Really? I would assume you bought the same lense I did; my lense fits nicely, but it doesn't exactly snap on. And so what I meant is that vertically there's some space I need to fill so the lense won't jump off the LED. The parts were machined to fit the black lense holder provided by the TCSS, and I've gotta make up some of that gap.
I probably did get the same lens, it may just be the particular one I got was a tighter fit. LDM also uses these led's and suggested to me to use a piece of 1" blade stock as a spaced to fit in between the lens and the top of the led module. He said.it worked best if the piece of blade stock was cut along the side to allow it to form a "c" shape. You could also just glue.the lens to the star base as well.
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I may just end up gluing the lense on. My only concern now is how much light is lost in the space between the lense and the lower lip of the blade holder. With triple the lumens coming in, you could think I shouldn't worry. I'm worried about the angle though; don't want a dim portion of the blade on the emitter end. When I get back from spring break I'll give it a shot and see.
I did it! The royal blue is beautiful. And the diffusion with the 18 degree lense almost seems to work better; at least the blue seems to have less contrast between emitter end amd the tip. The only issue I have with the Tri-Star is that 700 mA isn't enough for more than one LED to be in saturation. I forget who mentioned the current-behaviour in a parallel circuit, probably a tired me, but we had it backwards. So tonight I'll be upping the current draw for the LEDs and experimenting. When I can get purple, yellow, and cyan (or whatever the third.color mix is), pics will be coming.
Parallel circuits need double the current, serial circuits need double the voltage. If you have two of those led's in parallel, you need to raise the current setting in your PC's config file to about 62. The one I got came from another led supplier, and they were linked together in a series connection on the star. I had to remove the jumpers and change the configuration to get it set up the way I needed it. for anyone else that may not be on FX-Sabers, here is the comparison I did between a blue rebel Tri-Star (CF v5.6; current set to 1500ma; 7.4vLi-Ion battery source) and an LedEngin quad blue (CS-X, PC v1.6, current set at 1500ma; 7.4v Li-Ion battery source).Originally Posted by JGMJacobo
THESE ARE NOT INTENDED TO SHOW THAT ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHER, JUST THAT THERE ARE CHOICES AVAILABLE.
CS-X w/LedEngin 10watt on the top, CS-38 w/Tri-Rebel on the bottom. Both blades are my 36" Dual-Core DiffusionTM style.
CS-X on the left, CS-38 on the right, from the hilt, looking along the blade length:
Looking from the tip:
Angled views:
CS-38 by itself:
Just to reiterate what I stated above, this was not done to show one is better than the other, just that there is another choice if one so desired. The Tri-Rebel is a nice pale shade of sky blue, where the Ledengin is a nice medium blue. The only real difference in brightness is the FoC. The tri-Rebel only has one led for that, where the LedEgin has two, making it much more noticeable, even with the same color FoC. The Tri-Rebel would benefit greatly from having a different color for the FoC, perhaps green for a yellow-ish FoC or simply a white.
My personal opinion on the Tri-Rebel as tested is that it works well at least for a single non-color mixed blade, and I was actually surprised at how evenly lit the blade actually was. I found it to be a bit easier to solder than a LedEngin, but not by much as the supplier I got them from also does not pre-tin the pads.
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Alright, that will hopefully fix it then. Right now I have the config file at 56, and it seems SO close to getting the Red to light with the blue. I'll post the current picture in this post, and if it results better, I'll post another picture. If not, I'll come back and whine about how Ohm himself hates me and look intently at my circuit again, and do something else.2012-04-03 18.14.47.jpg
2012-04-03 22.03.37.jpg
Alright, so with the lowest setting on the potentiometers for the red and blue LEDs, and green cut off, I get a hot pink shade. I realize the purple shade I posted last was terrible, so I took a better shot to show the color.
2012-04-03 21.40.56.jpg
I don't know how the LEDs are behaving at this point. The LED setting in the config file is 66, as my normal setting for a 700mA value is 33. I don't know why one cuts off when the other hits saturation. I plan on asking one of my professors tomorrow if I can't tinker more and figure it out tonight.
Howe are the leds wired? Parallel or series?
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Wow, thanks for that comparison Jay! I hadn't seen it yet on FX. I am now more anxious to give a few a try.
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The LEDs are wired in parallel using potentiometers. I'm figuring I should switch to just using 3 pronged slide switches, so it's just on-off, no resistance to deal with.
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