Hello all --

I'm in the drawing-board phase for a potential LED saberstaff project, and I've been reviewing my options. I'd like to incorporate the Petit Crouton soundboard/driver, but there seem to be a few limitations when it comes to driving two LED systems -- in particular the 1.5A limit of the PC. While this is over the minimum current required for two 700mA Luxeons, for instance, it seems from these forums that most successful builders have at least experimented with overdriving at least in the 1A range, and I'd like to have the option to do so.

So far, I've seen a few different options for how to proceed, and would appreciate feedback and input from more experienced builders -- I'm decent with electronics, but high-powered LEDs are new territory for me. I've searched and browsed the forums, but I haven't run across anyone else trying to drive a double-bladed saber from a PC.

The first option I mentioned above is just driving both ends of the saberstaff at ~700mA each. This would keep the two ends synchronized in terms of shimmer and flicker effects, and might be the simplest overall, but puts a pretty low limit on output.

Second, which seems to be the most common general approach for saberstaff builders, is to treat each side as a separate saber with separate electronics. Only one side would have a PC (due to both cost & complexity concerns), though, which would limit the use of PC features (power up/down, shimmer and flicker, etc.), since only one would be driven by the PC. I'd likely use a single DP power switch for both sides, but the setup would otherwise be the same as the electronics for two sabers running off a shared battery pack (with the necessary calculations for current availability from the pack, etc.)

Third, from FenderBender's thread here about using the Power Xtender with the LEDengin, it looks like one could use a Power Xtender to drive a second LED in the 1A range alongside the main 1A LED by wiring the two as if they were the two "halves" of an LEDengin set up for "Full Powah" operation. If I'm reading the PC manual and the related threads here correctly, this would let the two blades flicker/shimmer in unison as controlled by the PC. I hope that I'm right about this -- this would be my preferred setup. I suspect, though, that I'd need to experiment with the resistor on the secondary blade and the current regulation settings for the main blade to get them to match in brightness; as far as I can see, using a regulated driver for the second blade would remove the shimmer and flicker effects.

Would someone with more experience with the Petit Crouton and LED sabers let me know if I'm on the right track here? Thanks in advance.