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Thread: Which blade for a Neopixel / Led Strip build ?

  1. #1

    Question Which blade for a Neopixel / Led Strip build ?

    Hello guys,

    I am building my own lightsaber and I have bought 2x 144leds/m Neopixel strip.

    I have tested them into a very cheap transparent plastic tube, I wrapped them in a sheet of paper to diffuse the blade, here is the result:



    Since my LEDs are RGB leds, I'll go for a white blade.

    But I am not sure which blade to get in order to achieve maximum brightness with correctly diffused light so that we can't see individual leds.

    Should I get a thin walled or thick walled blade ? I don't plan to fight very much with it but I don't want my blade to break.

    In addition to the blade, should I get a LED blade diffuser (TCSS LED blade diffuser ) or maybe a Blade Film ? Or is the white blade going to be enough to diffuse the LEDs ?

    Can you guys advise me ?

    I thank you in advance.

    Regards,

    Azsde.
    Last edited by Azsde; 05-19-2017 at 03:04 AM.

  2. #2

    Default

    You don't need to worry about the blade breaking, but you may have to worry about the wiring for the pixels breaking so if you plan on fighting with a pixel strip blade you will need to take steps to keep the stress off the joints or you can tear the pads right off the strips. A thick wall blade may reduce the stress, but it will also not leave as much room for diffusion materials. Think trans-white may help.. but I haven't tried it. I do not think the thin trans-white blades are as helpful as one might imagine.

    I haven't tried the TCSS diffuser or Blade Film.

    I use a combination of white packing foam and clear gift wrap to diffuse my blades and I find that this works quite well in the thin walled clear blades. To be honest, the best diffuser I've found is single ply toilet paper, but the seam will always be ugly.

    I'm not sure anyone who's active here has posted much about pixel blades other than me, hopefully that changes now that there are more options available!

  3. #3

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by jbkuma View Post
    white packing foam
    ^^This is the big difference between string blades and standard single or tri-die blades. You might be able to find white foam underlayment in the flooring section of your big box store. Or from a packing/storage type place.

  4. #4

    Default

    I never thought of the flooring section. The big box hardware stores usually have it in their "moving supplies" section. "Picture frame" size sleeves are about the right size if you can't find it in a roll.

    I'm sure there is something better out there, but I have been building these for about a year and I haven't been able to find something better that is readily available, affordable, and the right size. I considered some more expensive options like a layer (or two) of PTFE heatshrink which is somewhat cloudy. That would cost something like $30-50 per blade and ultimately the cost didn't seem worth the experiment.

    Using the 5mm type to build a string is would be easier to diffuse, but they have an annoying "feature" or light up blue until they receive their first set of instructions. The best you can reduce this to is a blue flash at startup. Because pixels have a continuous drain regardless of if they are lighted, you want to kill the power to them when the blade isn't lit. (I'm not sure if Plecter or NEC does this, but we do it in LightsaberOS/FX-SaberOS to conserve battery). So every time the pixels chain is re-energized it will flash blue. With strips this is not a concern. If someone shows you their beautiful pixel LED string blade that doesn't have this blue flash then they are excluding that from the demonstration. There is no way around it.

  5. #5

    Default

    JBkuma

    I had only learned about that issue recently. Oh well, the LEDs were cheap.

    Could the code have the extend feature lead with a quick blue flash on the LED? The leading LED would be blue, or flash blue and then followed by color of choice.

    Has anyone done any experiments to see how fast you can flash before it doesnt register?

    I should just bought the 144 per meter strip.
    The plecter labs boards now come with deep sleep mode.
    Last edited by Whosle; 05-20-2017 at 08:30 AM.

  6. #6

    Default

    There is no way to avoid the blue "flash," and every LED will do it on power up. If you don't send any code to the LED it will simply stay blue. Even if you make an Arduino sketch that does nothing but change the state of the LED to full off or any other color it will still perceptibly flash blue. You could perhaps make it fade down for blue rather than flash or blend over to another color, but I don't think that's too useful in this scenario.

  7. #7

    Default

    I finally got around to looking at the NBv4 sheet. The "StripOff" feature is the important thing. In LSOS/FXSOS it's been referred to as "pixel_KillKey" (perhaps not the most accurate name) or generally "programmable kill key"

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