Hybrid Blade Experiment

**Vardarac** · 08-26-2008, 01:14 AM

A few weeks ago, a little idea popped into my head. The first style of building a lightsaber that I encountered was Makototsai's (using a hand-soldered string of small high-brightness LEDs to illuminate the blade). It wasn't until more recently that I'd heard of and gotten a good understanding of the flashlight-style setup (what most of you folks use). The little idea I had was to use a string of white LEDs in the center of my blade and a single colored high-power LED in the hilt, hopefully producing a blade that had a white core with a colored aura.

I ordered up a bunch of white LEDs, a royal blue Luxeon III, and several parts from Tim's store and Lumiled's distributor. I then built a run-of-the-mill blade with some polycarbonate, a standard blade tip, and some gift wrap (which turned out to be several inches too short to fit the blade properly). There was no mirror in the tip. I put it all together: a string of 60 white LEDs encased in polycarbonate ran straight up through the blade; the Luxeon was at the bottom. I then hooked up my batteries. The results from this first run were less than outstanding. For starters, my blade didn't have a properly diffused inner tube, meaning I could still see the individual white LEDs. When the royal blue was turned on, it overpowered the white LEDs for the first part of the length, then faded almost entirely after about a quarter of the blade's length, then brightened again toward the blade tip.

I never got any sort of a white coring effect, and this of course has a lot to do with the fact that I'd never diffused the white string in the first place. I've also been thinking that I should place a mirror of sorts at the bottom of my LED string to keep the blue light from interfering with the way the inner tube lights up. In any case, I've still got a lot of experimenting to do before I get anything meaningful out of all this, but I just wanted to put it out there and see if you guys might have any thoughts on whether the effect I want is possible with this basic setup and, if so, how I might be able to make it work.

I've been considering EL as a possible white core as well.

**Hasid Lafre** · 08-26-2008, 01:20 AM

thought of and not going to work.

**Vardarac** · 08-26-2008, 01:33 AM

Originally Posted by Hasid Lafre

thought of and not going to work.

Really? Well, it sucks to be me.

**Klaatu** · 08-26-2008, 01:34 AM

Originally Posted by Hasid Lafre

thought of and not going to work.

that was constructive..............

**Hasid Lafre** · 08-26-2008, 02:20 AM

The discussion has been discussed several time and it won't work.

Want constructive? try searching.

X · 08-26-2008, 10:21 AM

Hey Vardarac I like the idea. I don't want to hijack your thread but I had an idea while reading it. You could try and put the white LEDs in a piece of PEX tubing if they come small enough. Heres the thread ArkaiHalon did about using it as a blade/diffuser combo, you could use it to difuse the light if the smaller LEDs, kind of like a dual core blade. Just a thought.

http://forums.thecustomsabershop.com...ead.php?t=3102

**psab keel** · 08-26-2008, 10:39 AM

I wonder if the light from the Luxeon would be partially blocked by the lead on the LED string. You know what you might want to try is having a dual tube system with a 3/4 inch thin wall blade is sanded or painted and secured inside a 1 inch blade. Then you could use a white luxeon and create a ring of standard LED's around it to try and get the white core.

Also you could use a white luxeon with that same dual tube system and paint the outside tube to get your color. Granted you wouldn't be able to duel with it because the paint would scratch, but it might give you a cool effect.

Experimenting is a great thing and if it weren't for it, we wouldn't be here coming up with the advanced things that we do.

Good luck with your tests, and keep us updated with your results and ideas.

Psab

**Zero Unit** · 08-26-2008, 09:22 PM

The only way to remotely get a white core is to take an extremely bright white LED and filter it with a light version of the color you want, that way it is almost completely washed out but the very edges are tinted the filter's color. This is not very convincing though. Any other method won't work because all of the light is diffused all around the tube.

**gundamaniac** · 08-27-2008, 12:20 AM

This is probably a dumb idea, but what about taking a Lee filter or something and cutting a ring out of it? So there's a spot of white light in the center and a ring of color around it?...I doubt it would actually give you the coring effect but it could be something to try, and it's not too difficult to do (just cut a hole in a Lee filter!)