I made my video. Anyone want to see a dork talk about his lightsaber?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OHTcL2RPeRQ
If anyone is interested in details and tear-down pictures, let me know.
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I made my video. Anyone want to see a dork talk about his lightsaber?
http://youtube.com/watch?v=OHTcL2RPeRQ
If anyone is interested in details and tear-down pictures, let me know.
Nice!
The pulse near the end is kinda bad though :P
Cool-- eh.
I see from another post that you put a lot of effort in that blade. I wonder how it would look if you just used a stock Carbon, Ultra, or TCSS blade.
I kind of like the strobe effect. If nothing else, it's unique. ;) You're not talking about the flashing on and off though are you? That only happens if I want it to.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tom Starkiller
JP, I'd like to try Tim's diffuser with cellophane wrapped up in it. I keep hearing good things...
Where did you get that flashlight!
Makes me want to do a color changing saber, What kida led does it use? doe sit use a prolight? would it benafit from say a rgb rebel with a refracter lense?
Can you give us individual color pics? some specs. Iam verry intrested. Shoud post this at fxsabers theyw ould get a huge kick out of this.
They would want even more info than iam asking LOL
Looks good. Now what is the flashlight?
yes im sur everyone else on fx would love it im sure the guys doing the joe jedi/jane jedi would like it
i wanna know where u got the flashlite cuz i want... no i must have one now lol
i would say go with xwings blade thay may not be the best to dule with but thay look better then ultras... not that the diff betwen ultra and xwings blade is as easy to see as the stock FX blade and ultras but still
x wings blade is just a hair better then ultras
yes all the joe/jane jedi lovers over on FX would love this saber i know i do and i wanna build one rite now:cool:
verry great saber
Is it a 2 switch setup? one to turn it on and a momentary to cycle thru the colors and that?
Thats a cool saber! The colors looked realy good too. How bright is it, lux 1,3,K2,5?
thats what he said i the video... the only reasion i rember that is cuz i had to hold my speakers to my ears lolQuote:
Originally Posted by Hasid Lafre
Ah ok I dident catch that part, my computer hates videos and I dident get teh sound for that. I thought it was a messup with youtube which most of the time is youtube.
OK, let's see if I can answer a few questions.
The flashlight came from Wal-Mart for $20.00. It is called a "Multi Vision Tactical Flashlight", and it looks like this:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-...8/101_0561.JPG
It uses two switches. One latching, for the main power, and one momentary to cycle through the colors. It has a holder for three AAA batteries, but I have it set up with 4 NiMH AAAs. I figure that 3 alkaline batteries add up to 4.5V, and 4 NiMH add up to 4.8V. I didn't think the extra .3V would kill it.
The package says that it's 3W. As a flashlight, it's bright, but as a lightsaber, it's comparatively dim. I'd say it's a little less than a Lux III. Its virtue is not in its brightness, but in its color changing ability.
Here are the blade pics:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-1/1236148/RGB_1.jpg
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-1/1236148/RGB_2.jpg
This is what the LED looks like:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-...8/101_0569.JPG
One last picture for now. It's getting late, and I have to go to bed. I will post more tomorrow.
In this picture, the LED is still in the flashlight housing on the left, and you can see the control circuit on the right. The LED has four pins that go into the sockets.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-...8/101_0567.JPG
Hope that helps. Tomorrow, for those who are interested, I'll post some pictures of how I hooked this thing up.
Edit to add: I'm posting all this, not as an expert, saying "This is how it should be done.", but I'm showing what I did, hoping that people who know far more about these things than I do will say, "OK, that worked but here's a better way."
Hey, I can dig it!! Great video on youtube, and great photos and details... this is what it is all about! Experimentation!
ooh thats pretty cool, and for 20 bucks not bad at all. I'll be watching this one for sure.
wow what a nice idea!! Im wondering, How did you wired it up, and such?
So theres no way to replace the led with a better unit?
I'm going to look into that. I'm going to try to teach myself some of the basics of electronic theory so I can feel better about experimenting. (I learned the basics in high school, but that was a while ago, and it has all faded in the mists of time. I'm going to hit the library this week and see if I can find a good book.)Quote:
Originally Posted by Hasid Lafre
First thing I need to know is how much current this "driver" is capable of putting out, and how much voltage it can handle. I don't know whether I could hook up something like a Tri-Rebel to it. This LED has four pins. The Tri-Rebel has six solder pads. I'm thinking one pin for each color and a common ground. If that's the case, it shouldn't be too hard. I'll need to play with it to see what's going on.
Somehow, I don't think that this is the solution to the question of how to drive an RGB for saber purposes. I'd just as soon wait for Erv or someone to design a proper driver for the Rebel.
that is still a cool toy u have thereand it works so why change it
good luck in ur endevor to learn all u can
Hey Obi-Dar,
Another question, does the driver remember what color you were on when you turn it off, or does it reset back to white.
Unfortunately, it resets to white. It would be nice if it would stay whatever color you left it, but it doesn't.
Actually, I took it out of my saber last night and put a royal blue Lux III back in. It was acting wonky in the saber, and I wanted to do some bench testing on it anyway.
I think that something was either grounding out on the body of the saber, or I had a loose connection. I kept losing the red LED, and only had combinations of blue and green.
did you put the led inside its connection correctly?
Yeah, I checked that. There are four pins, and it would be easy to accidentally turn it a quarter turn, and who knows what it would do. There is a little dot beside one of the pins, and I know that that pin has to be next to the little switch.
Not exactly sure what the problem is, but whatever it is, when I had the blade holder off, it worked fine. Soon as I screwed the BH on, it went all goofy.
I'll figure it out.
Maybe it got ****eyd and was sandwhiched off kilter.
I tired to find one of those flashlights at walmart... no luck. sdo you stil have the SKU number from that? I am dieing to try this.
I picture this flashlight becoming instantly popular and harder to come by now that light saber enthusiasts know about it....
It's already hard to come by. I have been trying to find these online for a while now. So far I have had no luck, but for those who are interested, someone at Candlepower Forums did a review of the same model as mine:
http://www.candlepowerforums.com/vb/...d.php?t=186719
Here's a similar one you can order from ThinkGeek:
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/lights/8db4/
Looks a little different, but appears to function the same way.
I will say it again. This is really not very bright as a lightsaber LED. It's cool to be able to change the colors, but you're not going to impress anyone with the brightness.
That said, if anyone can get one of these and make it better, I'd love to know how you did it.
One thing that needs to be improved is the way I mounted it. I'll take some pictures and post them shortly. I didn't think that it put out much heat, so I cut out a plastic disc, (I didn't want it to ground out on the body of the saber), and sandwiched it together to fit in the blade holder.
Turns out that it does get hot. I'll need to find a way to make a custom heat sink that is non-conductive, or at least, insulates the pins.
More to come soon...
More pictures, as promised.
Here's how I put it all together:
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-...8/101_0670.JPG
The green disc is cut out to be the same diameter as an MHS heat sink. The hole is cut to fit over the white part with the pin sockets that you can see in this photo. The LED still fits snugly on top of this.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-...8/101_0567.JPG
Here's a view of the backside. Yes, that's the lid from a jar of Kraft Peanut Butter. The black wire in the center is the battery positive. The blue wires that are twisted together go to the momentary aux switch. The other blue wire goes through a hole in the plastic disc, to the metal LED holder, to provide the negative return path to the batteries.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-...8/101_0672.JPG
Here's a picture of that negative wire. The flashlight grounds through its metal body, so I had to solder a wire to this metal disk to provide the ground. It was a bit tricky soldering this, and my soldering is a bit sloppy, but functional.
http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2007-...8/101_0673.JPG
Hope that is helpful. If anyone has an idea how I could do this better, I'd love to hear it.
Can You resend the photos or PM me the photos. I have these flashlights and I would like to make a lightsaber out of them.
talk about necro posting .....thread is from 2008
Just trying to build a saber. Not many threads on multi colored LEDs and he is one of the few who actually posted.
You can't send or receive PMs here till you've been on for forums for 15 days, which you have, and you've made 10 posts, which you haven't.
Some people aren't as active here as they used to be a few years ago. It could be a while before you get a response.
Thank you.
As long as the necro is already open, I actually kinda like the pulse effect. It reminds me of the weapon trails on Soul Calibur, particularly Kilik.