Revised Saber "Conflict"

[livebyhonor]

about 3 years ago I posted my idea for a Saber I am calling "Conflict". Well it got put on hold as I went from an iffy job, to no job or money bit. Well that time is behind me and having a solid job now (with machinery to play with) I have been making a few custom saber bodies. I will post pics of them when they are complete, for now; back to Conflict.

Conflict Is a saber that changes color based on mood essentially.  Thanks to Forcejunkie530 and his naming my changing apparatus idea to "Temper Grip", I can now do this. When you are calm you tend to hold your saber gently (at this point your a Jedi). If you get frustrated (in Conflict) the blade is a mixed color. When angry you grip the heck out of it and now you basically sith.

I devised a method using a fader circuit and micro switches to operate a (royal blue, red, white) die to run the "blue" when your calm. and as you grip tighter more resistance is added and slowly shuts off leaving only "Red"

(Jedi = Blue)      squeeze     (Conflicted = purple)    Squeeze more    (Sith = Red)


I have an idea or 2 that im adding to the idea that I could use some opinion on, Mainly the under glow. I have a question as to if a soundboard can push 3 triple dies. 1 for the blade and 2 for the front and rear under glow. The idea is each plate you see has a 1mm gap between them (and with holes drilled and hidden beneath other plates) provides an "under glow" look that matches the Temper Grip settings. So if anyone has an idea if any board can handle powering 3 dies (triple cree x3), please let m know.
(pic Below)



I will let you go with that for now and will post more as I make more progress with this saber (which will be very soon)

[livebyhonor]

Well the making of this is actually quite a challenge and my 4th attempt on making the front floating fins failed again. Working with aluminum this thin with bigger machines tends to be a bit rough on parts. But I slightly revised my build process to fix may of my issues, However here is a few pics from one of my better attempts.



As for the revised idea, I'm going to make this with something like Goodmans G-core sort of idea. Also lost my wallet so I cant order parts to complete this anyway until new cards show up.

[Master Finariel]

This is a very cool idea, as well as a very cool looking saber. I look forward to seeing how this turns out  :)

[Sandpeople are people too]

I like the layers of it.  The switch idea is pretty interesting too.

[Darkjedi]

You better lock that away at work ;) They gonna put a broom handle in it and break some stuff. :))

  This is a great concept. Can't wait to see the finished product. Looking good so far.


MTFBWY

[livebyhonor]

Well now that the front body assembly is more or less built I figured id post some pics. I decided to make it so the dual 18650 battery holder doubled as a front and rear heat sink holder for the "underglow" effect, and so far its working well. Though I may open the side holes to the full inner diameter of the body section so more light escapes.

When you look at these pics of it lit keep in mind the outer armor plate is "clear" siliconed to the primary plate. and he primary is just floating so I could determine what might work best

As you can see the light dont show to well on the outer layer due to the silicone.

Also the bright point beneath it is the recharge port point without the port to block the light. The Blade area lights up slightly because the front heatsink is hollowed out for the front LED wires to remain fully hidden later on.



From top to bottom L to R
Primary body (unfinished surface) - Blade holder assembly, front glow heatsink, Battery holder (unfinished surface, Also where the "Temper Grip" will be housed) - Primary front assembly (houses 2 RB,R,W LED assemblies. main switch. aux switch, recharge port)



So for now thats it. I have been slightly preoccupied with a friends birthday saber "Bloom". This is a early pic of it. it now has a brass tip, buffed surface. real pink crystal and black leather center trim.


And since I get distracted easy, here is the start of "Razor Back". sort of a curved version of a Starkiller.


And my "Photon Sword" from Sword Art Online - GGO chapters



there is honestly 2 more started/almost finished in works to. not to mention the 3 or 4 more buried in my head. Believe it or not the "Temper grip" on this saber - Conflict; is actually the test run for my next saber idea "Over Drive"

[jedirobe]

Awsome work. Love them all!

[livebyhonor]

Well after doing a few side plating "under glow" tests I was slightly unimpressed and went back to the other 2 sabers I had almost done that i finally got anodized. With that I will be posting pics of my other 2 sabers soon. The entire time I was running solutions in my head on how I can light the plates up more, and a solution appeared in a youtube video. Its called "sideglow cable" (think TRON light lines).

We all know how fiber optics work, light in 1 end = light out the other. With side glow - light in = outward glow. A single 5mm LED will light up a foot of this stuff easy from what i have seen in vids so I'd think a LED of our quality will be insane. (side note this cable also opens the door for my dual saber idea I have had in mind for almost a year, but didn't know how id manage it) Its also very inexpensive and comes in different thicknesses (from 1.5mm  and up). in a few days I will place an order for some simply because my bank account is a tad low ATM.

I just wanted to keep you informed of how this is going and if you didn't know about Sideglow cable to give that a look. Who know. perhaps when they make a 3/4 inch version we can slip it into our blades and Super evenly light our sabers. Ill let you know more in a week or so when I have tested this stuff out on "Conflict"

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

Cool concept for a Light Side/Dark Side alignment 'mood changing' saber - kudos!

I have an old lightwhip using the kit that TCSS used to offer which I believe is also Sideglow fiber optic cable [can't recall for certain] and it does light up brightly with a P4 white but it helps to have the narrowest possible optic to get as much light in as possible...I used the old 5 * degree collimators that were available at the time rather than the 10 * that were then standard for lighting 1" saber blades and the tighter focus did help a bit but nowadays with the newer LEDs I've seen there are special "fiber coupling" optics so you might want to look for those rather than the kind we usually use for sabers to help make the "underglow" even brighter.

Nice work in progress...I look forward to seeing more as you bring it to fruition.

[Iggy]

The lightwhips I made used sideglow fiber optics. Works pretty well, but for a blade we have a great economical option with the polycarbonate now. With that size of fiber it would be bendy, thick, heavy, and not very duel worthy, IMO.

Small sideglow would be pretty cool in this saber though, lit with strong 5mm would work as well since it is all over the saber.

[Onli-Won Kanomi]

You are right about the 5mm and thinner cable but when he said "an LED of our quality will be insane" I took that to mean he wishes/intends to use a high-power LED like our main blade LEDs to light up sideglow cable? not a 5mm LED hence the suggestion he look into fiber coupling optics. Maybe he'll find that a high power LED is overkill or inefficient for that application but if he wants to 'experiment' that way then Good Luck and MTFBW him eh?

[Harp]

So beautiful Works!

[livebyhonor]

You are right about the 5mm and thinner cable but when he said "an LED of our quality will be insane" I took that to mean he wishes/intends to use a high-power LED like our main blade LEDs to light up sideglow cable? not a 5mm LED hence the suggestion he look into fiber coupling optics. Maybe he'll find that a high power LED is overkill or inefficient for that application but if he wants to 'experiment' that way then Good Luck and MTFBW him eh?

Thats exactly what I meant. that im planning on using a RB, R, W die to illuminate the the (planned 1.5mm sideglow) strips. I do realize this will very likely be way to much but it might give me the effect im looking for. I will be placing my order for some of this very thin stuff in a few days and when it comes in I plan on being ready to test it.
Side note my Vader Inspired saber is wired and tested, but I have a little wire fine tuning to do before I display that one.

[livebyhonor]

well I got my 1.5mm sideglow cable in and its very bright if positioned correctly, however lighting 1 end up red and the other blue don't mix it as was as i was hoping. it gives me a red end and a blue end and the shift in the middle. After that failed attempt i tried making a reflective cone and having both ends in the center so it gets an even red and blue mix. That worked way better so I partially ran it through the saber and some of the curves.

That was nothing but bad as for what i wanted. Being that Red and Blue light are different wavelengths, depending if the cable is bent one direction or the other that curve only gets 1 color. so the result was bred. here, blue there, red here, blue there and so on. sure that may look cool for some saber idea, but not this one. I have no doubt if I was doing a single color it would look great but the between purple mix point, I'm not so sure.

So right now i think I'm back to just using the glow of the dies to do as they want and make a more natural mix and leave the 1.5mm gap between the armor plates. On another note I'm getting a few comments about me making these during slow hours of work so with that I'm looking to get a mill/lathe combo here for the house in a few weeks time. So my off hours can be fully productive to any of my saber projects. That said I may soon be able to make these on a fairly regular basis instead of looking for slow moments when nobody is really watching.

I will keep you all apprised.