Focusing Lens Question

[Jay-gon Jinn]

It made the blade weigh about a half a pound, I think. The cable is 14mm (1/2 inch) in diameter. If you put it in a 1" tube with a 3/4" i.d, then it would flop around inside the blade. Optics didn't help with lighting the cable, either. I found it worked better butting the end of the cable right up to the led's dome.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

I did try sliding it in with the Corbin film inside the 3/4" blade and it didn't really make any difference, except to add the weight of the cable to it. Here's those night pics you wanted to see:
On my living room floor:

And up against the living room wall:

I didn't change the batteries for these, I thought they may have recovered a bit of their charge over the last couple days enough to take a decent pic.

[Ryma Mara]

Wow I really like that.

[neophyl]

You guys should be aware that as soon as you try grinding down the optics you ruin their efficiency. They work on the principle of total internal reflection (TIR). They dont quite acheive total, having a 85-95% efficiency normally.
They are specially shaped so that the light bounches around inside the optic reflecting off the walls until the light comes to the 'open' end where its emmitted. As such even scratching the walls degrades its performance and grinding it most certainly does.

[Ryma Mara]

Amuse me for just a moment jay. could you post a pic of what it looks like inside a diffused blade?

How ever neophyl that is one nice blade hes got there.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

I know, and that was a concern, Phil, but I had to do something to get it working for saturday! Compare it next to my MHS Lux III powered saber with the 5 degree lens, and it's nearly as bright, even on half-dead batteries:


And Ryma:


Not much of an improvement. It still gets dim in the middle, and really bright at the ends.

[Ryma Mara]

Have you a mirror in the tip?

[elrond.406]

Have you a mirror in the tip?

Dude, you can so see the reflection of light at the end...

[Ryma Mara]

No thats what is called light bulbing.

A sign of no mirror. I just remembered that, I wander how that would look then if there was a reflective material of somesort.

[Jay-gon Jinn]

There isn't any reflective material in the tip. That particular blade used to be an EL blade that I recently converted to led, and have been using it with my MHS saber. There's no way to use the blade with the optic I installed, as it is sealed with hot glue. However, when i was using the cable in the blade originally, I did have an acrylic mirroed disc in the tip that I am still using in the converted blade with the optic glued in.