There's always a bigger fish.
My guess would be a relay...
Anyway, looks cool!
Any chance of this working with an US?
mTm
Official Owner of Skottsaber at Bowling
Darn...
I guess one could just wire the Flash LED to the Main Acc. Led...
Time for thought, this is...
mTm
EDIT:
See? I knew it was a relay!
Last edited by mihunai; 05-15-2010 at 08:34 AM.
Official Owner of Skottsaber at Bowling
Come to think of it, I suppose you could use one of these boards in conjunction with a US, without sound, just for the flash effect. But, off the top of my head, I can't think of a way you could have the US trigger the clash effect on this board, since the US's clash sensor is fundamentally different technology. Each would have its own clash sensor, and there's no guarantee they'll be triggered at the same moment every time. You could get a clash with no flash, and a flash with no clash.
There's always a bigger fish.
It's progress but the LED isn't lit unless it's clash flashing right? And it looks like it's shooting sparks..lol. Hopefully Cannibal doesn't burn what he's cooking.
Last edited by Crystal Chambers; 05-14-2010 at 06:28 AM.
I think that's because he has only wired up the LED chip being used for the clash flash. Once he wires up the primary color(s), using the "constantly on" leads, it should create an effect similar to the Crystal Focus' flash-on-clash. For example, if he uses a LedEngin RGGB, he could use the two green chips for the primary saber color, and use the red and blue for the clash, creating a whitish flash.
There's always a bigger fish.
Give that man a cigar!!! (It's an LedEngin RGBA BTW... )
Yes, the orange thingy is a DPDT relay.
So the thing is this - I have only the amber wired up to demonstrate the clash flash ability (which is really like a reverse clash flash). Anyway, so the way the Hasbro board works for these 2010 sabers is that they "flash" on startup and also blink (turn off and back on in rapid succession) whenever you clash. I simply wanted this to have the reverse effect - so in essence, when the lightsaber board is "on" and making noise, the LED is OFF. When you clash and the LEDs are supposed to turn off, the LED then lights up, giving you the "clash flash" appearance.
In order to achieve this, I used the DPDT relay - and wired it to the "normally closed" leads. i.e. when the board is off, the connection is closed. when the board turns on, it activates the coil and the LED connection is broken. So in essence, when the LEDs are supposed to be off, the relay reverts back to normally closed status and the LED lights up? With me so far?
The major problem which has been touched on earlier in this thread is that when you turn the saber completely off the, the LED should be on. How to fix this? So I wired the positive from the battery into the normally closed connections on the relay. And I used two of the negative LED output from the hasbro board to go to the negative of the Amber LED. When the board is off, so is the power to the LED (the hasbro boards are a little funky in that the there is always power going to the soundboard positive LED out, but the soundboard negative LED out is where the "control" comes from). Anyhow, this now just works. When the soundboard is off, the "negative" connection is broken, but the "positive" connection is on. When the soundboard is on, the relay activates and the "positive" connection is broken, but the "negative" is on. When the soundboard is on and the clash activates, both connections are "on", so you can now see the flickering LED.
I'll post a wiring diagram later on tonight after I get home. It'll make more sense then...
A problem though - anyone know if the PNP transistors can work with negative leads? I don't see why not... but I'll have to pick up another later to tell for sure.
Why? Because there are only two negative leads from the soundboard going to the amber LED and therefore only like 200 mA. Yes you read that right 200 mA... that means that the LED kinda sucked as far as brightness was concerned. But if I can get another PNP on there to provide a little better "juice", maybe it'll work great. We'll see. Will do some more testing soon.
Oh and I don't know why the sparks appearance was on the video - probably some stray photons or something hitting my camera. It looks cool, but I didn't see anything of the sort in real life. And if I did I think I might just soil myself
-C
LOCKHEED
I am looking forward to see your testing cannibal! I've been looking for a new PNP that will give off more juice but no luck so far...
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