Hey Guys,

I'm new to these boards, but reading through threads quickly. I didn't see anybody talking about these ideas already so I wanted to get them out there and see what you think. Sorry if somebody has already mentioned it.
Idea #1. Fixing the issue of dim-middle
I looked at pictures all around the website and saw how the lightsabers with a single super bright LED at the base have the problem of being bright at the hilt and end, but dead in the middle. I saw in another thread how somebody talked about using a lens to focus the beam to essentially disperse the light a bit more. Well, here's my thought...

Fill the blade with some type of lightweight material that can vary from being very clear (transparent) to very milky white (translucent). You want the clearer material near the LED, and the most "milky" part near the tip of the blade. The idea is that as light moves up the shaft, more light gets reflected out of the straight path as it travels farther down the blade. If you can get the diffusion of clear-->milky correct, you just might end up with an evenly-light dispersed blade! I would first suggest trying out clear packing foam. Grind it into smaller pieces for the tip and big clear chunks near the LED.

Idea #2 Clash Flash
After I opened up my Master Replica Lightsabers, I noticed that each LED had it's own Biasing resistor (around 390 Ohms). What I'm now planning on doing is switching those out for resistors around half the resistance (around 210 Ohms). Then near the emitter, I'll solder another resistor in parallel with another transistor. The new transistor will usually be OFF and the resistor limits the current to what the LED's normally get.

Now... wire the base of that transistor to the output of the clash sensor. (a bit of work there, depending on how it outputs) So that when the clash sensor goes off, the transistor turns ON and that new resistor is shorted. Now the LED's get nearly twice the current for a short period of time. The overall effect?

The blade flashes when the clash sensor goes off.

Cool huh?[/u]