6 feet of it would work. I got my cable from this place:
http://www.fiberopticproducts.com/Sideglow.htm
I used the solid core cable, not the stranded. It looked like this when lit by a cyan 1 watt led and 10 deg. optics:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Fiberoptic_cable_lites_out_no_flash.jpg
That's 6 feet of 14mm cable looped around to a mirror to reflect light back into the cable. The mirror made it much brighter. I took the picture in my basaement around 3:00 a.m. e.s.t. with the lights off and no flash.
Here it is compared to my EL saber:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/Fiberoptic_el_at_night_2.jpg
I took the above pics in 2002, when I had my custom saber built and used 3 feet of the cable in the blade:
http://i119.photobucket.com/albums/o141/Jay-gon_Jinn/luxsaber_2005_2.jpg

[DACOTA]

So can you slide that in tims blade?And if so do you leave the diffuser in or do you replace it with the cable?

[scott5050]

What about braiding EL wires and leather thongs? That could overcome the strength issues and the attachment issues?

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Not to hijack the thread, but I took that out of the blade and replaced it with a roll of Ultra's film because the cable was just too darn heavy. I also didn't use a diffuser, because the cable has a diffuser built into it. I wouldn't recommend using it in one of the store's blades, as it's only 14mm in diameter and would flop aound inside the 1" tube pretty badly. It was a nice snug fit in the 3/4" blades I use, though.

A smaller diameter, like 10mm should be fine for a short lightwhip, though. There is also a fiber optic connector/focusing lens assembly available from luxeons site that might work with a lightwhip as well.

[Darth Tollo]

What about braiding EL wires and leather thongs? That could overcome the strength issues and the attachment issues?

That actually sounds like it would work. I might try that too.

And Jay-gon Jinn. Thank you for the info on the cable. I have lots of experimenting to do now. :D

[Jay-gon Jinn]

Have fun with it, and good luck!