Hi guys,
My first post here. I was looking for a general presentation topic, but I didn't saw any specific section to do that, so, it will be here, and I will take the opportunity to present my project at the same time ...
So, quite a few years ago (i'm actually not sure of the time now, must have been around 2001), I build a lightsaber. At that time, top of the range tech was EL. Top of the range sound was ... well, it was not really top of the range, and not that common ... So with a friend help, we hacked an old hasbro plastic toy to use the board as both a sound board and an EL driver ...
I will try to add some pictures, but it seems I'm not allowed to put links towards external URL ... I must be too newbie for that, I suppose. i will try to update this post later on ...
So, it's a big old babe : 1.2kg, 35cm long, very dear to my heart (come on, my own lightsaber, designed and build with my own hands ...
But, first, the techno is now quite obsolete, and sadly enough, something broke on the electronic side, and it's not working anymore either ...
So, all that to say that I'm quite interested in upgrading it to the best tech avail today ...
I'm still reading all I can to try to come to grip with that ... Until recently, I was thinking it would be a luxeon kind of upgrade ... and it was quite a bother. As my saber is more or less a thin neck design, with an emitter not very shallow, I had quite a hard time thinking how to fit everything in it, without having something too fragile ... And then, I discover those beautiful neopixel blades ... lovely !
I'm currently retroengineering my saber under solidworks, as the original plans are lost somewhere ...
I will try to post the update there as I progress, but I already have a few questions ... I try to find the answers before posting, I actually found quite a lot of answers already but those ones seems harder or I didn't manage to find the right keywords ...
Concerning neopixel blade itself : from what I read, one of the cons is the shadow area perpendicular to the strip with a 2 strips config : wouldn't a 3 strips config solve that once and for all ? I found a few mentions of this solution, but with no specific details ... I imagine it could be quite power consuming ... but quite brighter too ... so a lower brightness setting should be able to balance that, no ?
concerning power supply, it seems the 18650 is the typical choice ? As I have actually quite a lot of room inside my hilt, a 26650 would fit easily, that would seem convenient for neopixel blade. Actually, if really required, I think I could even manage to fit 2 of those in the saber ... Is it worth it, or will a single one be enough ?
Concerning the soundboard, I'm currently thinking a PRIZM which seems to be more or less the common high range, is that a good choice or am I missing another nice board here ?
Also, if you have any ideas on how to increase sound output level, I'm cery interested : the pommel has some vents for sound, but not that big, and I think I could need some boost here ... well, it's likely I'll start with a standard config, but if ever ...
Thanks a lot for any answer you may share ! Basically, I think I will take my time on this upgrade ... one of the difficulties, I think, will be that I will need to do a few hardware modifs on the saber (emitter re lathing to accept a 1" blade ... it used to be set up for a 20mm one) and sadly, I don't have an easy access to a lathe or a milling machine as I used to have ...
Also, as I'm based in France, and it's past dinner time : good evening !