fiduciary

Author Topic: Planning a Korbanth K4 build - want a neopixel blade  (Read 1803 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline SA22C

  • No Force
  • *
  • Posts: 43
  • Don't Panic
Planning a Korbanth K4 build - want a neopixel blade
« on: October 21, 2017, 04:59:08 PM »
Good day to all,

I've done a couple of Graflex builds with an econoboard, a NBv4 w Tri-Cree and most recently, a neopixel strip blade.

Now that I've gone down the NeoPixel path, I'm loath to build a saber with a fixed-colour star and I don't want to lose brightness on a RGB star.  I've got a K4 Obi kit on the way and I'm asking for help in determining if I can build a neopixel removable blade for this saber that will work in the extremely shallow emitter, which has about 1" of blade engagement.

In the Graflex that I just built, I used GX-16 aviation connectors and they've worked great.  However, there isn't enough room to mount a GX-16 in the emitter on the K4 and the ID of the neck looks to be much too narrow to mount the connector below the emitter.  My next thought was to utilize a 1/4" stereo jack but the same question applies: is the neck section wide enough to accommodate a female 1/4" stereo jack?  If I can get the 1/4" socket flush with the bottom of the emitter, I have a fighting chance to build the blade with around an inch of allowance for the male connector - LED wiring and hopefully end up with a blade that doesn't have a dead spot at the base.

Has anyone else built a K4 with a removable neopixel or string blade?  If you have any tips or insight as to how I might accomplish this build, I'd really appreciate it.  Thanks!

Offline Sincenatic

  • Padawan Learner
  • **
  • Posts: 84
Re: Planning a Korbanth K4 build - want a neopixel blade
« Reply #1 on: October 22, 2017, 11:37:12 AM »
I have just finished my K4 with a removable string blade. I used two of these;

SODIAL(R) 60 x Enchufe de Adaptador DIP Ic 8 Pin Redondo 2.54mm Paso: Amazon.es:

to make a custom plug using cernit modeling clay and a copper end cap that I drilled a hole in for the wires. When the blade is inserted, the complete plug is inside the blade so that the polycarbonate tube reaches the very bottom of the emitter. So far it works fine. The ledstring contains about 288 3mm blue (20mA) LEDs. The cernit clay is made fairly hard in the oven and afterwards I drilled out 8 small holes for wires. The good thing with this is that I didn’t need any heat shrink because the exposed wires are safely inside the holes. You can, of course change the clay for a 3D printed part. I am old fashioned, though.

The hole in the emitter the leads down is about 4.5mm so there is very little room to fit anything else than the wires. I failed to cut down an aviation plug and I also discarded some mini DIN-plugs that I managed to cut down to a reasonable size. I don’t know the Amp-rating for the mini plugs, and I don’t know the ratings for the ones that I used, but they seem to work fine.
The first LED is just in line with where the emitter ends and it is as bright in the bottom as in any other place of the blade. You can have a look at:

Korbanth K4 LED-string lightsaber - YouTube

I hope this will give you some ideas.

Offline Obi_1

  • Mining Colony Members
  • Experienced Force User
  • *
  • Posts: 476
  • Creator of DIYino - first open source FX-board
Re: Planning a Korbanth K4 build - want a neopixel blade
« Reply #2 on: October 22, 2017, 12:54:12 PM »
Hey Sincenatic, it turned out beautifully and such an iconic saber deserves a dedicated blade with LED strings! Since looking at the video I'm trying to figure out how you did those buttons on the side of the clamp box! Did the hilt come with those? I have a Hasbro Obi-Wan I'm struggling to place 2 buttons into, but this setup seems to be a real winner!

Offline SA22C

  • No Force
  • *
  • Posts: 43
  • Don't Panic
Re: Planning a Korbanth K4 build - want a neopixel blade
« Reply #3 on: October 22, 2017, 01:54:59 PM »
That connector looks cool, but how do you ensure that the blade is inserted correctly? It doesn’t look keyed, so I’m not sure how you ensure the blade is inserted correctly.

Do you have any pictures of the connector in the emitter or blade?

Thanks!

Offline Sincenatic

  • Padawan Learner
  • **
  • Posts: 84
Re: Planning a Korbanth K4 build - want a neopixel blade
« Reply #4 on: October 22, 2017, 02:26:25 PM »
Obi_1, Yes the K4 comes with a prepared space in the hilt and actually also a two button – card. This is why it was easy to add a button (if you remember, this summer when I was have doubt if I would go with the single button set up). The original card works as one button, despite having two buttons, but it could be prepared to allow for separated buttons. Instead of doing that I changed it for two small separate buttons. 

SA22C, I will prepare some photos. I initially planned to glue it in place, i.e. to add glue and use the blade to make it perfectly centred, but the glue wasn’t strong enough. (I wasn’t brave enough to choose very strong glue.) As it works now, I separate the blade just enough to grab the plug. The wires are a little bit longer to allow for that. It’s not the perfect solution, but there are rooms for improvements. Be patient, I will provide photos within a few days.

Offline Sincenatic

  • Padawan Learner
  • **
  • Posts: 84
Re: Planning a Korbanth K4 build - want a neopixel blade
« Reply #5 on: October 23, 2017, 12:39:02 PM »
This is how it looks like.



The LED-string is loose inside the polycarbonate tube so I first insert the 8 pin plug. After that I just press the tube until it reaches the bottom of the emitter. The copper end cap fits inside the polycarbonate tube and the inner diffuser tube. It actually works very well despite that the copper end cap isn’t attached to the emitter. Since it is loose it moves into position by itself when I finally insert the tube.

 

retrousse