Converting My Old Viper Defender to LED

[MaverickJsmith]

LED's have an anode (positive) and a cathode (negative). The cathode is denoted by the shorter stem when you buy them. You may indeed have them switched, but I don't think it would cause something so bizare. How is it wired up? Can you give us a diagram.

Maverick

[Novastar]

Alright...I've almost got everything hooked up, but have hit a bit of a snag with this damned accent LED. It stays on when I have the saber switched off...only to switch off when I turn the saber on! It should be the other way around, coming on with everything else. Anyone ever encounter a similar issue?

Hi Fe'Ral, great photo, btw--I wouldn't want to mess with you... hehheh Seriously though, looks like you're doing a great job here.

Hmm... as to the accent LED... I'm not sure how you have it wired up, but people might be correct that you might have the wiring mixed up. You cannot hurt the LED (being that it's a diode) if you reverse the polarity on it... so trying it in reverse might help.

I had a similar issue as well on a direct-drive saber I made... where I thought I was CERTAIN I had the two accent LEDs correct. But... they weren't for whatever reason. Now they are though...

[eastern57]

Fel, Do you have them connected to both of the LED pads? or one to the LED+ and the - somewhere else? If you have it wired to the same pads as the main LED (parallel), then it should, obviously, mirror it.

I have a 5mm wired to a USB and I don't have this problem. The resistor should go on the positive end... if you cut the legs off already, look at the inside, there's a larger triangular prong and a smaller straight prong - the positive (anode) is the smaller one.

As for anode/cathode, a diode only allows current in one direction - there's some bi-polar LEDs, but they're usually multi-colored. If the light goes on, then it's running correctly.

Can you make an MSpaint diagram of how you have it wired?

[Fe'Ral]

Alrighty,

After dozens grueling hours of frustration, and stupid mistakes that have caused me to repurchase a new lense, lense holder, and speaker, I've decided to abort plans of having an accent LED, and will probably be attaching a tiny acrylic crystal I've made in its place (there's a good amount of light from the Lux III coming from inside the hilt to have a kind of cool effect). Thanks for all of the advice. It helped a lot, and I'm definitely planning on using the accent LED for my next saber project.

With that said...I'm finished, and will be posting pictures (and possibly video if I can get my camera to work) tomorrow.

[Fe'Ral]

I meant to get these out the other day...things got crazy.

Anyhow...here are a few pictures. The video wasn't working right for some reason...might try sometime later. The tiny crystal I put in the hole where the LED used to be worked better than expected. The Ultrasound 1.1 sounds wicked awesome, and the flicker effect rocks.

, ,


Here are a couple of poorly lit, goofy posing pics as a bonus...

[Malaki Skywalker]

Whoa, that saber turned out freaking awesome! And the little crystal is a pretty cool idea. Along with the Ultra sound, that saber shines!

[MaverickJsmith]

Very nice indeed.

Maverick

[Fe'Ral]

Whoa, that saber turned out freaking awesome! And the little crystal is a pretty cool idea. Along with the Ultra sound, that saber shines!

Thanks for selling that sound board to me btw.

[Malaki Skywalker]

Thanks for selling that sound board to me btw.

No problem

[Fe'Ral]

It's been a couple of days since I've finished building, and I've encountered a bit of a problem.

The saber "woosh" sound infinitely loops, and/or it sounds kinda drained with the sound cutting out when moving. I took it apart, and found that it might have something to do with the Luxeon connection...maybe...but I have no idea why. When I disconnect the LED it returns to normal. Anyone ever had this problem?