Clash-Flash w/Crystal Focus WORKING!

[Novastar]

Remember everyone... Eandori is going for proof-of-concept here--not quite on "finished and all bugs are worked out, perfection is here"!

Personally, I'm glad he's at least DOING something about a new idea.

I *will* say that I still think having the flash LED/xenon/whatever setup aiming AWAY from the hilt sideways like a camera flash will be the most effective in the long run. Since the blade is already lit so brightly.

To help Edwin on his thought about wanting it to be more "movie-like" where the blades flash where collision occur... why not machine an emitter to hold the flash setup w/ optic reflector and have the flash aim in LINE with the blade... but not IN the blade... sort of a "cone" of flash aiming toward where the blade tip points, but an arc AROUND the emitter?

[erv]

about the control box, whatever : Size matter not...

his saber is a prototype before he makes the custom machined saber (there is text, you know, not only pics, this forum is not a comic strip). Sorry about that, just making an echo of Novastar, I am really scared when I discover how much time some people are taking to write nice and accurate explanations and how little time others will spend to read it (I have a problem with lazyness)

Eandoori, I'm so glad you're posting there ! I've been really enojying our conversation and exchange, and I'm happy this is ending into something concrete !
Rather than the trilux, I'll soon have a test to the tri-rebel solution, and I think I'll make a bunch of sabers with the flash outside, so that everyone is working and testing on something different !
Again : congrats !

Erv'

[Novastar]

Beautiful, Erv! I'm looking forward to seeing something more on the outside of the hilt, since I believe it will make for a brighter flash.

The only reason I know it will work was simply by messing around with some simple xenon flashers while next to a lit saber. It looks great!

Granted, those had pretty "giant" lenses/optics/reflectors... well, giant in the perspective that they would not fit in the hilt well... which is why I think housing it on the top of some kind of emitter would be good.

Since the emitter is SUPPOSED to (usually) have a large OD, and the choke point is supposed to be below it... it could work out better than one might imagine.

Although... I guess that means no rubber emitters for me in that kind of saber!!

[Eandori]

Thanks for the support Novastar, Erv',

Novastar, I'm trying to understand what you wrote here:

To help Edwin on his thought about wanting it to be more "movie-like" where the blades flash where collision occur... why not machine an emitter to hold the flash setup w/ optic reflector and have the flash aim in LINE with the blade... but not IN the blade... sort of a "cone" of flash aiming toward where the blade tip points, but an arc AROUND the emitter?

Are you describing a conical form of light that would travel up the outside of the saber? So when two sabers are touching, the light shines on the surface of the other saber?

If I totally missed it, do you have a picture describing what you were talking about?

I'm intrigued to see what you and Erv' are planning for flash emitters on the outside. I can definitely see the potential of that idea, I'm just not sure how to make it work. For now, I'll let you guys focus on that, and I'll keep working on the inner-blade based flash. At some point, I will either be really pleased with it, or I will just post my results and why it didn't work and move on.

Either way, that's part of the development process. Sometimes when something does not work, it's not a failure. You successfully discovered another way it won't work! As for right now, I have a lot of hope that inner blade flash could look really sweet

[Novastar]

They always told Edison that after 1000 tries he should give up.

A lot of good it did them trying to break HIS will!

Here's a photo that might help the design come to full fruition. It was supposed to be something I wanted for Ns5, but since THAT idea seems totally unreachable on my own... I've been sharing more and more ideas with Erv... might as well do so here as well!



Forgive me, I don't know how to make the image smaller for viewing purposes. Does anyone?

Anyhow, the wiring can be fashioned to run up a custom-machined emitter, into the bulb setup with some reflectors that are akin to a disposable camera. I know it is possible, the question is... does anyone feel like doing it.

I would--only I think I might kill myself with the high voltage transformer on a camera flash (which is entirely possible, btw). SO... MISE EN GARDE! Be careful people.

[Eandori]

Ok, I see what you were describing now. Yeah that would work and it would be very bright to the eyes. I wonder if it would just appear like a glowing blade attached to a flashing hilt though? As in, perhaps observers on the outside would end up wondering why your hands keep flashing?

You have this big bright laser sword-blade and it just seems to flow naturally that the big bright blade would be the part that flashes. That's my expectation anyways. Perhaps seeing it work in real life would really bring the impact of the effect out.

It would be pretty easy to test actually, I could in fact test that really easy. Instead of having luxeon flash LED's wired up on the inside of my saber, I could just hook up a few on the outside and solder them onto the wires I already have. I could hold them down temporarily with zip ties just for the quick test to see how it looks in practice.

I would need to buy more white Luxeon LED's though. The ones i have now are glued into my current optic.

Forgive me, I don't know how to make the image smaller for viewing purposes. Does anyone?

Microsoft paint (which comes on all windows PC's) can easily resize an image for you. Sometimes they bury the executable icon though. So here's how you can find it.
-Click start
-click RUN
-type in mspaint.exe
-now open the image you want to resize
-hold both CTRL+W to open the resizing option window (or click Image-->Stretch/Skew)
-Enter the new size of your image in a percent difference from the current image. For example if you enter 100% your image size will not change. If you enter 80% then your image will shrink until it's 80% of it's original size. If you enter 150% it will grow until it's 1.5 times as big as it started.

Cheers,

[LAN-ED-TUL]

i use a free program called PIXresizer. google the name youl find it.

[Novastar]

Sorry... I know how to actually resize an image--I meant resize it for viewing purposes (scale) and then allow others to click on it for "full" view. No matter.

Back to the ideas... Eandori, that would be a cool test! Let me know what you come up with--I'm trying to get some folks together to attempt something too, but with everything else I'm doing... may be a while.

I think the effect will be what you want--and it will CERTAINLY look good on film, as a camera flash looks pretty neat (as far as I've seen) when on video.

Only question would be--is it better to use LEDs or a xenon flash?

I say: Xenon Flash. uh... + optic solution.

Problem: High-Voltage transformer. But hey, if it's protected well, no reason why it can't be as safe as a disposable camera...

[Eandori]

Hey Novastar,

Got some video's made today just for you. I opened my saber up and removed my weak little poor mans optic module. With the optic removed from the saber you can directly see the white Luxeon LED's flash as the saber is hit. That should give you a good idea of what to expect with those same LED's mounted on the outside of the saber.

Note: Those two white luxeon LED's are only running around 350 mA right now. They can get MUCH brighter.
http://home.comcast.net/~eandori/Tri...tside_Hilt.wmv

In this next video, I wanted to try to get more of the light redirected. So I grabbed some clay, and some aluminum foil to make a very quick and cheap reflector surface. It actually worked pretty well and at least doubled the amount of light I'm getting up the blade. It's still far far below what I'm working towards though.
http://home.comcast.net/~eandori/Tri...oved_optic.wmv

In this final video, I removed the SD Flash memory card from the Crystal Focus board and set the value (LEDCurrent) equal to 1 (a value of 46 is 1 amp, 70 is 1.5 amps.) So the blade was very dim, but it's perfect for showing the potential of what Clash Flash with no flash-focus-lense can look like. This is the only setup where you can see the clash flash in the blade on video. I should definately note, to the naked eye this is closer to what it looks like in person. I'm not sure why the camera cannot capture it closer to real life.
http://home.comcast.net/~eandori/Tri..._dim_blade.wmv

I'll have to buy more parts for testing before I can go much further then this. The next step will be to try out some different luxeon flash LED's, a high power FET so I can run around 1 amp through both LED's, and some sort of lense to focus the white light. I can pretty much easily state those steps will make the white flash AT LEAST 10x brighter then it is now inside the blade.

[Novastar]

It does look REALLY promising for the desired effect you want in the blade... I would love to see that kind of thing on the OUTside though, hehehh.

I believe it would actually get you more closely what you'd be looking for, which is the "movie flash" where the light effect literally bursts all about the actors "fighting", covers the blade props, and yes indeed, does generally emanate right at the point where the blades cross.

Also... I'm still undecided on which would be better--xenon flash or LED... I mean... one thing is for sure... given a few more years of LED technology... it *WILL* be better than a xenon flash.