~~ LED Sabers... the Past, Present... and Future...

[Novastar]

Thanks everyone... it's overwhelming it is!!! Inundated with data, hahah

Quickly: For the record, I am not "forgetting" anyone. I either do not know the answer to everything (go figure), or I'm hoping I will get the answer from people's responses. For the last time, this timeline is not going do start out 100% accurate and irrefutable... it will take time to get things straight.

Also... I want to be clear:

THIS IS NOT A "PERSONAL EXPERIENCE" TIMELINE. Again, I hate to sound like a nasty curmudgeon, but... again... I DO NOT CARE (for this particular thread) when you discovered plasma sabers, I don't care when you learned to solder, I don't care when you bought your first LED, and I don't care when you discovered TCSS...

NONE OF THAT has any bearing on how LED sabers grew, changed, or were innovated.

This also means that later on... I will be removing things from the initial post... such as when I "showed up" on the LED Blade Q&A's thread @ TF.N. Why? Well, just because I showed up didn't mean that I affected the LED saber community at all. Maybe Balance of POWER helped give a little "boost" to people learning about how practical and durable the sabers could be... but... I barely contributed anything initially.

If anything, my "entry into the saber world" would be a small footnote initially. Same with most anything else.

Also--even though I may have been helpful to Crystal Focus with Erv... I (again) had no bearing on the LED saber's innovation at that time. Crystal Focus would have moved forward perfectly fine without my "sound fonts", and to this day... think about it. You can enjoy CF without ANYONE's particular sound-stylings... You make your own! This isn't to say that the CD isn't HELPFUL... but it's not like it broke new ground with LED sabers in the way that Erv did with CF or Corbin did with his driver, or TCSS did when Tim started machining modular parts, etc. etc.

SO... hopefully you all get the idea of how this timeline could succeed by being both CONCISE *AND* useful on marking "historical" events... not just when *I* learned to solder, nor when Corbin joined a certain forum, nor when you wired up your first saber...

[erv]

agreed ! and promise, I won't feel bad whatever you remove from my timeline contribution
Most of the details I input actually had no direct impact on luxeon style sabers, however, I thought it would be nice to explain how I "reached the point" and where it all started for me

[Obi-Dar Ke-Gnomie]

Novastar, I think you're being too modest here. You, your sound fonts, your videos, and your helpfulness have made a major impact on the lightsaber community.

I won't ask for responses, but I think almost everyone here has benefited by your presence in some way.

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

Great post Erv...I'm wondering which revision of your CF did "iSaber" come in?

[psab keel]

Novastar,

It's great that you have been able to post a history of LED Lightsaber technology evolution here. There have been several threads like this in the past, specifically on DewbackWing: ASAP A Site About Props. It was there that a lot of this started, and Corbin himself began compiling a history of the constantly developing technology.

As resourceful as the threads there are, it rarely gets updated, but for a more concise dateline of the tech, you could try skimming through the New Lighting Strat thread there, started by PippMaster.

-as for my involvement in the hobby here are a few bullet points that might clarify:

-2001-2002- After dealing with Plasma I began experimenting with EL Blades

2003 - Being initially impressed with both, I began discovering the downfalls of both technologies and with the work of PippMaster to inspire me, I decided that LED tech was the way to go.

-Luxeon Tech was still emerging and I saved up some money and began experimenting (aka spending lots of money and time) creating new blade methods with polycarbonate -after having been introduced to it with Plasma and EL

-summer 2003 I created a dual tube design that utilized fishing line wrapped around an inner polycarbonate tube that was sealed inside a larger diameter polycarb tube to create a core effect, which was brilliantly perfected with Corbin's film shortly thereafter.

By this point, there were lots of people coming along with all kinds of innovations, which you have cited, so I won't reiterate.

It's fun to think back on how we got to where we are today! : )

[Novastar]

Absolutely!! I am in no way saying that people SHOULD NOT share these things, but... just to make sure I don't get a crazy flood of information about "I learned to solder on 1/1/1138" and "I learned about FX sabers and Ultra last Saturday" from people... yeah... I'm only looking for "big timeline markers".

You guys know. Just as you'd see a timeline covering 10 years of events... only big ones would show up, and even those would be SUPER under-explained, saying something like: "2001 -- Bob Smith invents the widget".

But certainly--I will actually mention "sideline" events... such as when Erv "showed up" in the community and Tim and Alex and Lori and Corbin, etc. But I will have to pick and choose as to which ones I think are important in the relevance to saber history from the perspective of an onlooker. As hard as that will be for me to do, since--I'm involved now, and have my own biases--no matter how impartial I try to be.

You guys get the idea. The timeline needs to remain "impersonal", despite all of us being very personable, generous, giving, a community, etc. It's just to mark events and keep them from being lost if too much time goes by...

I imagine if it were now 2012... the "who did what and when" of 2000, 2001 and so forth... would be FAR beyond lost at this point. Best to do it as soon as possible!

...however, I thought it would be nice to explain how I "reached the point" and where it all started for me

[erv]

Great post Erv...I'm wondering which revision of your CF did "iSaber" come in?

Version 2.5, premiered in video on youtube the 31th of may 2007, released somewhere in summer 2007 (my latest file update for this firmware is dated from august)

[Eandori]

I must admit, I was hoping to have been mentioned thus far by somebody. :P

I was the first person to implement some form of Clash flash. After talking with Erv' about the feature over email etc. I requested that he could make a special modification to the CF board and give me a digital output that I could amplify for Clash Flash. Erv' was into the idea and sold me a special modified CF 2.51 board which I used to make that very first Clash Flash video on my Proto1 saber. This idea ended up being a dedicated feature on future boards.

In my development of that saber, I fed back a number of detailed feedback responses, reported bugs with the board, and along with Novastar I suggested future features that Erv' could implement in his next board.

As for CF bugs I was helping Erv' catch, there were a few which involved the method used to copy files on/off the Flash board, power Cycle being required for LED changes, reccomended method of Vibration Motor connection, etc.

On my work with Novastar, I spent much time filling in his gaps with his self-taught electronics knowledge. (Which by the way, he was impressive on how much he understood with a lack of official training...) We had LONG phone discussions of Heat Flow, Power calculations, Battery usage and selection, Current flow basics, etc. Novastar sent over his pre-production sound fonts for my feedback, of which I gave him some. Not as much as I wanted to. I edited a few of his sound fonts and sent them back, basically I made his Pheonix font more of a flame sword, and took out the movie quotes and tried to make a few of his saber fonts more saber like, rather then theatrical. That was my preference of saber font, make it sound like a saber

As for my development in the saber community, I made several posts explaining how heat transfer really works to help with the heatsink design made/sold at TCSS. The result was the thick-copper heatsink you see now. I had many discussions about clash flash LED-mount points and helped explain the issue with having more then 1 LED emit light to go up the blade.

My best idea for how to get ignition/retraction ramping effect with a luxeon has not yet really gone public... But it's a doozy. I wanted to take the first crack at it before letting it out... but I just can't seem to find a way to prototype the parts cheaply.

I had a huge hand in bringing clarity to the Lightsaber community about the function of Hyperblades and the + and -'s they offer. Before my videos there was a lot of speculation, false facts, and assumptions about how they worked and how they compared. I think my comparison videos left little doubt or confusion about how they really stack up.

As of late... being a father of a new baby girl and Intel's Lead BIOS Engineer on the motherboard which will be the launch vehicle on Intel's next CPU launch... I've had little time for sabers. Truthfully, I've had no time for anything but family/work. But that's a short time thing. My baby girl is 1.5 years old now and this board will launch within 2009.

I'll come back later and list dates on when these things I listed above went down. Fun thread, thanks for Starting Novastar!

[cardcollector]

Absolutely!! The timeline needs to remain "impersonal", despite all of us being very personable, generous, giving, a community, etc. It's just to mark events and keep them from being lost if too much time goes by...

I imagine if it were now 2012... the "who did what and when" of 2000, 2001 and so forth... would be FAR beyond lost at this point. Best to do it as soon as possible!

Don't forget to include yourself...
"03-28-2009: Novastar begins compiling a History of Custom Sabers"

What do you think of including BOP in the timeline???
It definitely has sparked more intrest in LED sabers!

[Corbin_Das]

Eandori,
You've helped LED technology quite a bit. I think we should clarify that the clash on flash you're talking about developing utilized a separate LED to give the flash (even in a different color, which is cool), and not just increasing the brightness of the single LED, which my driver does. By using a separate LED, you really increased the look of it over what I had done with my driver's Clash and Lock function.

Loreen,

I know what you mean about "fame". I had a couple guys ask for my autograph at C4 and it felt weird. I also had some other guys (at a different con) not know who "Corbin" was and they informed me that Ultrasabers (who had made their hilts) originally invented Luxeon saber technology. I didn't argue. LOL


Corbin