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Author Topic: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber  (Read 4461 times)

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Offline jbkuma

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Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« on: January 15, 2017, 04:52:53 PM »
Wejack is a hilt designed for ease of prototyping, allowing easy access and change out of components. The hilt was assembled from scraps and I originally had no intention of ever sharing it beyond it possibly in posts about components I’m working. After giving it a spin on the drill with some sandpaper, it started to look too good for me to just leave alone. I added some brass screws out of convenience and liked the way it looked so I kept that theme in fitting the rest of the build out. As it started taking shape I started thinking of a name and eventually settled on Wejack, Algonquian for the animal known in North America as a fisher and a tribute to our recently depart princess, Carrie Fisher.  It's a bit rough around the edges, but it does the job and looks nice enough for a bit of fun.
All of the wiring in the hilt is simple to quickly disconnect (I’ve already had a lot of practice with this). With an in hilt multi-pin adapter a number of accessories can be inserted via the emitter. Rather than using a charge port and kill key, the accessories and blades act as an activation key, bridging the system and battery ground lines. To kill power to the hilt the inserted accessory can be pulled out enough to break contact. My current development work is with pixel blades, the pixel blade can also be swapped out for a blade featuring an in-blade, WS2811 driven Tri-Cree star LED. If desired, the adapter can be easily removed and replaced with a standard 1″ LED housing. A charging and programming adapter can be inserted for it’s nominal functions, as well as featuring a yellow pilot LED indicating the hilt is powered up and a WS2811 driven LED which mirrors the blade colors. The standard decorative blade plug features a 7-pixel “jewel”, while a prototype on/off blade plug features a 16mm latching switch to allow the hilt to be turned on and off without removing the plug.  One of the main purposes of building this hilt was developing the blade and hilt inserts that make all of this possible.

The hilt is currently powered by the Obi_1's DIYino with a modified version of LSOS v1.4 I’ve cleverly named LSOS v1.4jb. Since the hilt wiring is modular, the DIYino can be switched out for several other electronics packages if desired. The 20mm speaker from TCSS is surprisingly loud and clear and definitely deserves consideration even when space isn’t an issue.
Since the hilt is designed to be modular, the switches needed to be out of the way to allow components to be swapped out. With that in mind I decided to put them in the emitter section. With a little creative cutting and wiring I was able to get the switches in the position I wanted with far less difficulty than I thought I would. The switches caps are worked from brass rivets with the use of a hacksaw, drill, and sand paper. Rather than use a Covertec wheel or D-ring, I decided to use a knurled brass nut for two reasons: the knurled nut is easy to loosen and grant access to the internals, and while a Covertec wheel is too large to fit in a standard CB mic clip, the nut fits very comfortably and securely.

Hilt Materials: Aluminum tubing, brass button screws, brass thumb screw, brass rivets, brass knurled nut, various set screws, 1″ PEX chassis
Hilt Electronics: DIYino w/LSOS 1.4jb, 3500mah 3.7v 18650, 20mm speaker, tactile switches, wiring of various gauge and color
Programming plug: 5.1mm charge port, TRSS 3.5mm audio jack, yellow LED, WS2811 driver & RGB LED, DynaOhm
Pixel Blade: TCSS 1″ thin wall blade & rounded tip, clear gift wrap, packing foam, 2x 120 pixel WS2812 strips
LED Blade: TCSS 1″ thin wall blade & rounded tip, clear gift wrap, 1″ aluminum, .875″ heatsink, RGB Tri-Cree LED, WS2811 driver, TIP42C, resistors
On/Off Blade Plug: 1″ aluminum tubing, .875″ clear PVC, 9 pixel WS2812 strip, 16mm latching switch
Decorative Plug: 1″ aluminum tubing, 7 pixel NeoPixel “Jewel”, hardware store decoration

More photos and full walk-through video coming soon!
« Last Edit: January 15, 2017, 05:35:14 PM by jbkuma »

Offline Kolgrima

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #1 on: January 15, 2017, 08:31:43 PM »
Looks awesome, and functional, I love seeing Aluminum tubing sabers. Good work!

Offline jbkuma

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2017, 08:06:01 AM »
Thanks :) It's main purpose is definitely to be useful rather than pretty, so it is pretty simple by design.  Once I decided to dress it up a bit with the brass switches, it became a fun exercise that will hopefully benefit a future build.  I really like it as a simple and elegant design.

The various plugs are all really just prototypes, but they are pretty decent demonstrations of what can be done.  This is currently outfitted with an 8-pin adapter, which is totally sufficient for this fit out, but I'll probably move to using 9-pin adapters moving forward since they strike the balance of "readily available" and "as many pins as possible"  I put together some 10-pin adapters, but I can't find a source for those outside of China.

Offline Thexter

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #3 on: January 16, 2017, 10:36:39 AM »
Ingenious! I like the idea of being able to reprogram through the blade plug.

Offline jbkuma

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #4 on: January 16, 2017, 07:53:28 PM »
Ingenious! I like the idea of being able to reprogram through the blade plug.

Thanks! One of the reasons I went with four pin audio jack was for versatility (also, I already have a bunch). I can wire it either to the TX/Rx/RST or USB (using a solder mini USB left inserted in the board). If I put in a Plector board I can wire it to the RICE. I have tiny 4pin connectors that seem to work really well as the disconnects.

Offline jbkuma

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #5 on: January 17, 2017, 08:07:40 PM »
Just finished assembling my prototype pixel-Cree insert.  It's simply inserted to the back end of a normal blade.  It's too long for actual use, but it's a good proof of concept.


Tri-Cree ignition & blaster


Pixel Blade ignition
« Last Edit: January 17, 2017, 08:35:04 PM by jbkuma »

Offline SirRawThunderMan

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #6 on: January 18, 2017, 06:25:30 AM »
Dude! I have to say, I just love the look of the saber. Simple construction and really elegant. Top notch work.
Better late than never.

Offline jbkuma

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #7 on: January 20, 2017, 01:12:17 PM »
By popular demand, here's a video of some of the LSOS tweaks I've made.
- Ignition timing matches the Soundfont.h setting, fades between 0 and MAX_BRIGHTNESS (important for single pixel mode), and flickers during ignition (between 65% and 115% of MAX_BRIGHTNESS, with 1/115 chance of 0 brightness)
- blaster block timing reduced for more quick flash style animations
- shimmering on lockup randomly switches RGB values (may change this to randomly switch between blade, flash, and blaster colors)
- while in lockuponclash mode, swings will deactivate lockup effect. Subsequent clashes will reactivate.
The same flicker effect from the ramp function also drives the flicker during hum rather than sound.  It's the flicker I've been using since before LSOS and I really like it so it's really just a personal preference, not an enhancement.


Offline Thexter

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #8 on: January 20, 2017, 02:32:15 PM »
I like the lockuponclash mode.

Offline Obi_1

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2017, 03:09:48 AM »
Wow! Why haven't I seen it before? The idea of doing the programming over an audio jack is certainly novel, I'm going to give it a try myself as well. I also like very much the various inserts, especially the one for programming. Being able to remove/re-attach the blade without tearing wires is a goal I have been pursuing for a long time now, and yours seem to be the best idea I've seen so far.
Such an audio jack could be used also for a pure neopixel blade, since it needs only 3 pins.

The LSOS tweaks you demonstrated I definitely want in the next release. Some guys already started asking if a lock-up break on swing could be implemented and seeing how realistic it looks like in action this would be a good addition. So either end lock-up by press of the button or by sensing a swing.
The rapid blaster blocks come also closer to the movie scenes than in LSOS 1.4, probably I set the time limiter which keeps subsequent blocks apart too high and a single burst does look better than the fade I programmed.

Offline jbkuma

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Re: Wejack - A prototyping & development lightsaber
« Reply #10 on: January 25, 2017, 06:56:16 AM »
Wow! Why haven't I seen it before? The idea of doing the programming over an audio jack is certainly novel, I'm going to give it a try myself as well. I also like very much the various inserts, especially the one for programming. Being able to remove/re-attach the blade without tearing wires is a goal I have been pursuing for a long time now, and yours seem to be the best idea I've seen so far.
Such an audio jack could be used also for a pure neopixel blade, since it needs only 3 pins.

The LSOS tweaks you demonstrated I definitely want in the next release. Some guys already started asking if a lock-up break on swing could be implemented and seeing how realistic it looks like in action this would be a good addition. So either end lock-up by press of the button or by sensing a swing.
The rapid blaster blocks come also closer to the movie scenes than in LSOS 1.4, probably I set the time limiter which keeps subsequent blocks apart too high and a single burst does look better than the fade I programmed.
Thanks :D In my Pathfinder hilt (which I'll eventually post about..) I actually pull out the core and plug it into an aviation plug with an FTDI and auxiliary button.  This is much easier, though less grand to demonstrate.  The 8 pins I'm using are: battery +, battery -, hilt -, NP-, NP+, NP Din, USB+, USB D+, USB D- 

The amber LED (not pictured) goes from the hilt- to bat+ with a 100ohm resistor.

I may revamp this to a 9-pin adapter rather than the current 8-pin.  I have a couple 9-pin kits up for sale in the trade federation for about what it cost me to put together String/Pixel Blade 9-pin Connector Kits

It's a bit more involved to switch it out for a pure string blade, but there's not much way around that.  I have two harnesses with hilt inserts.  I don't actually have a string blade constructed yet, and to be honest it's not really a priority.  I'm very happy with my pixel blade.
« Last Edit: January 25, 2017, 07:00:54 AM by jbkuma »

 

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