JB's Pathfinder Scratchbuild

[PhoenixHawk]

Yes it looking real sweet bro...and agreed with going in different stores and seeing what will work..its amazing how the last few years i have looked at things and thought..."hmmm....how can i put this in a light saber?"....yes i know....i need help. O_o ...lol

[.: SparrowHawk :.]

Thank you! High praise from someone who has crafted one of the great beauties of our day. The button design has had a lot of surprises for me, but it has worked out better than I'd hoped. The pins give a nice tactile feedback on an otherwise nearly flush button. I have gone back and forth on whether I wanted to do it from the beginning as the more simple, sleek design looked really nice. There really is not a lot of room for another method of keeping the brass insert from rotating, though. I wasn't as careful as I could have been in their alignment, but it works for now. Perhaps the asymmetry is part of the charm.

The current surround material is a translucent glow in the dark that shifts my color mix toward white pink as it absorbs some blue and makes it green. The purple looks great for about 30 seconds before the shift. I was hoping it would be more insignificant, as leaving a glowing ring when it's shut down is also a pretty nice effect. I'm debating the appropriate material to redo it in as I start finalizing the build. I'm worried that a frosted clear material might not diffuse the lighting enough, but the current material mixes and diffuses (color shift aside) fairly well, it absorbs a great deal amount of light to do so. I may have my friend make it up using clear filament instead of shipping it off to shapeways since the rougher quality of the print should help. The design of the piece would necessarily be simpler, but the prototype works well enough, so I could just go back to that with some minor tweaks.

The smaller tubing is from local art supplies thanks to a tip from DC. You can find it online, but it's always nice to be able to look at things. It's fairly inexpensive so I bought a few different sizes. The smaller size comes pretty close to fitting, but is a bit more malleable. I had to crimp the ends of the tubing to get it to fit right, but the larger diameter tubing is also more rigid and frankly just looks a lot more significant.

Haha, of course! Very interesting on the button design, I can see the benefit of a tactile feedback from the holding pins. And yep asymmetry is definitely a feature, carefully planned from the beginning if anyone asks! I didn't realize the momentary switch holder is made out of a translucent glow in the dark plastic, that seems like it yields some cool color shifting and lingering effects. Like some mysterious power coupling technology! I've haven't done any 3D printing yet, but I've seen other builders use clear ABS for making LED diffuser components before with great results (if you haven't see this already, check out James Bruton on YouTube, this video < https://youtu.be/CfFxymwtpoA?t=15m25s > shows the translucent ABS used to make a holoprojector lens for his R6 Droid). But the color shift effect could be cool to leave as a feature!

Cool, thanks, I'll have to check into my local art stores for that copper tubing, it would make for some awesome crystal chamber details. I like to see materials like these front of me too, some things are still best found in person haha. Good to hear the smaller is better for malleability. Good luck with your next steps!

[jbkuma]

New job + commission check from old job = TCSS order placed.

Now that nervous feeling that I obviously forgot the most important thing! While I've been saving up I've been tinkering with arduinos on the bench. I decided to pick up an NBv3 and pair it with an arduino to control my lights. I've come a long way with the arduino stuff, but it's not game ready yet. I already have some other builds in mind, so the NB may move over to my next build and this will go back to being a true prototyping hilt.

In the meantime, I've been working on my first commissioned hilt and I will be buttoning that one up soon and I'll make a reveal + build log post. It's definitely a unique build, and I look forward to sharing it with everyone.

[Greenie]

I look forward to seeing it and congrats on the new job.

[jbkuma]

Trying to solder to the deep sleep pad on the NBv3 is by far the hardest thing I've had to do yet. Dexterity is not one of my natural traits.

[jbkuma]

Decided to switch up the coding a bit and still getting the desired result. You can see a demo of how the accents and neopixels are working along with the battery check function.

Forgot to show clash detection, but that works too..

[CET]

That is a brilliant bit of wiring!

[jbkuma]

That is a brilliant bit of wiring!

Thanks!

I wired up the R-rB-G TriCree and added it into the circuit with some higher value resistors for testing. Here's another quick video demonstrating the Flash on Clash sensing.

[jbkuma]

I'm really happy with my decision to go with the NBv3+ Arduino arrangement instead of full blown home brew. I can now concentrate on novel functionality rather than reinventing a rather nicely built wheel.

I added some menus to R2ino to give me field adjustment via serial from my phone (light level, effect and color adjustment, along with some diagnostic info) . This is a work in progress, and I'm mostly posting because I've officially named my Arduino sidekick board R2ino.

[jbkuma]

The main/blade LED is now addressable. Everything is working really nicely on the bench, so the next step is to translate the pile of jumper wires into a meaningful wiring solution. The final step will be the chassis. The removable portion is all figured out, I'll just need to finalize some of the dimensions once I get the wiring sorted. The internal portion end up getting a 3D print as well, instead of the piece of carved up PEX I planned on using. This would mostly be to ensure alignment for my disconnect.

I'm using TIP42Cs with the LED WS2811 control chip to power the main LED since I had a bunch on hand, similar to the way you would with a habro board. The chip is ostensibly designed to control a common anode RGB LED, so I've got the leads each going to the base of the respective TIP42C.

The recommendation was to use n channel MOSFETs, but no clear explanation as to why. The TIP42Cs seem to be doing the job well enough. Does anyone know of a good reason why one way or the other would be better?