PDA

View Full Version : The Final word? Hyperblade/Luxeon



Eandori
05-28-2008, 01:47 AM
Ok, here it finally is. The promised Hyperblade--Luxeon comparison videos and data! It's late and I'm really tired and my baby is awake so I'm going to calm her down then get some sleep.

Here are the video links
Part I: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxTLosiu_7s
Part II: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sw-4rPp2Qk
Part III: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LtqJMW2TKAI
Part IV: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agKBd2emstU

================================================== ==
======== Settings, config method, parts used, setup ===========
================================================== ==
These were the same Hyperdyne sabers used in Novastar's comparison video. They
were 2nd hand to him and after his comparisons he sent them to me for repairs
and so I could see them in person and do my own comparison. I made many repairs
to those lightsabers and much of it was noted in the videos. I also spent much
time talking to Mark Cheng and Jedibum to make sure I understood the Hyperblades
and how to set them up properly.

After making repairs and doing some testing I learned that a V2 Hyperblade board
with a V2 blade needs around 4 amps at 11v to run at full brightness. That works
out to around 45 watts of power! I also discovered that Novastar's video compare
could not have been proper because he used the 7.2v battery on the blue, and the
green was hooked up directly to a wall charger because the 11v battery fried. A
Li-Ion charger probably puts out around 0.5 to 1 amp so there's no way either of
the Hyperblades in his video were at max brightness. No faulting or attacking
Novastar though, he put a lot of work into his video and then sent the equipment
to somebody with more electronics experience to do exactly what I did.

As you can clearly see in these 4 videos compared to my other videos (of Proto2
specifically) my luxeon sabers are not as evenly lit as Proto2 was. I have spent
a good amount of time trying to figure that out so far, and currently I think
it's due to the optics. I built the blades exactly the same, but in my current
MHS tubes the lenses don't seem to be the same height off the actual star. Which
would change the focal point of the lens. I'll have to figure that out for sure
later... but for now I just want to mention that other luxeon sabers I made in
the past were more evenly lit. These are still pretty good though.

I wanted to use the brightest blue and green Hyperblades, and the brightest blue
and green Luxeon sabers. That meant I had to use Luxeon V overdriven at 1 amp for
luxeon sabers, and V2 blade/board Hyperblades at full power. But even past that,
I needed to verify that all sabers were working in top order. So I had Mark
Cheng use a light meter to measure his own sabers at a distance of 10cm from hilt,
middle, and tip. Then I asked Mark to mail that exact same light meter to me so
I could measure the Hyperblades I had to see if they were close in brightness to
his own. What I saw is that Mark's seems to be a bit brighter, but not a ton. He
seemed to also get higher values at the hilt then I did with respect to the
relative middle/tip values. All I can guess on that is user error with the light
meter. Could be his or my own, but I can say for certain that the angle of the
light meter played a huge factor.

Mark created a cardboard measuring tool for the light meter to be mounted in.
I was thinking of that, but intended something different then what he used. Since
I needed to use the same light meter as Mark I was forced to use his method of
measuring light to validate these Hyperblades were on par. But for my final
comparison I used a different method, one I was far more pleased with the
consistency of the results. You can see both light meter setups in the videos.

Although I edited all the video footage to flow from part I to IV, that's not the
exact time sequence it all happened in. I just shot video as I went and edited it
at the end to make it more clear to the watcher. This isn't a movie, or
documentary just footage taken while testing then jammed onto YouTube later for
your review.

I did not do any durability testing, or any intensive sound or weight balance
testing with the Hyperblades. Although I do have some comments for those in the
conclusion. I avoided durability testing because although I own the luxeon sabers
I don't own the Hyperblades. Even beyond that, the Hyperblades arrived on my
doorstep already damaged goods. I don't believe that would be fair to do
durability testing with repaired damaged goods.

For all testing, I tried to turn off all blade flicker, turn up brightness to max
for all sabers, and make sure all batteries were fully charged. On the (Mark's
Method) of testing using the Green Hyperblade I have noticed (after finishing the
video) that the green Hyperblade was pulsing a bit. Meaning not fully bright all
the time. I do believe I fixed that for the light testing using my own method
though. As a note about the Lux meter, it seems to be more sensitive to blue then
green and red. My green Luxeon V saber is clearly brighter then the blue luxeon V
to the naked eye, but the lux meter gave very high lux results to the blue sabers.
The same went for Hyperdyne, the green hyperdyne was clearly brighter then the
blue, yet the blue scored higher lux results.

I was in contact with Erv' Plecter, Greytale Novastar, Xwingband, and Corbin Das
for the luxeon lightsaber experts. All the luxeon experts and Hyperblade experts
were offering me their feedback and suggestions during the testing. I wanted to
include everybody early in the process to make sure I was doing things right. Even
so... chances are I screwed things up somewhere. Feel free to reply to this post
with feedback or comments on what I should have done differently or what others
could do differently in the future. Having said that, I think my conclusions
should be pretty darn clear by the end and I think most people will agree with
what I seemed to find.

================================================== ======
================== Edwin's expected results ===================
================================================== ======
Going into this testing I fully expected the Hyperblades to be brighter, but not
by a lot. Based on Novastar's video and some of my own assumptions, I thought
the luxeon sabers would be fairly close in brightness.

I also expected the Blue Hyperblade to be FAR superior to the blue luxeon. And
I thought the green luxeon V would be much closer but still lose to the green
Hyperblade.

================================================== ====
========== Mark's Method of brightness measurement ============
================================================== ====
A cardboard "measuring stick" was made by Mark to keep the light meter 10cm
away from the sabers at the 3 measurement spots. The main defect of Mark's
design was that it needed to be turned 90 degrees so the "ruler" of the
measurement stick was not blocking light below the ruler of the saber. Mark
did a great job posting many videos of his sabers brightness at 10cm and 50cm
for all blue, green, and purple sabers.

..............................Emit.....Mid...Tip
Blue Luxeon:.............| 521 | 118 | 57 |
Blue HyperDyne:........| 844 | 638 | 385 |
Green Luxeon:...........| 381 | 132 | 80 |
Green Hyperdyne:......| 573 | 695 | 360 |

--- Mark's results from his sabers using the same meter ---
..............................Emit....Mid....Tip
Blue HyperDyne:......| 1043 | 785 | 541 |
Green Hyperdyne:....| 803 | 688 | 415 |

================================================== ====
========== Edwin's Method of brightness measurement ===========
================================================== ====
For my method, the sabers laid on the carpet with the light meter directly
above them. The light meter never moved, and the sabers slid backwards to
the 3 positions for light measurement.

..............................Emit...Mid...Tip
Blue Luxeon:...........| 270 | 147 | 60 |
Blue HyperDyne:......| 600 | 549 | 284 |
Green Luxeon:.........| 166 | 103 | 41 |
Green Hyperdyne:....| 399 | 450 | 244 |

================================================== ==
========== Hyperblade runtime vs. brightness testing ==========
================================================== ==

Luxeon:
- Resistor Driven: Brightest at full charge and getting dimmer as the
batteries drain.
- Current regulated: User desired brightness until the battery voltage
drops below the required voltage of that LED. Then the blade gets
dimmer quickly.

Depending on LED, driving current and battery, most luxeon setup will
run between 30 min and 3 hours.

Hyperdyne:
There was only one type of runtime performance since there are only
2 kinds of boards and they both drive the blade using the same
methods. Essentially the Hyperblade performs like a resistored luxeon
setup. Brightest at full charge and getting dimmer as the batteries
drain.

At the max setting, the Hyperblades consume around 45 watts of power.
In comparion a luxeon setup will consume around 5 to 7 watts of power
so it's no suprise that Hyperblades cannot hit long runtimes.

Hyperblades have an automatic feature that makes them power down to a
a lower current setting after being on for 2 min. that allows the heat
to soak out of the blade/battery. I observed current going from 4 amps
down to around 1.5 amps when the system would throttle down. The user
needs to wait over 2 min, then the system will allow full blade current
again. Due to this, the runtime test had to be done with cool-down
stages

However at lower settings, the Hyperblades were still as bright or
brighter then my luxeon sabers and had runtimes closer to 35 min to 1
hour. In the captured data values below, you can clearly see the
relationship between brightness (measured in Lux) and system current
(dropping as the battery dies) I got around 20 min of full brightness
runtime due to the 2500mAh battery I made just for this testing. When
I stopped both the blade and battery were pretty warm to the touch, even
after the 2.5 minute cooldowns in between!

Time.......Lux........Current................Time. ......Lux........Current
100:00...1225.......3.90....................77:30. ....986........3.64
99:30............................................7 7:00.....899........3.46
99:00.....1051.......3.56....................76:30 .....864........3.39
98:30.....997.........3.43....................76:0 0.....841........3.36
98:00.....960.........3.37....................75:3 0.....824........3.33
== wait 2.5 min cool ==....................== wait 2.5 min cool ==
95:30.....1103.......3.67....................73:00 .....975........3.61
95:00.....1000.......3.52....................72:30 .....888........3.45
94:30.....954.........3.42....................72:0 0.....855........3.38
94:00.....921.........3.38....................71:3 0.....834........3.35
93:30.....901.........3.36....................71:0 0.....818........3.32
== wait 2.5 min cool ==...................== wait 2.5 min cool ==
91:00.....1056.......3.65....................68:30 .....970........3.60
90:30.....954.........3.49....................68:0 0.....885........3.43
90:00.....915.........3.42....................67:3 0.....851........3.36
89:30.....888.........3.39....................67:0 0.....830........3.33
89:00.....870.........3.37....................66:3 0.....814........3.30
== wait 2.5 min cool ==....................== wait 2.5 min cool ==
86:30.....xxx.........3.66....................64:0 0.....930........3.55
86:00.....924.........3.49....................63:3 0.....867........3.41
85:30.....892.........3.42....................63:0 0.....836........3.34
85:00.....868.........3.39....................62:3 0.....814........3.30
84:30.....850.........3.37....................62:0 0.....798........3.27
== wait 2.5 min cool ==....................== wait 2.5 min cool ==
82:00.....999.........3.65....................59:3 0.....930........3.54
81:30.....911.........3.48....................59:0 0.....861........3.39
81:00.....878.........3.41....................58:3 0.....830........3.31
80:30.....855.........3.37....................58:0 0.....808........3.28
80:00.....837.........3.55....................57:3 0.....792........3.25
== wait 2.5 min cool ==....................=== Done, 20 min of full power run-time ===

================================================== ==
=========== Edwin's personal opinions/observations ============
================================================== ==

This entire process was VERY time consuming and I'm glad to be done with it! From
the first power on with the 11v battery it was very clear that Hyperblades were
indeed brighter. The desire to just make that statement and not waste all the time
doing the measured tests was pretty strong... but I wanted to put an end to this
debate.

First off, I strongly reccomend that any Hyperblade users switch over to either a set
of Nickel Metal Hydride cells, or at the very least Lithium Ion cells packs that are
rated for over 4 amps. Typically you want to use batteries that are rated for at least
twice the current that you will be using. That goes for any product with batteries.

So.. Hyperblades are absolutely brighter. No doubt about it. Perhaps when luxeon
gets over the 600 lumen mark there will be a competition, but for now it's hands
down the Hyperblades and the numbers/videos clearly show that. However, there is
a lot of downside to the Hyperblades I noticed first hand.
- The blades were about twice the weight of Luxeon blades.
- The center of gravity is deep into the blade, spins will be harder.
- The blade board inside the blade rattles a bit on impact.
- The system requires 45 watts, compared to the 5-7 watts of luxeon systems.
- You only get 2 minutes of full power, then either must power down or have the
System throttle down it's own brightness.
- Sound is better then Hasbro, worse then CF and Master Replica.
- Only one sound font and no customizing of sounds
- No adjustment to motion sensor
- blade is much harder to remove
- finished luxeon blade is $30, while finished Hyperblade (blade only) is $250?

I love to duel with my sabers. Balance matters a lot. I LOVE the sensitivity of a
CF enabled setup, and I love the custom sound fonts. I want at least an hour of
runtime and I want to use my sabers for a good 25 min at a time. So for me, I'll
be sticking with CF driven luxeon sabers for now. But if you don't duel, mainly
want a bright-as-can-be show blade, the Hyperblade seems to be a clear winner.

Thanks to everybody who helped with this comparison! I'm going to take a break
for a bit.

Edwin

Dark Navel
05-28-2008, 05:16 AM
Is there a medal we can give him? Holy crap! That was some write-up...I guess a bit of dedication and someone ticking you off means you will fell a sense of victory when you show exactly, EVERYTHING, you have tested.

Hats off to you!

SpectreT65
05-28-2008, 06:39 AM
Confirmed my suspicions, and gathered the numbers with as rigorous a comparison that's been done, and I dare say, as rigorous a testing as is possible for one man to accomplish, no matter how much research assistance he has prior to the testing.

I'm just glad someone's finally done all that work; I've been a little tired of each side getting butthurt because their favorite is being denigrated. Facts are in; no one is challenging broad daylight yet, Hyper whoops Lux tail in pure brightness, is arguably too fragile and too heavy to duel with, and the sound is comparable to an ultrasound board.

Personal Opinion: Combined with cost, those factors all add up to sticking with "Flashlight Sabers" for the forseeable future.

Thanks for all the dedication and hard work, Edwin, Mark, Jedibum, et. al.

Angelus Lupus
05-28-2008, 06:54 AM
Thank you for doing this. From everything that's been said before I'm not surprised that the Hyperblades are brighter. Having said that though, luxeon technology is still improving (what with rebels an tri-rebels, etc) so as you say, maybe we'll get 600+ lumen lux's someday. With that as a possibility (and for all the drawbacks you mention) I'll stick to luxeons. After all, it's gonna be pretty easy to replace one LED with a newer, brighter one in the future.
This is, of course, my opinion; feel free to ignore it. :)

Jedibum
05-28-2008, 09:07 AM
Thanks Edwin for all your hard work!

Edwin has been working on this for a long time. And, after getting to know him a bit more during this process, I can say for sure that he is an honest person and these have been truly unbiased tests. I trust him 100%.

Edwin, It's been a long process and I know you are glad it's over ... but I believe a lot of good will come from this.


With that kind of detailed research I hope the brightness debate will never come back to annoy us all. I've posted this many times over the years, each lightsaber technology has it's good and bad points ... no one technology can be everything to everybody.

Hyperblades are the brightest ... and not by a nose ... but by a BIG margin. No amount of optics or diffusion or overdriving will be able to get any LED we currently use or experiment with to match the Hyperblade. It's just a fact. Luxeon sabers don't need to win this one ... Luxeon sabers have tons of other things they win at.

It doesn't mean one day it won't happen. I'm positive in years to come technology will eventually produce an LED that is small enough to be used for lightsaber applications and is so bright that it matches the Hyperblade or beats it ... and without getting too hot or requiring a huge battery ... but I do feel that day is FAR off.

For now, and probably for a long while, Hyperblades will take the Gold in brightness. But, as I said before and continue to say, there are plenty of other categories that Luxeon based sabers win at. One thing I never understood is why many luxeon users just couldn't accept the brightness thing when there were so many other things Luxeon sabers were good at. I hope this puts a stop to the brightness debate for good.

Malaki Skywalker
05-28-2008, 09:29 AM
Eandori, your awesome for putting in such time to do these tests, you deserve a massive pat on the back. The Hyperblades are very impressive, I had a feeling that it would be brighter then Luxeon set up, but, Luxeons are still improving, e.g. the rebels are the size of match heads, low power needs and yet they pump out loads of lumen .

No more arguments now? :rolleyes: :mrgreen:

Eandori
05-28-2008, 09:50 AM
Thanks a ton for your comments guys, it REALLY means a lot to me. Especially the comments about honesty, I would rather be wrong and honest then right but needed to cheat or cut corners to get there. :)

I thought blue luxeon would have it's hat handed to it, and green luxeon would be close. Turns out that it seemed to be exactly opposite. The green Hyperblade is just amazingly bright when running at 4 amps. The Lux meter REALLY didn't do it justice since it seemed to be more sensitive to blue light. So even though my green lux V is much brighter then my blue lux V, the Green Hyperblade was well above the green Lux V. So it turns out what I expected to see was not there :)

My biggest disappointment is that my luxeon sabers were not as evenly lit as others (Proto2) were in the past. Again, I really think this comes down to the optics in the hilt. Even now I can switch between different lenses/LED's but use the same exact blade and have some setups much more even then others. I tried to tinker around with that, but it was taking too much time and I needed to get this done so I could give the Hyperblades back to Novastar.

I got my white Seoul P4's in the mail last week and have been doing a bit of testing. They are definitely the brightest white I have seen, but with a filter the native LED's still win for Green/Red/Blue. In the future I might try a few tests between Seoul P4 with a purple filter, versus a blue Lux V with a red filter. So both are purple and see which purple is better.

I REALLY DO like the scrolling effect of the Hyperblades, just like the master replicas have. But... I'm proud to say that I think I might have solved that issue for luxeons! I have a design I'm working on now that literlly might add scrolling to luxeon. If it works like I'm hoping, it might even use some commercially available parts if I can find the right ones. More on that later. Another topic.

Thanks again guys, cheers,

Edwin

DarthFender
05-28-2008, 09:51 AM
Wow, those results are impressive for hyperblade. I wish Limuleds lots o' Lux, there gonna need it if they want to compete with the Hyperblade.

Gawd, that was bad. But I got a million of them.

Seriously, great work Edwin. I'm sure everyone appreciates the time and effort you put in on this.

Angelus Lupus
05-28-2008, 11:55 AM
I REALLY DO like the scrolling effect of the Hyperblades, just like the master replicas have. But... I'm proud to say that I think I might have solved that issue for luxeons!

This will be interesting to see! Keep us informed, and good luck!

Novastar
05-28-2008, 03:58 PM
Great work, Edwin! :)

As you folks probably realize--I sent these H-blades to him for EXACTLY the reason that he said: he is an electronics engineer... and I am not. And besides, I figured the more videos/reviews the better.

Well... the only things *I* have to say are:

* I hope Jim learns from this and uses Ni-Mh batteries (larger amp draw ability) vs. Li-Ions. Better able to handle the heat and amps and all that, ya know?! Cheaper too, which would help his sabers.

* I used the battery packs that were included with the sabers. They appeared exactly as they were given to me. Granted, when the 11.1v pack sizzled and burned... I didn't have much choice, and I was NOT going to go buy an 11.1v pack just for a basic demo. So, I did what I could at the time.

* Only a few weeks ago, I met with Edwin in person in Sacramento late in the evening, and I got to see what he'd done with the H-blades (and his own LED sabers!). We put the green Flange III saber alongside his own luxeons (and the repaired green & blue H-blades). Now it's still my opinion that the H-blades were not all *THAT* much brighter, but... that's just me. I didn't detect much of a difference between his Lux V and my K2 green either (which btw were differing shades of green anyhow)... but I would say *YES* the Lux V was brighter than my K2, and *YES* the H-blades were brighter than all of the Luxeons...

...but... I have to stick to what I said before in my videos (and this isn't to just 'be a jerk')... it never seemed like a giant landslide *TO ME*. But again, that's just me, and my eyesight sucks anyhow... ;)

And all that being said--the light meter is the light meter!! It tells it all. Pretty definitive!!! So there is no way to refute it: the H-blades are brighter... even vs. any Lux V. :) And again, all *PROPERLY* driven, because Edwin knows what he's doing, believe you me!!!! :D

GREAT WORK, EANDORI!!! And much thanks to Jedibum and all the others who were helping with all of our uber-nerdy and nutty testing! heheheh :D

Onli-Won Kanomi
05-28-2008, 05:11 PM
Wow this really interesting and its great to see the issue finally settled that Hyperblades ARE significantly brighter than even overdriven Luxeons.

As mentioned there is a place for both...I can see how fan film makers wanting to use 'live' sabers instead of rotoscope might find the extra brightness useful even at the cost of runtime since for filming its unlikely a saber will run continuously more than a few minutes per shot and blocking and switching batteries between scenes could largely ameliorate that...for live performances like Novastars BOP obviously the needs would be very different and for duellers durability might be as or more important than brightness or runtime so its really about determining what is appropriate for YOUR needs and these solid results help us all enormously with that...I may have to consider Hyperblades now lol.

That said it seems to me like we have been on a 'plateau' of LED saber brightness in the less than two years since I've been here with Lux V as the 'high mark' of LED sabers and I wonder if that might change sometime soon with the arrival of newer brighter LED technologies that may be more competitive with Hyperblades...afterall the Endor whites top out at 540 lumens which is not far from the mentioned 600 lumens and there are P7s and other brighter-than-Luxeon LEDs too...sure they might require new optics and battery and perhaps active cooling solutions for saber use but still if Hyperblades are running 45 watts at 11V then perhaps those newer higher wattage higher voltage LED combos are more comparable to a Hyperblade than a single Lux V anyway?

I mean its like comparing a .44 Mag with a 240 gr bullet at 1400 fps and a 9mmP with a 115gr bullet maxed at 1250 fps - they are really not comparable to begin with in INTERNAL ballsitics before the bullet ever leaves the muzzle so its not really surprising which whoops which in TERMINAL ballistics on target eh? The .44 Maggie has BOTH more mass and more velocity so it OUGHT to hit harder just like the Hyperblade has more wattage AND more voltage so it OUGHT to be brighter.

Kinda an apples and oranges comparison when the exemplars are mismatched to begin with?

I see that LED sabers simply are not comparable to the superior brightness of Hyperblades now but there seems to be plenty of room for growth in LED saber brightness for the future and I'm sure we'll all be watching that with interest.

Then again the Hyperblade LED string/ladder technology may have room for growth too...lok at Makotosais sabers they are pretty impressively bright also so maybe there is room for both technologies to advance and we the saberfans will benefit from that...KUDOS to all involved!

Eandori
05-28-2008, 05:51 PM
As mentioned there is a place for both...I can see how fan film makers wanting to use 'live' sabers instead of rotoscope might find the extra brightness useful even at the cost of runtime since for filming its unlikely a saber will run continuously more than a few minutes per shot and blocking and switching batteries between scenes could largely ameliorate that...for live performances like Novastars BOP obviously the needs would be very different and for duellers durability might be as or more important than brightness or runtime so its really about determining what is appropriate for YOUR needs and these solid results help us all enormously with that...I may have to consider Hyperblades now lol.

Yeah, I can see that. If I was filming and just wanted the brightest saber with a scrolling effect the Hyperblade is a great fit. However "real" lightsabers are weightless blades which would be hard to simulate with an actual Hyperblade, the blades just like a luxeon blade have some weight. I think for the actual movies they used graphite rods painted in the saber color. Very light, easy to see on camera film, perfect for a rotoscoped duel.


I mean its like comparing a .44 Mag with a 240 gr bullet at 1400 fps and a 9mmP with a 115gr bullet maxed at 1250 fps - they are really not comparable to begin with in INTERNAL ballsitics before the bullet ever leaves the muzzle so its not really surprising which whoops which in TERMINAL ballistics on target eh? The .44 Maggie has BOTH more mass and more velocity so it OUGHT to hit harder just like the Hyperblade has more wattage AND more voltage so it OUGHT to be brighter.

Kinda an apples and oranges comparison when the exemplars are mismatched to begin with?

I see what you are saying... but I'm pretty darn sure if there existed a 45 watt solution that Luxeon guys could use and optics for that 45 watt LED we would use it. The only reason we don't is because it does not currently exist with optics. So what I used was the brightest luxeon setup out there, and the brightest Hyperblade setup (actually Mark's measured out to a bit more lux.. but still, you get my point.)


KUDOS to all involved!
Thanks!

Onli-Won Kanomi
05-28-2008, 06:31 PM
Yep I do get your point and I meant no criticism of what you tested since it is the most reasonable thing you could do to test what we actually DO use and IS widely available on the single LED side now against the present Hyperblade technogy so your results are very useful in helping us realize what to expect from both types of products now and its very good to have a clear definitive answer on their relative performance.

And you are right about the 'weightless' blades for filming too I have a carbon fibre blade for my Randomsaber from Killwells who made them for EpIII and it is indeed virtually weightless and whip-quick so it would be a tradeoff to use either a lux or hyperblade which has some weight...of such tradeoffs filmed 'fantasy' is made eh? Personally I'd like to do a 'cinema verite' type fan film which means no rotoscoping of chromakeyed carbon fibre but SOME kind of 'live' glowing blade but the technology isnt QUITE where I want it...yet...at least on the Lux side...I see from your results that i'll have to give some more consideration to Hyperblades now so again Thanks for very helpful research.

Eandori
05-28-2008, 09:25 PM
Wow, really? You have one of those carbon fiber sabers? Can you post a picture? I would love to see that!

I use a thin-walled luxeon blade at about 30" of viewable length. It's pretty darn lightweight and probably about the best we can get for a lighted saber until we have the real thing someday :) I had a thick walled luxeon saber at 34" for awhile and it was MUCH heavier to swing and I was much slower to react when dueling with it.

Corbin_Das
05-29-2008, 11:04 AM
Hi guys
Great work on the video. I suspect the reason the blue scored higher was because the light meter was able to "see" spectrums our eyes can't. That's why the green looked brighter. Our eyes are more sensitive to green. That's also why cameras often make the light source look brighter than we are able to see, whether it be a Lux blade, a Hyperblade or whatever.

You're right about the optics. They play a huge role in Luxeon blade brightness IMO. Obviously, blade diffusion and tip reflection are important too.


By the way, I've got a couple of those Killwell blades for some stunt sabers too. I'll PM you the pics, so not to derail this thread.


Corbin

Angelus Lupus
05-29-2008, 12:32 PM
Hi guys
Our eyes are more sensitive to green.

Corbin

Funny you should say that, from everything people say/observe I suspect that's true for the majority. However (freak that I am) I've always found that my eyes are more sensitive to blues. There's certain blues that just leap out at me. I've observed this on shop signs (backlit) and some stained glass windows. I suspect in saber terms it would be the royal blue shades, but I've not seen one of those in person yet.

Totaly uselless info, but there ya go.

Onli-Won Kanomi
05-29-2008, 01:36 PM
I wonder if the green is brighter truism is based on colour-normal perception...there is a lot of variation in human colour perception including 'colour blindness' being not that uncommon [up to 8% of males] so perhaps that could account for the 'your mileage may vary'.

Personally I find cyan slightly brighter to MY vision than green.

But as Corbin says the light meter sees ALL of the spectrum even when we individually may not...thats why Eandori's scientific testing is so useful in settling what IS objectively brighter that otherwise could be a subjective viewpoint of what is brighter to oneself that has led to controversies now hopefully settled by good science.

There is practical implications for this - i.e. if you are building a saber for your OWN enjoyment you might want to pick a colour that YOUR vision finds brightest...but if you are building a 'live' saber for film or stage use you might want to pick colours - and technologies - that the most people in the AUDIENCE will find brightest under intended lighting conditions eh?

So this work is really very very useful.

xwingband
05-29-2008, 01:54 PM
Efficiency is the game in my book... that's why I love the new LEDs that come out and adopt them as soon as I can. Can the watts/lumens and see the skew. Then account in the runtimes and it's sealed in my book.

Until Edwin's test I'd never heard of the two minute notch down. I don't twirl for hours, but I certainly have it on for more than two minutes...

Eandori
05-29-2008, 02:25 PM
I have often thought Blue LED's have a touch of ultraviolet wavelength because I have always noticed my blue lightsabers making yellow plastic floresce, similar to what you see under a black light. So perhaps it's that higher-invisible to human eye wavelength that the light meter was seeing. Like what you guys are saying. There seems to be evidence to support that. Because typically I don't just think blue light makes stuff floresce.

Yeah, I never heard about the 2 min until ramp down thing until I used the Hyperblades. Makes sense why it's needed though. Hyperblades pretty much sacrifice it all for a really really bright saber.

xwingband
05-29-2008, 03:05 PM
That's also like saying I could overdrive an LED 200% for two minutes and ramp it back down... it doesn't make much sense to me.

Find what's doable and make that the max. Same with the batteries... absurd that the sold batteries are getting hugely stressed that much with the drain.

Eandori
05-29-2008, 05:25 PM
That's also like saying I could overdrive an LED 200% for two minutes and ramp it back down... it doesn't make much sense to me.

Find what's doable and make that the max. Same with the batteries... absurd that the sold batteries are getting hugely stressed that much with the drain.
To be fair, if I COULD do that on my luxeon sabers... I would! At least as some kind of "overdrive" button click. Unfortunately, giving 2-3 amps through a luxeon either fries it or does not give much more light because internally the poor thing is breaking down.

If a spec says I can run my Lux III red at 1.5amps, I'm doing that because I want the brightest LED. If a spec says my Luxeon V green is maxed at 700mA, then I'm not going to blame anybody but myself if it fries. Because I was driving it past specs. If I was building the saber for somebody else I would probably set it at 700mA to keep it safe.

The battery issue is different though. From what I know (I think this is correct) the batteries sold with the Hyperblade are rated for 1.5 to 2 amps, yet at 11v mode the system wants to draw out around 4 amps. I really think Jim should have chosen different cells as the default cell. I know he wants to have all the electronics as small as he can get them... for the sake of a good replica. But he designed a setup that requires 45 watts! So you can either use his batteries and not expect them to last long, or build a different pack that can handle 4 amps without issue. I was reccomending to Jedibum using some 18650's that are rated at 4.1 amps. That would give around 35 min of runtime at full power (assuming powering off and stopping the timer for each 2 min cooldown)

Anyways, if a new Luxeon comes out that puts out 600 lumen, but requires 15v and 2 amps... you can bet your britches I'm going to be doing everything I can to build a saber that supports that!

Cheers,

Jedibum
05-29-2008, 09:31 PM
LOL, good point Eandori! I'm like you ... I want to push my luxeons over the limit. I overdrive my Lux 5's ... just to try and squeeze out as much brightness as possible lol.

Good advice on the battery issue. I haven't done a DIY rechargeble battery pack yet ... but I'm going to try and either alter one so it fits in my hilt ... or just buy the cells and make one.


Also, about the "two minute notch down" on the Hyperblade ... in case anyone was curious ... this feature only really applies to the highest levels of brightness. If you have the Hyperblade set on level 7 or 8 it will not "notch down". Basically the high Level brightness setting is so extreme that it shouldn't stay that bright and hot for too long. So instead of not offering it as a level ... it's offered with the "two minute notch down" so nothing gets damaged with the super high setting.

Like Eandori talked about, it's like having a Luxeon 5 saber that you usually have at 700mah ... but you have a button that will push it to something like 1.5 amps (assuming it wouldn't die instantly) ... but you can only have it set to that for a few minutes staight. That's sort of the idea ... you don't have to use level 10 ... but it's there if you want to go extreme ... just not for too long.

Personally I usually don't go above level 7 or 8 ... I get a longer run time and there is no notch down. And it's still insanely bright. I'll usually do level 10 at conventions to blind people.

Novastar
05-30-2008, 03:42 AM
Right, JediB! Lots of variety in what can be done here it seems... and from what I gather from all this.... the lessons/thinking we seem to have here are:

* H-blades would fair MUCH better with Ni-Mh (amp draw)... or at LEAST the 18650 or greater Li-Ion cells... for at least 4A draw possible...
* You don't HAVE to have an H-er on setting 10 (I said this in my video)
* An H-er can get pretty complicated to repair if LED array gets compromised by dueling, or... by WHATEVER knocks the array into "bad condition" (obviously seen in BOTH Edwin and my videos)
* Cameras DO play "tricks" on our eyes, due to the way they work (I said this in my video)... so sometimes it's difficult to agree on what color is "brighter"... when it's really all perspective/opinion here. Mostly. Other than what range HUMAN eyes can see... 20/20 or otherwise... :)
* You could technically "super-drive" a Luxeon for 2 minutes with the correct heatsinking + "dialing in" that certain amount where the energy would NOT sizzle the leads/traces on the physical LED itself... and probably push a "Luxeon-ish" style LED quite a bit further than its rated specs... but... why not throw higher-powered LEDs at your saber (10w) and boost it up to "H-blade" territory??
* 2 minutes on and 2 minutes off w/ and H-er wouldn't suit CERTAIN people's needs... but for some it might!!!
* Those who duel lightly, rarely, or simply do not duel at all... would be DANDY fine with "uber-bright", aka an H-blade... :) The weird and heavyier weight wouldn't matter to "playin' around" dueling...
* Those who duel like Jackie Chan on crack should probably steer clear of H-blades EXCEPT as "display models".
* Even the light meter tests can be flawed, as if the meter aim was off by even MILLIMETERS... you'd get a different reading. When the "center" of the saber was presented... it was just a "guess", not an exact figure (aka 10" down the blade from emitter or whatever)... also, the meter probably read a bunch of different values until it was locked in... but--whatever, ballpark figures are fine
* Diffusion plays a VERY large role in perception of light
* Light bounced off of carpet A vs. carpet B... looks different (duh).
* Light bounced off of wall A vs. "sorta suspended in air"... looks different (duh).

And finally:

* Novastar [IS NOT EQUAL TO] a scientist...
* Novastar [IS NOT EQUAL TO] an electronics engineer...
* Novastar [IS NOT EQUAL TO] a complete FOOL...
* Novastar [IS NOT EQUAL TO] conspiracy brutha from "Undercova Brutha"

so, thus:

* Novastar [IS NOT EQUAL TO] Dave Chappelle...

Ah... my conclusions are sound. I am clearly... .... not black! :cool:

Tom Starkiller
05-30-2008, 04:20 AM
* Novastar [IS NOT EQUAL TO] a complete FOOL...

Oh... ;) :P

Awesome work Eandori.