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Author Topic: Imperial Knight Silver String Blade with 2 FOC Strings for Plecter Labs CF LS  (Read 3394 times)

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Offline theholyduck

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This is crazy! Certainly the brightest blade I've seen so far, and even more importantly one which looks and feels like in the movie.
How do you supply this blade?
Care to explain what you did with the FoC?
What is a Makoto foam? Oh, so many questions!

I can't wait to see your neopixel build! Don't keep us waiting too long! We are eager to learn.
im pretty sure he uses these leds 3mm Cool White LED - 8100K - 45 Degree Viewing Angle | Through Hole LEDs |
http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/1-Thin-Walled-Enhanced-Blue8482-PolyC-40-long-P1196.aspx this blade tube
http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/Enhanced-Blue8482-1-thin-walled-blade-tip-P1158.aspx this tip.

Makoto foam im guessing is foam he ordered straight from makotos blog and id imagine its pretty close to how the foam liner for the fx blades work. as for his exact string setup. thats something that he can provide.

Offline Obi_1

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Anthony, are you using external drivers for the strings? If I look at the 3mm LED specs it says they are from the 100mA types. While the mosfets might be able to carry the ~6A you might have flowing, I know that the LS is spec'd for 2A max.

Offline theholyduck

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ls runs at 7.4v nominal. 8.4v peak so its wired in serialell. so halve the amperage right off the bat.
 im not seeing any descripionn of max amps per channel in this https://www.plecterlabs.com/Media/CF-LS/CrystalFocusSaberCore-LEDSTRIP-V6.50-GB.pdf
« Last Edit: February 02, 2017, 07:37:42 AM by theholyduck »

Offline Sini Star

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That is the brightest blade I have ever seem.  You can't even see the poly blade when its on.  Amazing!

Offline EXAR KUN

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This is crazy! Certainly the brightest blade I've seen so far, and even more importantly one which looks and feels like in the movie.
How do you supply this blade?
Care to explain what you did with the FoC?
What is a Makoto foam? Oh, so many questions!

I can't wait to see your neopixel build! Don't keep us waiting too long! We are eager to learn.
im pretty sure he uses these leds 3mm Cool White LED - 8100K - 45 Degree Viewing Angle | Through Hole LEDs |
http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/1-Thin-Walled-Enhanced-Blue8482-PolyC-40-long-P1196.aspx this blade tube
http://www.thecustomsabershop.com/Enhanced-Blue8482-1-thin-walled-blade-tip-P1158.aspx this tip.

Makoto foam im guessing is foam he ordered straight from makotos blog and id imagine its pretty close to how the foam liner for the fx blades work. as for his exact string setup. thats something that he can provide.

theholyduck is right! Thank you, yes, Makoto foam just means closed cell foam tubing I got from Makoto. It's the same as MR foam... it's just MR foam is hard to come by. Foam wrapping is not as good as closed-cell tubing because there is a chance for a seam visible on wrapping layers of foam sheet.

This blade wired in Seriallel Class II which means 12 mini segments wired together into 6 full segments so each segment (of the six) shares the load divided by 2. The capabilities of the LEDs are split through each mini segment, and each LED can handle up to 100ma (but is lower when divided by number of LEDs in each segment)

Also a longer segment of LEDs in the #6 (first) segment which is bare the brunt of the load as the saber powers on. Also because if you can understand... this segment will also be on the most (first one on, last one off) so it has more LEDs to share the power and hopefully that saves any burn out later.

For FOC, what I did here was sandwich the main strip with 2 FOC strips. The first FOC strip was made how I normally make it... about 70 3mm LEDs (in this case the same white LEDs I used for main blade) and I adhere that FOC string to the CLEANEST side of the shrink-wrapped main LED strip (the main blade). Meaning, the clean side is the side without the wires. I cleanly assemble the wires so none cross each other and have them lay flat and shrink wrapped usually to one side of the main blade. So, the FOC strip here with approx. 70 LEDs is placed on the clean side and .5 inch shrink wrap now is heat molded around this entire assembly. Finally, I constructed a 2nd FOC string made up of less LEDs (to allow as much light past) since this will go on the 'unclean' side (the side of the main blade with the wires). Both those FOC strings are then wired to the common positive and work with the CF LS as the eighth pin in the DIN configuration. When all this assembly is shrink wrapped again in .5 shrink (need patience to get this on) the light gets to bounce around all those plastic layers and really find it's way nicely out and even through the 30 AWG white silicone wires.

The foam diffuses this even more, and at the end you can't really see the wires. Although white is not the best color to avoid corn cob, sometimes with white LEDs and you are very close to the blade there is corn cob evidence. A few feet away this disappears you cannot tell. On the video I show the camera is blowing the blade out a little bit, I would say it's not quite that bright to my eye,... the video is making it seem better. I have a better camera I will take some pics with it or a video when I can to see if it is more representative of the actual look. But we all know the photo makes it look better. Some other blades I have read brighter on the Lux meter, including my Viridian (green and white combo) which reads over 9000 Lux on the meter. This one is cool because I wanted to try making a blade with 2 FOC strings, and the only way to do that plus still be able to get the assembly into a Makoto foam was to use 3mm LEDs for all the strings. These white 3mm I use are very robust and I'm always happy with the FOC strings it makes so I thought I would try them in a main blade and I am happy with the look.

Andras, I'm not certain, but if the CF LS 6.5 is how the CF6 was,... I believe for the first 2 minutes the saber is activated, there is 3A available. I"m not certain of that... but it could be because I sometimes think the saber is brighter right when I turn it on for a minute... I wonder if it then goes to 2A like the CF6. I"m not sure of that.

Yeah I can't wait to begin Neopixel experiements,... Ive got all the stuff... now I just need some alone time lol



 

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