MR board + Makoto LED ??

[Badkitty]

i have been reading soo many thread my eyes hurt. I, for the most part , love trying to find the info myself because i have found numerous threads with other important info i hadn't thought about , but i did NOT find anything on if i can power a string of makoto's LED with a 2005 MR Anakin Skywalker ROTS board?

I picked up the MR saber today off craigslist for $40 , beat up but works great. I do however have my own saber i've been working on with a Blue P4 and eco board. i want to scrap with p4 and eco board in favor of a LED string and the MR board.

Because i found some 8mm Blue Led , 35,000mcd typ - 40k mcd max , 35degree view angle . 3.6v- 3.8v max , 20ma forward current for super cheap. 8mm is perfect fit inside the foam from the MR saber( i have a 10mm led thats pretty snug so 8mm is perfect) . So i was thinking maybe 60 of these in my string.

[Azmaria Dei]

Slothfurnace's ROTJ Luke reveal in the gallery is the one you want to look at. also look over on nonentity.com for the full build - that's Sloth's website.

as for the MR board itself, they're pretty versatile - most people run a 3-5W high power LED off of them these days but they were made for string LED blades... 10 or so per segment if i remember right.

[Jedi-Loreen]

A 35° viewing angle doesn't sound like enough for this application, though.

But I could be wrong.

[makototsai]

hi~

I use 60° 5mm Makoto' saber led in my blade.

if you use the MR board to drive the v3 blade, that is brighter then original, but the power(current) is not enough to drive v3 blade of 100% power.

in my test before:
Blue V3 blade with MR board that is brighter then original about 30%.
Green V3 blade with MR board that is brighter then original about 40%.
Purple V3 blade with MR board that is brighter then original about 70%.
Red V3 blade with MR board that is brighter then original about 85%.

[Badkitty]

ya , actually i have sloth's website bookmarked on that build. i just went thru it again and didnt see him state what he used to power the 90 Leds. The MR i have uses 64. Wasnt sure how many the others use.

[Azmaria Dei]

not to kinda brush you off or anything, but Sloth and Makototsai are pretty much the only two that i know of that have all but perfected the LED string blades. (i say 'all but perfected' because the sun is still barely brighter ^_^)

Makototsai, didn't you use a couple strings in some of your blades? how on earth did you power that much, anyway? custom driver?

[makototsai]

Couple strips in a blade? you mean my Super V3 plus?
there are DOUBLE led strips and drive board in 1 saber.
just like:
http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...per-plus-saber

[Badkitty]

Well I don't know about that azmaria....I can stare at the sun longer than the pics of their blades! Lol

I do plan on only using 60 led,not 90 tho, for a 32in blade.probably less since the 8mm are taller.

[Grackle]

Yeah, you can run high power LED strings off MR boards no problem. So far every saber slothfurnace has made uses an MR board (his ROTJ Luke, his ANH Graflex, and his Thin-neck Obi-Wan). I have a green saber with nearly identical wiring and setup to his ROTJ Luke he just built, including the same LEDs, they're 30 degree. Anything over 20 degree usually works fine, though the wider the dispersion angle, the brighter the blade will look.

The exact setup me and sloth are both using is 4 AAA NiMH batteries through a standard MR board with the LEDs wired in a standard Makototsai-style ladder, with the negative leg of the ladder clipped every ~13-14 LEDs to separate them into six segments, with very very fine gauge insulated wire run up to each new negative lead segment from the appropriate pinout from the MR board, so that the ignition and retraction work correctly, and no resistors on either side of the LEDs (they can handle the raw current from the MR board without a problem, since it's a more current-hungry setup than the stock MR blade - the LEDs need over 1.5 amps of current at minimum and can easily handle over 2.5A!). For the fine gauge wire, a good source of thin enough wire is old leftover 80-pin IDE hard drive cables. You want the thinnest possible wires, and you need to keep them separated so they don't bunch up on one side of the LED string, otherwise you'll get dark spots and shadows and it won't look as good.

As far as 8mm LEDs, they may seem like they'll fit, but I'm betting once you have a whole string wired up, you'll have a heck of a time getting them in there without tearing the foam. My first attempt used the foam out of a newer 2010 removable blade saber with 5mm LEDs, and I tore several inches of the foam in my attempts to get the string through (the 2010s are slightly smaller, but not by much). I ended up having to very carefully desolder all the LEDs in the string and very carefully bend the legs in a little further and work to get it as slim as I could and re-solder them and very carefully trim away ANY little bits of the legs or stray solder that stuck out the sides, since it would catch on the foam and tear it during insertion. (and I had to get a new foam tube, to replace the torn one, too)

[Badkitty]

that was exactly the type of info i was looking for grackle. thank you so much.

what kind of blade do you use ? i have tims trans white 1in thin wall and the led diffuser tube. i was thinking instead of trying to slide the larger led into the foam , since i have the diffuser tube to hide the foam , why not slice the foam down one side and just lay the string in it , then slide that into the tube. In theory it sounds like a good plan.

also i want to get an opinion on some LEDs i'm looking at , but dont want to post a link in here again. can someone pm me to help? thanks