New LED Bubble strip wiring

[cannibal869]

Howdy all,

Just wanted to post up about the wiring for the LED bubble strips that Tim now has in the store - I'm talking about these ones that work with the Activator Box Style 5 (available in red and green):

http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/Gr...trip-P478.aspx


Anyway, the positive and negative come in from your battery supply and go to the red and black wires respectively (duh).
The yellow wire functions as the negative out. When you push the momentary button it will function like a latching switch and the led lights will blink in succession. You can actually use this switch essentially like a master power latching switch. The negative out (yellow wire) can then be used to give power to whatever else you want to use such as a sound board.

Tim notes that "If using the output you MUST properly resistor your LED so that you do not draw too much current through the transistor. "
BTW, anyone have any idea what resistor to use?? I think there are only 2 LEDs on at any given moment in time. So would you wire it as if there were two accent LEDs? Oh and I'm assuming you resistor the positive Lead...

[Strydur]

How exactly do you plan to use this? You dont have to resistor the input to it..

[cannibal869]

How exactly do you plan to use this? You dont have to resistor the input to it..

Well, I was going to try and use the bubble strip as a master power switch. i.e. turn on the bubble strip and power goes to the sound card (in this case, a leftover sabersound 1.0). I was going to use this with 2 Trustfires.

Sorry Strydur I'm a little confused by what you wrote in the store description.
So if I don't need to resistor the input to the bubble strip, does your comment mean that I need to resistor the yellow output wire?? That doesn't quite make sense to me either. The only thing I can think of is maybe you meant that if you're using the output to direct drive a main blade LED, you then have to resistor the main LED??

-C

[Jay-gon Jinn]

I don't think you'll be able to use this with a sabersound board, since it requires a momentary switch, like the ultrasound did. This led strip acts as a latching type switch for the output wire. As you said, if you were using the led strip in a a non-sound stunt saber, you would need to resistor the output since it would be powering your blade led. I believe that's what Strydur was referring to in the description.

[cannibal869]

Hi Jay-Gon,

Thanks for clarifying about the direct driving.

I plan to use this like a master power latching switch (not activation switch).
So for instance -
turn on the LED bubble - the bubble lights start flashing and now power is supplied to the board. The board now says "Sabersound 1.0" and is ready for the next (momentary) activation switch.

Well.. at least that's what I was planning on anyways

Now I think you *CAN* use this as a latching activation switch with an MR board, but I'm not entirely sure about the wiring or how the shutdown would work (I'm thinking hardwire the MR latching as always ON, but use the LED bubble strip to control power going into the MR board). Nah.. not sure that would really work well. <mumbles to self... would still need two step shutdown mechanism, but I think it can be done - maybe use the lighthound PCB board as an intermediary? walks away and mumbles some more>

[Rhyen Skytracker]

Not sure if you can use it to as the activation switch on a MR/Hasbro FX board since the yellow wire is already a switched negative and will have voltage on it. You could use it to energize the coil of a relay and have the contacts of the relay be the activation switch on a MR/Hasbro FX board.

[cannibal869]

Not sure if you can use it to as the activation switch on a MR/Hasbro FX board since the yellow wire is already a switched negative and will have voltage on it. You could use it to energize the coil of a relay and have the contacts of the relay be the activation switch on a MR/Hasbro FX board.

Ah yes I think that would work! Cool!

[neophyl]

Also you are missing the point about the bubble strips on board transistor, if you are using it as any form of switch for an external board/led then the transistor built into it is the bit thats actually acting as the switch.

Now transistors come in all sorts of ratings but Id think from the size of the board and the fact that there is a warning about using a resistor that its maximum current rating is fairly limited. It will surely be alot LESS than the current a luxeon led or a sabersound etc wants.

While it will work you will be overloading the transistor which will get hot, when it gets too hot it will either a) cut off or b) burn out (depending on the transistor used),

It might be an idea to find out what its maximum rating is before people start trying to drive high current leds/boards from it.

[Strydur]

I would not go over 1A.

We will not be getting anymore of these once the store runs out. Had a falling out with the supplier but will work to find a new source and will design it to be more funtional.

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

Thanks Strydur.

When you design a TCSS version I hope you will consider making a blue version as well as the red and green versions available from your present supplier and perhaps a white as well?