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Author Topic: Profezzorn's first build (graflex 2.0, teensy, prop shield, neopixel led string)  (Read 43710 times)

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Offline profezzorn

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Lots of progress in the last week.

First of all, the hilt is done, more or less, I might still tweak a few things:



It's a standard Graflex 2.5, nothing much to see here. except maybe the tape-covered circuit board which is configured as a touch button and the micro sd and micro usb accessible through the pommel. The micro usb can be used to flash new firmware, and of course the sd card contains the sound fonts.

Second, I finished the charging adapter:



Looks decent, but I might make another one using trans-white tube to see what that looks like. I learned that ABS cement (ABS dissolved in acetone) is NOT the right thing to glue polycarbonate with, as it causes cracks. The adapter is still fine and strong enough, but it would be a disaster for a dueling blade. Live and learn...

The core of the code is finished (audio playback, blade control, buttons, battery sense, etc. ) but there is still a lot of higher features not there, like stab sounds and some sort of settings menu.

« Last Edit: July 27, 2016, 03:00:13 PM by profezzorn »

Offline profezzorn

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Ok, more progress, the website for the teensy saber is done enough that it might be useful to someone, so time to put the links out there. You can download the software from there, even though it's not done yet, and the chassis design is available, together with lots of pictures. Three of the four blade pages are not done yet though, but I'm working on it.

Feel free to drop feedback in this thread, PM me, or, if you prefer, just curse me silently and don't let me know.

Once I think the website and the software is more or less feature-complete, I intend to start a new thread, specifically so that people can comment, ask questions and what not, but right now it's probably better to focus on the people who have been following this thread.

Offline Sethski

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Website's looking good and clear with info and to navigate - thanks for putting that together and sharing  :wink:

I'm curious re how sound effects are implemented. I read earlier in the thread about applying effects to the hum during swings and wondered if this is in addition to a swing sound being mixed with it or if this IS the swing sound?

I remember some time ago a promising custom board in well-developed prototype stage - 'Hiltworks' - which I guess the creator/developer lost interest in, but had excitement and interest from myself and a lot of folks on the forum at the time. Part of the appeal was around the swing sounds being generated by applying effects to the hum sound based on motion detection data, ehich made for a pretty seamless correlation between the two. I wondered if your solution with the Teensy works on a similar basis or is a more traditional transitioning/mixing of sound clips? Or something between these.

The Hiltworks thread is here HiltWorks Project Demo and the web page with links to demo videos is still up HiltWorks if they're of interest.

It still carries a lot of (personal) appeal as an alternative to the usual approach, even with the advances with boards and motion detection with sound since then...

Offline profezzorn

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Website's looking good and clear with info and to navigate - thanks for putting that together and sharing  :wink:

I'm curious re how sound effects are implemented. I read earlier in the thread about applying effects to the hum during swings and wondered if this is in addition to a swing sound being mixed with it or if this IS the swing sound?

I remember some time ago a promising custom board in well-developed prototype stage - 'Hiltworks' - which I guess the creator/developer lost interest in, but had excitement and interest from myself and a lot of folks on the forum at the time. Part of the appeal was around the swing sounds being generated by applying effects to the hum sound based on motion detection data, ehich made for a pretty seamless correlation between the two. I wondered if your solution with the Teensy works on a similar basis or is a more traditional transitioning/mixing of sound clips? Or something between these.

The Hiltworks thread is here HiltWorks Project Demo and the web page with links to demo videos is still up HiltWorks if they're of interest.

It still carries a lot of (personal) appeal as an alternative to the usual approach, even with the advances with boards and motion detection with sound since then...

Cool, I'll have to look into that.

Currently the sound effects just use sound fonts. Synthesizing the swing sounds was more difficult than I thought, so that part of the code is just not finished yet. I still want to do that, it's just fallen a bit lower on my todo list.

I do have a pretty reasonable "hum" synthesizer, which reacts to small (non-swing) motion, but it's not in use in the code right now.


Offline Sethski

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I imagine that would be a substantial and challenging undertaking - it would be great to see it come to fruition and hope the open source approach may be helpful in enabling that.

I'm certainly inspired by your work and hope to invest in some parts (Teensy, Prop Shield, neopixel string, etc) and time to spend on them myself later this year and start to get a bit better understanding of all that entails.

Offline TheBaconWizard

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Website's looking good and clear with info and to navigate - thanks for putting that together and sharing  :wink:

I'm curious re how sound effects are implemented. I read earlier in the thread about applying effects to the hum during swings and wondered if this is in addition to a swing sound being mixed with it or if this IS the swing sound?

I remember some time ago a promising custom board in well-developed prototype stage - 'Hiltworks' - which I guess the creator/developer lost interest in, but had excitement and interest from myself and a lot of folks on the forum at the time. Part of the appeal was around the swing sounds being generated by applying effects to the hum sound based on motion detection data, ehich made for a pretty seamless correlation between the two. I wondered if your solution with the Teensy works on a similar basis or is a more traditional transitioning/mixing of sound clips? Or something between these.

The Hiltworks thread is here HiltWorks Project Demo and the web page with links to demo videos is still up HiltWorks if they're of interest.

It still carries a lot of (personal) appeal as an alternative to the usual approach, even with the advances with boards and motion detection with sound since then...

Cool, I'll have to look into that.

Currently the sound effects just use sound fonts. Synthesizing the swing sounds was more difficult than I thought, so that part of the code is just not finished yet. I still want to do that, it's just fallen a bit lower on my todo list.

I do have a pretty reasonable "hum" synthesizer, which reacts to small (non-swing) motion, but it's not in use in the code right now.

Whatever I can bring to that, I will. The problem facing you imo is that it will get old, fast, unless a variety of different functions are used to vary the hum during a swing motion. Otherwise it would simply a matter of make it a bit louder, maybe rise in pitch a little, and perhaps a little distortion.

Doppler effect is handy too.

The  list of what you COULD do is pretty long, and it all takes processing power.  that being said it wouldn't need to do all of them all the time, but select from a choice of functions, maybe even transitioning from one to another at the peak of the swing.

Offline Obi_1

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Now speaking of changing pitch of hum sound when moving the hilt: I became so fond of the idea, that I tried to do something similar on my DIYino Prime board. I knew that I did not have acess to the sound files since they are processed by a dedicated encoder chip. But this same chip has the function to change the equalizer to different genres. I tried this and it gave good results, pitch can be changed. So I was about to implement it when I found out that changing the EQ only works for MP3 format, not for WAV... problem with MP3 is, it does not allow gapless playback. Maybe if time permits I will again explore changing between MP3 and WAV.

Offline TheBaconWizard

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Now speaking of changing pitch of hum sound when moving the hilt: I became so fond of the idea, that I tried to do something similar on my DIYino Prime board. I knew that I did not have acess to the sound files since they are processed by a dedicated encoder chip. But this same chip has the function to change the equalizer to different genres. I tried this and it gave good results, pitch can be changed. So I was about to implement it when I found out that changing the EQ only works for MP3 format, not for WAV... problem with MP3 is, it does not allow gapless playback. Maybe if time permits I will again explore changing between MP3 and WAV.

Nice idea!

Offline profezzorn

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Here is my design for an adapter that lets me use hollow blades in my hilt.
(Also, if you have multiple adapters, it makes it easy to change between red/red/white, blue/blue/white and red/green/blue, or whatever combination you want.)
It's intended to be made on a lathe, and should hopefully be pretty easy to make.
It's made up of three parts, colored red, green and yellow in this picture and is held together with some set screws. (black)
The bayonet cut in the front should couple up with a custom t-shaped key that lets you pull the adapter out of the hilt easily.



I'm not a machinist myself, and I don't have a lathe, but if anybody is able to make one of these for me, PM me with a cost estimate.

Offline profezzorn

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Tried using white shrink-tube to diffuse my LED strips, total bust, it reduces the brightness quite a lot but doesn't actually diffuse it that well, probably because it's too close to the LEDs. Oh well, worth a try I guess.

Offline Obi_1

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Tried using white shrink-tube to diffuse my LED strips, total bust, it reduces the brightness quite a lot but doesn't actually diffuse it that well, probably because it's too close to the LEDs. Oh well, worth a try I guess.
Sorry, pretty sure you mentioned it, but what kind of string density are you using? The 144LED/m type? With the transwhite blades from TCSS you can diffuse the light very nicely, individual leds will not be visible. For sure some intensity will go lost on the way, but that's a fair trade off.
I recently bought 2meters of the 144 type, I will glue them back to back and feed it into a TCSS blade and make a video with some close ups.

Offline profezzorn

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I'm using the 60 leds / meter type.
My original hilt design didn't have the amps needed to drive the 144 leds / m, so I bought 60 leds / m.
My current design can totally supply the required 12 amps, it will go over the specs of the connector slightly, but not enough that I would worry about it. The pins are rated for 5 amps, and I use two for the positive side and three for the negative side, so technically the limit is 10 amps, but whatever.

I'll keep an eye out for some slim 144 leds / m strips.


Offline profezzorn

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Tried using white shrink-tube to diffuse my LED strips, total bust, it reduces the brightness quite a lot but doesn't actually diffuse it that well, probably because it's too close to the LEDs. Oh well, worth a try I guess.
Sorry, pretty sure you mentioned it, but what kind of string density are you using? The 144LED/m type? With the transwhite blades from TCSS you can diffuse the light very nicely, individual leds will not be visible. For sure some intensity will go lost on the way, but that's a fair trade off.
I recently bought 2meters of the 144 type, I will glue them back to back and feed it into a TCSS blade and make a video with some close ups.

Btw, are hou using 1" blades? I'm wondering if the extra space in the 1" blades diffuses the light better.
(I'm using 7/8" blades.)

Offline Obi_1

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For lack of anything else I use the 1" blades. So far I have 2 pcs from the heavy duelling transwhite blade from TCSS (overkill I know), including the diffuser tube. I have to ephasize that for any kind of string blade both are absolutely necessary:
- transwhite blade (i.e. http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/1-Thin-walled-Trans-White-PolyC-40-long-P529.aspx)
- diffuser tube inside the transwhite blade (http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/40-LED-blade-diffuser-for-1-thin-walled-blades-P449.aspx)

Any less than that and no matter how dense your string is, you will see the individual LEDs. It's way better to loose brightness than to have the LEDs visible through the blade. Oh, I have one neopixel saber with 60L/m type, that one is impossible to diffuse so that the pixels are not visible (I tried all possible combinations of blade types and diffusing material, but simply the distance between the LEDs is too big and the viewing angle too narrow). So go for the 144L/m!

These blades are very hard to source in Europe, so far the only source for them is still TCSS.




Offline profezzorn

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While more work, I really like my string of PL9823s. It's much easier to diffuse and requires a lot less power to drive. (Because it's not double-sided.) I've ordered some 144 leds/m (7mm wide) strips to see how that turns out, I'm also considering ordering some 5mm APA106 LEDs. They work the same as the PL9823, but come in a shorter version, which should let me cram in more LEDs. Unfortunately they are not diffused, but I'm not sure that matters.

I'm using 7/8" blades, and I have some thin-walled trans-white blades from TCSS, and I have some thick-walled ones from ShadyCanuck. The thick-walled ones are clear, and the internal diameter is 5/8", so they can't hold the diffuser tube from TCSS, however, I think they will work fine for my simple string blade, which is made from 3mm LEDs.

What I would really like is some 7/8" photon blades, they would look fantastic lit up with a string of blue LEDs, but that doesn't seem to exist yet.


 

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