Design/material recommendations for lightweight violin bow saber

Greetings,

My 5yr is learning the violin and his teacher says he'll soon be capable of playing a simple star wars song soon. I want to build him a "bow saber", ie. light up his violin bow like a light saber. His bow is only 18" long. My goal is make this as light weight as possible as additional weight will effect his playing.

I've looked at using an LED string (which seems like the most common approach for bow sabers)--but wondering is some sort of lightweight diffuse tubing would allow me fewer LEDs and thus less weight.

I have basic electronic knowledge and can solder decently.

Suggestions?

Your biggest problem with using a tube or rod will be surviving the tension. Perhaps a slitted transparent/translucent tube over the standard bow with an LED at one or both ends would do it. The next hurdle would be the bow in the bow as light travels in a straight line. The string would also (probably) be better in bright lighting situations. You could use a colored fluorescent lighting sleeve to maintain the effect, similar to the "day blades" sold here. You can find those at the online a to z shop.

A lithium battery is your best bet as far as power and weight is concerned for your power source. A 14500 or possibly even a smaller flat battery pack. You might need to exchange run time for weight for the comfort of your little guy. A simple latching switch is the only other item you would need.

Now I really want to make one of these :D

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Originally Posted by scotru

Greetings,

My 5yr is learning the violin and his teacher says he'll soon be capable of playing a simple star wars song soon. I want to build him a "bow saber", ie. light up his violin bow like a light saber. His bow is only 18" long. My goal is make this as light weight as possible as additional weight will effect his playing.

I've looked at using an LED string (which seems like the most common approach for bow sabers)--but wondering is some sort of lightweight diffuse tubing would allow me fewer LEDs and thus less weight.

I have basic electronic knowledge and can solder decently.

Suggestions?

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An elementary school here did it last year for their Christmas concert by simply using stock 12" adhesive back LED strips on their existing bows. I think they were something like these, with what looked like a translucent flexible tubing slit and slid over the led & spline. Attachment 14555

If you were to build one the vibration and flex added to the bow spline by switching to PC would alter and destroy the sound quality of the instrument.

I was going to suggest carving a bow out of sold poly-carb rod, leave the surface frosted and imbed a bright led in the handle.

But I think FenixFire's idea is much better

Thanks for the feedback! To clarify--my intent is to enhance his existing bow not to build a bow from scratch. But the challenge is not to add too much weight to the bow. I've picked up some neopixels and I'm experimenting with them. My biggest problem with them is diffusing the LEDs so you don't see the LED points. My current plan is to try to wrap it with some packing foam and/or blade film--but not sure if that will be sufficient. I understand there is some really good diffusing foam in force FX saber's but they are $$$. I got a piece of 3/4" polycarbonate tube--but it's quite heavy. An 18" segment of the tube and end cab weighs around 50 grams which is more than the bow--so adding it would double the weight without the electronics--so I don't think that will work. Might try to slice of a sliver of it and see if I could use it to cover the neopixels and provide some diffusion.