Led ladder design question.

[Logan Cade]

I’m starting to design a ladder of 5 mm leds for a saber blade and I was thinking of trying to run them in multiple segments of leds wired in series, and all the segments then attached and run in parallel.

Running them in parallel, you can get a pretty ridged design. It’s just the segments done in series that I’m going back and forth on trying to come up with a design that has some ridged structure to it.

Any suggestions or opinions on the vertical ladder design for leds run in series?

[eastern57]

Why do you want to do it this way? If it's for "energy conservation", it really is negligible. It won't be any brighter or last any longer by making the wiring more complex... you can nit-pick the technicalities all day, but it's not worth it IMO. The beauty of the existing design it that it's simple, yet efficent.

Once you make one, you'll realize the futility of making it more complex than it needs to be. If you have the right LEDs (i.e. Makoto's from Tim), there's no need to worry about anything else.

;) trust me ;)

[Jedi-Diah]

Why do you want to do it this way? If it's for "energy conservation", it really is negligible. It won't be any brighter or last any longer by making the wiring more complex... you can nit-pick the technicalities all day, but it's not worth it IMO. The beauty of the existing design it that it's simple, yet efficent.

Once you make one, you'll realize the futility of making it more complex than it needs to be. If you have the right LEDs (i.e. Makoto's from Tim), there's no need to worry about anything else.

;) trust me ;)

Hey Eastern,

My Makoto led strip has 71 leds. Makoto said the max current is 35mA per led. That's almost 2500 mA if I want the max brightness! I'd like to have a driver that puts out 2A if I could but we only have 1500mA with CF or USB2.0.

I tried to wire 2 x 1000mA buckpucks in parallel (since lot of people think they can use 2x700mA pucks to drive a K2 properly) but they didn't give 2000mA - only about 1300mA max (which was noticably brighter than 1000mA).

If I could wire half the leds in series, I could theoretically give the led strip 1250mA and still get max brightness to all the leds (35mA each) but I'd have to double the forward voltage. I know my led strip can get brighter than it is currently.

[BTW, Logan has made many parallel led strips (very bright too): http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com/showpost.php?p=107435&postcount=47]

[Logan Cade]

Hey Eastern,

Thanks for the input; I’m truly interested in your opinion, as you have done this before.

I picked up 100 of Makoto’s purple leds from Tim and I was just starting to go through some design options.

I’d like to keep the amperage manageable, while at the same time using as many leds as possible, which I believe helps considerably. The last ladder I built, I used 93 leds. While this was probably excessive, I’m thinking of spacing them out a bit and using somewhere in the neighborhood of 80.

80 X 30ma = 2400 ma’s…. seems kind of high to me, hence the possible series solution.

Of course I could always opt to run them lower, say 80 X 20ma = 1600 ma’s, but if I’m not satisfied, I’d like something to fall back on.

Ideally, I like to run them off a 1000ma buckpuck.

How did yours work out? Any corn-cob with these leds? I'd like to get as much info as possible so we can build off of each others experiences.

[eastern57]

Hey dudes. Call me a simpleton, but I'm perfectly happy with the set-up that I have: +/-60-70 LEDs all parallel, MR driven. I've done this for the last three blades (2 purple, 1 red), and it suits me fine. IMO, I think any series wiring would negate the structure - it's sturdy because it's all in parallel.

If you want my true and honest opinion, I don't really care too much about maxing out the brightness of these (I have lux blades that are way brighter), these are just nice to have for show because they're even and they scroll. Plus, I'm a short guy, so I don't like those longer blades anyway ;)

[Novastar]

Eastern's setup would be quite a bit sturdier than what is being suggested...

...but it's true that messing with the wiring and driving could yield brighter results.

BUT--as noted--it's always give and take in this world: you forsake structural integrity for brightness (as with the H-blade)... or you forsake a little extra brightness (not much!) for better durability.

The choice is up to the individual, their purposes, how easy/hard they care a repair would be... and how much time they want to invest.

[Jedi-Diah]

And that's totally cool.

I just would like to max out mine because I think it can potentially blow away a Lux V blade (except maybe at the very base of the Lux V blade). It's already brighter than a Lux III blue and I know it can get much brighter. The difference between 1000mA and 1300mA seems to me about 15% brighter.



Hey dudes. Call me a simpleton, but I'm perfectly happy with the set-up that I have: +/-60-70 LEDs all parallel, MR driven. I've done this for the last three blades (2 purple, 1 red), and it suits me fine. IMO, I think any series wiring would negate the structure - it's sturdy because it's all in parallel.

If you want my true and honest opinion, I don't really care too much about maxing out the brightness of these (I have lux blades that are way brighter), these are just nice to have for show because they're even and they scroll. Plus, I'm a short guy, so I don't like those longer blades anyway ;)

[Logan Cade]

Hey Eastern,

I do apologize; I didn’t mean for it to sound like I was ganging up against you, I just wanted your objective opinions on these leds and to hear some technical stuff on how they worked for you…. corn-cob…brightness of your 70 leds compared to other leds…. stuff like that.

[eastern57]

Nah, ;) I didn't get that impression at all. But I know its not what some people want to hear. oh well. Corn on the cob (to some degree) will happen - regardless of your LEDs, it's just the nature of the blade. Either way, I'm always happy to give my opinion.

And Jedi-Diah, just because you don't have a driver that can supply 2A+, doesn't mean you can't get it - use a resistor... if only to see how bright you can get it without risking damage.

[Jedi-Diah]

I totally forgot about the resistor option! It was the farthest from my mind.

Thanks.


Nah, ;) I didn't get that impression at all. But I know its not what some people want to hear. oh well. Corn on the cob (to some degree) will happen - regardless of your LEDs, it's just the nature of the blade. Either way, I'm always happy to give my opinion.

And Jedi-Diah, just because you don't have a driver that can supply 2A+, doesn't mean you can't get it - use a resistor... if only to see how bright you can get it without risking damage.

[Logan Cade]

Nah, ;) I didn't get that impression at all. But I know its not what some people want to hear. oh well. Corn on the cob (to some degree) will happen - regardless of your LEDs, it's just the nature of the blade. Either way, I'm always happy to give my opinion.

I understand.

I have a bad habit of using the word “opinion” loosely. What I really mean is, I’m not looking for personal “subjective” opinions, but rather “objective” opinions on how they related to the technical aspect of the given topic.

Basically, your findings, things you would of done differently, thoughts on how to improve on the progress you have made so far…general stuff like that.

I think it helps all of us so were not repeating each other’s mistakes and it keeps us moving forward and not revisiting lessons already learned.