Clash-Flash w/Crystal Focus WORKING!

[Eandori]

Hey there Saber-smiths,

I'm still fairly new to these boards, and time limited so I apologize in advance if there's lots of other threads on this subject with working sabers. I didn't see any when I glanced around though. I wanted to share the findings of my work with Erv' Plecter on making a Clash Flash saber.

First off, I gotta say. Erv' is one awesome guy. After only a few short mails he took some time out of his day to chat with me on Skype about this idea. I'm an Engineer doing prototype design for Intel on both hardware and software so we are able to talk shop on his board. We settled on an idea to use one of the blink LED outputs as the logic driver, and I would wire up a small transistor circuit to drive the 2 white Luxeon LED's based on those outputs. Erv' had to customize his firmware a bit and work out some bugs, then I purchased one of his boards and he sent it to me with the custom firmware.

Quick note, I purchased my saber hilt-tube, blade, tip, switches, and many other parts from the Custom Saber Shop. Gotta make sure to give credit to the owner of these killer forums!

This is a rough drawing of how I have the optics set up in my current saber. It's functional, but does not get much light up the blade as expected. I'm working now to figure out a better mounting option. The main problem is not having room to place an optic lens on top of the white Luxeon LED's because it will block light from the main Luxeon LED.

In the next few weeks I'll be testing around with adding aluminum foil to try and reflect more light up the blade, and I'll also try shaving some material off the surface of rounded LED's to see if I can get more light to exit on a certain angle.

As you might expect, the clash-flash works but it's not nearly as bright as I'm going for YET. I will get there, I'm positive of that. It's just a matter of time until I work out a cheap and effective solution. It's very hard to see the current clash-flash with the blade inserted on video. But when I remove the blade you can see the clash-flash pretty well in the empty emitter tube. In real life, you can definitely see the clash-flash very easily. My current goal though... is to have the entire saber flash nearly twice as bright as a full on main Luxeon K2 LED.

Here is a picture of my current finished prototype saber:

I'm working on getting some video's ready right now. I'll post them on YouTube hopefully soon.

Here is a picture of my designs for the next hilt, to be custom machined later:


Here is the web-based machine shop who I'm planning on going with to have my next saber hilt made. You can download their software, enter your design and get instant quotes!
http://www.emachineshop.com/

I absolutely LOVE the Crystal Focus v2.1 board, and Novastar's killer sound files for it. Big props goes out to those guys so far on their work.

Here's a picture of me with a few of my Master Replicas, what got me started in all this crazyness.

So... what do you guys think? Like it so far? Already been done? Excited to see how it goes? Want to see it in action (video)?

[xwingband]

I think a more powerful flash will become easier when the tri-rebels that just showed up can be fully used. Heck, I think a white flash would probably negate the need for the twice as bright idea.

also... if you machined a saber. Use a reflector. that be heck of a lot better at reflecting side mounted luxeons.

Doesn't eMachineshop charge you out the wazoo!

Last thought... that saber has the control box from hell! It's huge.

[Eandori]

Getting 3 luxeon LED's to fit side by side is not hard... it's the optic to focus all 3 up the blade that's hard. Heck, I could make a quick PCB/heatsink to mount the 3 LED's. But making a clear plastic or glass optic that correctly focuses the light from all 3 up the blade is not in my reach for my tool set.

I definitely had the idea of a reflector as well, but where does it sit? It cannot sit on top of the lens for the main blade luxeon. Because that would effect the main colored light of the saber.

Yeah, custom machining is expensive. That's the exact reason I built up a prototype to prove the concept works and to gain more learning before I blow a big wad of cash on version 2.

Since I was going cheap on this saber, I'm using AA Nicads I had laying around. Since I'm using those for power, I need 6 of them. Since I need 6, I have less room in the hilt. Also, since my optic and heat sink is a little bigger, I have less room in the hilt. That effectively gave me no room for the electronic board. So I shopped around home depot for a quick and cheap solution.

Again... this is a prototype saber to prove the electronics work and to give me some saber building experience. So don't look at it as a final version, that's why I listed my designs for the actual custom hilt later.

[Marsupial]

I'd like to see it in action, but I agree with the triple-luxeon idea.

Maybe not one triple-led star, but maybe the Acerocket triple-optics setup.



Anyway, if you can put videos on youtube, I'd be happy to have a demonstration.

[Novastar]

Great stuff, Edwin! As mentioned, Erv and I have been discussing many ideas as well, and that's the beauty of this sort of technology... there is ALWAYS room for more improvements, differing options and so forth.

I, for one, believe that have the "flash" option going inside the tube... is not the best idea. Having it burst the light OUTSIDE toward the holder and onlookers... now THAT would be most ideal.

A lot of people would say "that would blind you"... well... I did it for the LED blasters of BOP II with literally SIX LUXEON III LEDs on the sides and no one went blind.

So, I think making some kind of "half moon" shape reflector setup (or "donut" reflector) for a super bright LED or xenon flash that shoots AWAY from the saber hilt... now THAT would be a Force to be reckoned with.

[xwingband]

I meant a reflector for the optics... they make them. I bet they'd direct more of the light up the tube as standard colimnators don't do jack for any LEDs not under them.

After trying my single Rebels I'm really going to wait for them to be used to their potential in the RGB or tri setups. They are so small it's not a problem to put optics on them... they just need to be made.

Sort of a tangentially related idea but someday I wanted to use my Hasbro Maul board to have a crystal chamber. I'd keep the Hasbro's strobe feature and use it to light the crystal chamber. On clash you'd get a nice visible strobe.

[Novastar]

Again, I think flashing MORE light up the tube is pretty silly, unless it's going to be 4x (or better yet 10x) the light of the Luxeon setup.

If you think about it, what I'm saying makes sense. We've all worked so hard to get a giant amount of light up the tube, and we (usually) try to max out the brightness given the battery setup... so... if we now try a paltry "flash"... at best, it will (to our EYES) change the color from let's say a red blade to white. I seriously doubt it will flash brightly this way, unless of course somehow the flash is 10x the entire brightness of the Luxeon setup in the first place. Let alone a LUX TRIAD!!!

So, I think the best bet is to allow the flash to do its job on its OWN... and fire out almost exactly like a camera flash--directed into the open, possibly at one or two angles--NOT into the tube.

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. Mainly because I've tested some of this myself, although not as extensively as Eandori!

[Eandori]

Well, flashing lights outside the saber definitely has merit. My kneejerk reaction though is along the lines what you already mentioned. Would that be pretty hard on people's eyes? Also, a very small point source light seems misplaced on the outside hilt near the base of the blade. In movies, when two sabers are clashing isn't the flash where the two blades meet?

My perspective was if I can't get the white flash where the blades meet, I could flash the entire blade. So no matter where the blade was struck, it would "work." In use, I really like what I'm seeing so far. I just want it brighter.

About making the flash super bright and battery life... keep in mind that it's very easy to store up charge somewhere and dump it through many LED's at once. To throw numbers at it, if your K2 is running 1.5amps already I could easily design up a circuit where the OVERALL current is only slightly higher, around 2amps overall. Even if 4 LED's are each getting 1 amp during the burst. The total current "during" a flash would be 5.5 amps, but then go back down to 1.5 amps after the flash. Essentially, the use of large capacitors will achieve this easily and getting a blade 10x brighter IS POSSIBLE. It's more an issue of where the heck to do you mount the other 10 LED's?

For now though, I'm going to stick with 2 and see how good I can make it work with just 2. I'm currently using 2 bi-polar NPN transistors to source the current for my 2 flash LED's. Erv recommended a high power FET that I could use but I have to mail order that and just have not gotten around to it yet.

For the amount of time a flash lasts, not much heat ends up coming out of the flash LED's. So heat sinking ends up not being as much of an issue as I was worried it would. Right now I have nearly zero heat sinking going on for 2 white Luxeon LED's that are each getting around 500mA of current for a short burst. You simply cannot swing fast enough to make back to back hits which dissipate enough heat to cause an issue. At least with the short flash duration Erv' programmed in.

Xwingband, you said..

I meant a reflector for the optics... they make them. I bet they'd direct more of the light up the tube as standard colimnators don't do jack for any LEDs not under them.

Can you provide a link or something to those optics? Anything you can suggest that would help this effort is very appreciated.

[xwingband]

Sure...

Half way down:
http://www.quickar.com/lenses.php?session=dxGjWF5Q

I got some that are different from the pro-light dealer in England:
http://www.led-bulbs.com/eShop/10Bro...=Prolightoptic

I also have this bookmarked because I saw they were much smaller:http://www.cpfmarketplace.com/mp/sho...d.php?t=154195

If you look around enough I bet you could find a retailer that fits you. The reflectors are more popular with flashlight people. (They like things like the orange peel ones because it smooths the spot)

EDIT: Also, how do you deal with eMachineshop's CAD program? I'm a CAD monkey and I can't figure out/stand their program.

[Eandori]

EDIT: Also, how do you deal with eMachineshop's CAD program? I'm a CAD monkey and I can't figure out/stand their program.

Actually I have not used it yet. I have downloaded the software and it's been in my plan to tinker with it and eventually get my custom hilt all set using their software. I've been so focused on either spending time with the wife or working on the stuff I have not, I haven't had the time to try their software yet.

I've never used CAD before, but I have read many specification documents for machined parts. So I know what to expect. Wish me luck!