I'm gearing up to build my first light saber. I'd like to think I've done my homework, but no plan survives prolonged contact with reality...
Anyways, here is what I have / have ordered: (source in parenthesis)
- Graflex 2.0 (Park Sabers)
- Teensy 3.2 (adafruit)
- Teensy prop shield (adafruit)
- 5v voltage booster (sparkfun)
- 8-pin cb radio connectors (amazon)
- 2W 28mm speaker (TCSS)
- 10A 3200mAh protected li-on battery
- a few resistors I already had
- 3 x N-channel FET (sparkfun)
First blade (complete)
- 7/8" thin-walled diffused polycarbonate tube & cap (TCSS)
- 3/4" diffuser (TCSS)
- packing foam sheeet diffuser (amazon)
- 100 PL9823 5mm through-hole ws2811/neopixel LEDs (ebay)
- 2 x copper cores from coax cable, but any ~20-guage solid wire should work.
The first blade is an LED string type. Using neopixels will let me control the color of each LED individually.
Second blade (mostly finished, but needs better diffusion)
- 7/8" thin-walled diffused polycarbonate tube & cap (TCSS)
- 3/4" diffuser (TCSS)
- packing foam sheeet diffuser (amazon)
- 2 x SK6812 60 LED/m, 4mm wide LED strip (ebay)
Third blade: (in progress)
- 7/8" thick-walled polycarbonate and cap (ShadyCanuck)
- ~140 3mm ultra-bright blue LEDs, 30mA (ebay)
- packing foam sheeet diffuser (amazon)
- 20-gauge tinned copper wire (amazon)
Fourth blade (only if I can make a led star adapter that is short enough!)
- BBW Tri-cree, 7/8" heatsink, lens and holder (TCSS)
- 7/8" thick-walled polycarbonate and cap (ShadyCanuck)
- blade film (not yet ordered)
The blade connector has 8 pins, and I'm planning to use one of them to make the blade itself the kill switch for the hilt.
I don't have any interest in making a "reveal" light saber, so I won't go fancy on the interior, I will just try to make it robust and easy to
maintain.
I'm planning to write the code for it from scratch, planned features are:
- Color selection
- several flicker types
- flash-on clash
- dynamically generated sound (boot/on/off/clash will probably still be samples though)
- silent mode
If I feel ambitious, I may also implement a light-writer POV mode and proper sound font support.
Either way, I plan to make the source available to anybody who wants it.
I will post pics and updates to this thread as I go.