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Author Topic: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades  (Read 9232 times)

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Offline Major_Tom

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Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« on: February 06, 2018, 11:48:44 AM »
Hello, I have looked though the forum and while I have found a list of LED brightness, it seems that the list represents naked dies and not necessarily their performance with optics and blades. There is also no listing for White leds nor the result of differing color combos.

A bit of background: For christmas (november actually, what is 'patience'?), I got my girlfriend a SF Crystal Ares with Sabercore 3.0 and a Mint Green blade. The blade itself is beautiful, and I love the subtle pulse/FoC that the Sabercore produces with PWM. The motion detection, however, has promted me to go for Prizm v5.1 for my own pair of sabers, which are in the works. However, given that I am looking now at more than just SF selection, I find my choices dizzying and disorienting. Given that I have a good impression of the SF quad crees, I was just gonna get those again. I have heard that the brightness increase is marginal and they create much more heat, which still implies that they are somewhat brighter. Heat on an energy weapon is hardly immersion breaking. Nonetheless, dueling sabers with decent sound aren't cheap and I would like to get the best and brightest for my sabers, so I will let you guys know what I'm looking for, and I welcome any feedback.

The Project: So the pair will consist of a SF Bane Mk2 for the main hand, and an ASP of my design in the off hand, both running Prizm v5.1. For blade colors I was hoping for a Cyan thats smack in the middle of being blue and being green. For the ASP I wanted a nice Warm White, as opposed to the ever popular frost white. I was hoping for FoC, but I really don't want to sacrifice a whole die that will only flash intermittently. For both of these brightness is a priority, and RGB/RGBW doesn't interest me. Quick connects are as flexible as I need to be (though SF customer service says they are incompatible with the Bane Mk2, will see with my install guy).

Any input you guys had would be appreciated!

Offline madcow

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #1 on: February 06, 2018, 12:53:40 PM »
Thanks for taking time to do some research before posting!

In my opinion Tri-Cree and optics are the optimum for a single cell saber (one lithium Ion 3.6v battery).

For what you are describing, I would go for a R/G/Rb, you get a variety of beautiful bright shades, AND a dramatic FoC.
 


Offline Major_Tom

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #2 on: February 06, 2018, 01:30:53 PM »
Thanks for taking time to do some research before posting!

In my opinion Tri-Cree and optics are the optimum for a single cell saber (one lithium Ion 3.6v battery).

For what you are describing, I would go for a R/G/Rb, you get a variety of beautiful bright shades, AND a dramatic FoC.

Thanks for the feedback! What would you recommend for the white blade? I was thinking WWWAmb or WWAmb would give a nice warm white, but I havent found any examples.

Also, can I ask what drives your preferences of Tri-Cree to QuadCree? I have read a few people prefer the Tri-Crees but I can't seem to nail down a reason that 3 dies would be brighter than 4


Edit: Found in another thread, his remark regarding Rb  may apply to your suggestion
Yep, there'd be pros and cons.

As I see it, pros of a quad over a tri would be:

1) For the RGRbW set up you mention, a brighter, more dramatic Flash on Clash/Lockup from the aditional white (I think it'd also be possible to use an XP-L for the white, which is brighter but a bit more current hungry).
2) Slightly brighter for a single colour saber e.g. GGGW, BBBW, etc
3) Option of RGRbRb, as the Rb is a bit dimmer to the eye in the mix, having two could allow for being a bit brighter across the range of colours that mix Rb with another, like a purple mixing RbRb and R.

...and pros of a tri over a quad:

1) Less power consumption
2) On the tri PCBs, the LEDs are a bit closer together (and I think narrower focus optics are widely available, but might be wrong on this), so arguably get more brightness per LED. Most folks who've done side by side comparisons seem to find that the extra die doesn't make for an especially noticeable difference in brightness.
3) Simpler install and straightforwardly compatible with a wider range of boards and batteries.
« Last Edit: February 06, 2018, 01:52:34 PM by Major_Tom »

Offline madcow

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #3 on: February 08, 2018, 03:37:53 PM »
You can mix various shades of white with RGB. With just white emitters, you could mix warm and cool whites and still use the colour mixing tech in the Plecter boards to get slightly different shades. Your flash on clash will be unimpressive though.

The tri-cree is optimum for single cell sabers IMHO because the power required to drive the LEDS can mean that a quad cree is not fully driven. But the bigger reason is that the quad cree is too big to fit most optic module setups.

Any quad LED with a single emitter cluster will suffer from inferior optics. I've yet to see a single cluster setup that delivers an even looking blade.
 


Offline Major_Tom

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #4 on: February 08, 2018, 07:14:51 PM »
You can mix various shades of white with RGB. With just white emitters, you could mix warm and cool whites and still use the colour mixing tech in the Plecter boards to get slightly different shades. Your flash on clash will be unimpressive though.

The tri-cree is optimum for single cell sabers IMHO because the power required to drive the LEDS can mean that a quad cree is not fully driven. But the bigger reason is that the quad cree is too big to fit most optic module setups.

Any quad LED with a single emitter cluster will suffer from inferior optics. I've yet to see a single cluster setup that delivers an even looking blade.

Thanks Madcow! I wanted to avoid RGB for brightness sake. I'm really hesitant to sacrifice brightness for FoC, I was thinking of going with a flicker on clash  so I can run all the dies at max power and just dim them for a flicker.

For anyone reading this for research purposes, I also got some good answers over here Quad v. Tri cree LED (1/1) - Saber Forge - Saber Forge Forum

Offline K-2SO

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #5 on: February 08, 2018, 07:45:10 PM »
Any Tri-cree setup that is properly set up will be bright enough, just using two of the three dice. Most people operate under the mistaken impression that having 3 die makes a saber 3 times as bright as one die, and that isn’t the case. The “brightness” you may perceive is NOT linear.



I find your arguments vague and unconvincing.

Quiet! *Slap* And there’s a fresh one if you mouth off again.

Offline Major_Tom

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #6 on: February 09, 2018, 07:49:01 AM »
Any Tri-cree setup that is properly set up will be bright enough, just using two of the three dice. Most people operate under the mistaken impression that having 3 die makes a saber 3 times as bright as one die, and that isn’t the case. The “brightness” you may perceive is NOT linear.

You're right, I do operate under that impression. If the difference in brightness is insignificant, than illuminating the third die on clash would hardly have an appreciable effect. If I can assume that this is not the case, then I can also assume using the third one continuously would also have an appreciable increase in baseline blade brightness.

I'm sorry but your statement flies in the face of expectation a bit to much for me to accept at face value. In other words "I find your arguments vague and unconvincing"  :wink:

I don't mean to come off as abrasive, but I do desire further explanation

Offline K-2SO

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #7 on: February 09, 2018, 10:43:05 AM »
Any Tri-cree setup that is properly set up will be bright enough, just using two of the three dice. Most people operate under the mistaken impression that having 3 die makes a saber 3 times as bright as one die, and that isn’t the case. The “brightness” you may perceive is NOT linear.

You're right, I do operate under that impression. If the difference in brightness is insignificant, than illuminating the third die on clash would hardly have an appreciable effect. If I can assume that this is not the case, then I can also assume using the third one continuously would also have an appreciable increase in baseline blade brightness.

I'm sorry but your statement flies in the face of expectation a bit to much for me to accept at face value. In other words "I find your arguments vague and unconvincing"  :wink:

I don't mean to come off as abrasive, but I do desire further explanation

Suit yourself. You specified you wanted several things including a specific color (cyan) and a white FoC. As far as the other one, you wanted a warm white. I guess a lot of experimentation with various LEDs are in your future.



I find your arguments vague and unconvincing.

Quiet! *Slap* And there’s a fresh one if you mouth off again.

Offline Darkjedi

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #8 on: February 10, 2018, 05:31:40 AM »
Going that route of looking for LEDs is not an easy task. There so much info out there that your head will spin off. If you work in an industry with
LEDs you can get some background on what is "bright ".

 A Bunch of guys out there and here on this forum have gone out there to higher levels to create some "crazy" bright sabers, with just single dies.

There are lots of posts on it here and other forums (search button)

As for white if going for 5K+ a single die will blow your mind. They have in the automotive industries the LEDs they used headlights and DRL (daytime Running lights) you could get them in single dies if you make your own . You can cheaply get these from "crashed cars" :grin:junkyard,Evilbay or just find them after an accident  :evil: They are small and bright. You need to find their specs to not over drive them. They have some interesting drive circuits too.

Keep posting your research. It's alway fun to read new ideas.

Offline Major_Tom

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #9 on: February 12, 2018, 12:53:30 PM »
Going that route of looking for LEDs is not an easy task. There so much info out there that your head will spin off. If you work in an industry with
LEDs you can get some background on what is "bright ".

 A Bunch of guys out there and here on this forum have gone out there to higher levels to create some "crazy" bright sabers, with just single dies.

There are lots of posts on it here and other forums (search button)

As for white if going for 5K+ a single die will blow your mind. They have in the automotive industries the LEDs they used headlights and DRL (daytime Running lights) you could get them in single dies if you make your own . You can cheaply get these from "crashed cars" :grin:junkyard,Evilbay or just find them after an accident  :evil: They are small and bright. You need to find their specs to not over drive them. They have some interesting drive circuits too.

Keep posting your research. It's alway fun to read new ideas.


Whuuuut... That's amazing. Do you have any more info on theses DRL or such, or any links to info i could read? Will talk to my install guy to see what he thinks. What kind of optics would I use for that?

Offline Major_Tom

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #10 on: February 13, 2018, 05:00:15 PM »
Hi guys, quick update.

So as things stand I am looking for the white/gold saber to use either a 1-up XP-L, a 3-up XP-L, or a custom 3-up XP-L/XP-L/XP-E2(pc amber).

On other threads people raised questions of optic compatibility between the XP-L and XP-E2. The LEDSupply website however states that the two use 'Carclo' optics, and I can see no model differentiation on the Carclo optics they sell. Anyone have any experience with these?

As for the Cyan saber, some say that amp for amp the rebel cyan are brighter and have a truer hue, whereas others state that Crees can be driven harder for a brighter result, but a Blu/Green mix at full power results in a color that favors the green end of Cyan. What do you guys think between the 2?

Also in terms of using a dedicated FoC die; I've decided that according to the Prizm V5.1 manual, the prizm offers so many flicker/pulse options for clash effects that I'd rather put them to use than have a die sit idle just so i can look like i'm being followed by paparazzi. That's not to say I won't be dissuaded, that's just where i'm leaning ATM.


As a last question, in the opening paragraphs of the Prizm V5.1 manual it talks about somehow using 'Luxeon' leds as opposed to string blades to get a screen accurate gradual blade ignition. What???? How do you use Leds to light the base before the tip (at speeds slower than C)?

Offline Forgetful Jedi Knight

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #11 on: February 13, 2018, 05:22:55 PM »
“Some” of us are also on multiple forums.  :cheesy:

A “truer hue” is a point of view. As I pointed out at TCSS, the Using a rB and G mix will allow you to mix the color to your liking, whereas the Luxeon Cyan, you get what you get, and that’s what you’ve got. So do you want “brightness” or “the shade of Cyan you want”?

If your willing to just have the flicker and shimmer as your FoC effects, that’s fine as well, then you’ll need to decide what color the 3rd die will be. You’ll likely not be running it at “full power” if you want a decent “Cyan”, using Crees. The “upside” would be you could tweak one of the die to get a slightly different shade of Cyan for the FoC. If you use the Luxeon Cyan for all three, your back to your stuck with whatever shade you happen to get, and ou won’t have he abilit to tweak a component color to give your FoC a bit of a “pop”.

I’ve made my opinion known elsewhere on most of the rest of it.

And to answer your last question, the LEDs are fed power “gradually” (defined in milliseconds) to simulate a ramping up effect. If Erv wants to chime in with more details, I’m sure he will.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 05:24:57 PM by Forgetful Jedi Knight »


May the force be with you all!

Remember... speak softly and carry a well constructed light saber! :)

How "Freedom of Speech" works:  you have the freedom to say whatever you want, BUT you also have the freedom to suffer whatever consequences your actions or words dictate

Offline Major_Tom

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #12 on: February 13, 2018, 05:54:38 PM »
“Some” of us are also on multiple forums.  :cheesy:

A “truer hue” is a point of view. As I pointed out at TCSS, the Using a rB and G mix will allow you to mix the color to your liking, whereas the Luxeon Cyan, you get what you get, and that’s what you’ve got. So do you want “brightness” or “the shade of Cyan you want”?

If your willing to just have the flicker and shimmer as your FoC effects, that’s fine as well, then you’ll need to decide what color the 3rd die will be. You’ll likely not be running it at “full power” if you want a decent “Cyan”, using Crees. The “upside” would be you could tweak one of the die to get a slightly different shade of Cyan for the FoC. If you use the Luxeon Cyan for all three, your back to your stuck with whatever shade you happen to get, and ou won’t have he abilit to tweak a component color to give your FoC a bit of a “pop”.

I’ve made my opinion known elsewhere on most of the rest of it.

And to answer your last question, the LEDs are fed power “gradually” (defined in milliseconds) to simulate a ramping up effect. If Erv wants to chime in with more details, I’m sure he will.

Aha! I hope it doesn't seem underhanded to be doing it like this. I have found as a newcomer to the hobby accurate and up-to-date info takes a fair bit of digging, I thought it prudent to cast a wide net. As a side effect, my questions and findings as well as forum members' feedback will be recorded and cross reference on multiple forums, making it a bit easier for the next guy with similar questions.

If I can find a good multichannel quick-connect option such as that mentioned here I would be much more down to experiment using dedicated color dices vs color mixing. could have a color profile for each module...?

Offline Forgetful Jedi Knight

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #13 on: February 13, 2018, 06:32:00 PM »
“Some” of us are also on multiple forums.  :cheesy:

A “truer hue” is a point of view. As I pointed out at TCSS, the Using a rB and G mix will allow you to mix the color to your liking, whereas the Luxeon Cyan, you get what you get, and that’s what you’ve got. So do you want “brightness” or “the shade of Cyan you want”?

If your willing to just have the flicker and shimmer as your FoC effects, that’s fine as well, then you’ll need to decide what color the 3rd die will be. You’ll likely not be running it at “full power” if you want a decent “Cyan”, using Crees. The “upside” would be you could tweak one of the die to get a slightly different shade of Cyan for the FoC. If you use the Luxeon Cyan for all three, your back to your stuck with whatever shade you happen to get, and ou won’t have he abilit to tweak a component color to give your FoC a bit of a “pop”.

I’ve made my opinion known elsewhere on most of the rest of it.

And to answer your last question, the LEDs are fed power “gradually” (defined in milliseconds) to simulate a ramping up effect. If Erv wants to chime in with more details, I’m sure he will.

Aha! I hope it doesn't seem underhanded to be doing it like this. I have found as a newcomer to the hobby accurate and up-to-date info takes a fair bit of digging, I thought it prudent to cast a wide net. As a side effect, my questions and findings as well as forum members' feedback will be recorded and cross reference on multiple forums, making it a bit easier for the next guy with similar questions.

If I can find a good multichannel quick-connect option such as that mentioned here I would be much more down to experiment using dedicated color dices vs color mixing. could have a color profile for each module...?

You would have to figure in your resistors for EACH wiring setup you do, if you decide to do it that way. I also saw that you’re not building this yourself. I hope your “builder” knows what they are doing.

Also, if you decide to mess with the XP-L and XP-E2, depending on how they are run, you may have heat disappation issues, or a literally “hot hilt”.

Also, you want “bright” yet you are going to dim it a bit by using a thick walled blade. Also what specific type of blade are you planning on using? Something else you need to think about.


May the force be with you all!

Remember... speak softly and carry a well constructed light saber! :)

How "Freedom of Speech" works:  you have the freedom to say whatever you want, BUT you also have the freedom to suffer whatever consequences your actions or words dictate

Offline Major_Tom

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Re: Brightest LEDs for dueling with thick walled blades
« Reply #14 on: February 14, 2018, 03:47:14 PM »


If I can find a good multichannel quick-connect option such as that mentioned here I would be much more down to experiment using dedicated color dices vs color mixing. could have a color profile for each module...?

You would have to figure in your resistors for EACH wiring setup you do, if you decide to do it that way. I also saw that you’re not building this yourself. I hope your “builder” knows what they are doing.


Would it work to figure out how the board is feeding the LEDs and resistor between the QC coupler and the LED module?

And I hope so to! As stated I am new to this so part of realizing my unicorn pair was enlisting the help of one more gifted/experienced than I. I obviously won't ask him to do or ship out anything beyond his means, but he also came recommended from someone who owns more lightsabers than I am likely to ever hold :grin:

Also, you want “bright” yet you are going to dim it a bit by using a thick walled blade. Also what specific type of blade are you planning on using? Something else you need to think about.


As for blades, I have been using without issue the Infinity V4 blades from an unnamed source   :wink: I'd be open to suggestions. I am intrigued by enhanced fluorescent day-blades but it seems those have a set color... open to suggestions!

 

retrousse