Multi-Color Lightsaber
This is a multi-color lightsaber I made using the sound board from a Clone Wars Ultimate Lightsaber™, a LedEngin RGGB LED (LZ4-20MC10), and a Corbin LED Driver (from www.thecustomsabershop.com ). The illuminated switches I use seem to be available only in Japan. PM me (Matt Thorn) at http or www.fx-sabers.com if you want to know more. The colors that can be selected are blue, green, red, cyan, purple, amber, and a pinkish white. UPDATE (Oct. 26, 2010) At the time I made this, I was determined to basically “upgrade” a Clone Wars Ultimate Lightsaber. Since then, I have made several color-changing sabers, and in retrospect, this project seems sort of…silly. The hilt itself is ugly, and the Clone Wars Ultimate Lightsaber sounds are pretty dreadful. I have been salvaging parts from it. LOL Still, it was extremely educational, and I’ve been able to apply what I learned to making better sabers. And I do still like those three illuminated switches. (^_^)
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Nice job, Matt! That soundboard doesn’t sound too bad even if it does come from one of the “toy” sabers!
Been following your thread on TCSS with great interest. How’s the runtime with your batterypack? And brightness compared to the other led options?
Sorry for the late response. I hadn’t noticed there were any comments till today. I haven’t used any other RGB set-ups, so I can’t compare there, but it’s as bright as any single-color Luxeon III setup I’ve used. As for battery run-time, I’ve never run it down, so I don’t know. But I’m guessing it’s a lot shorter than a basic single-color LED without illuminated switches.
Thanks, Jaygon!
Thanks!
Very nice job, I have been looking for an alternative board to cf that would work for an rgb setup, very inspiring!
If you don’t care about the sound-changing effects, you could do the same thing with almost any cheap Hasbro board, or a Force FX board, for that matter. The trick is working out the proper resistance, particularly for red. I still haven’t worked it out to my satisfaction, but I’m planning to do an RGBA project soon that will be more carefully thought out. I still have trouble wrapping my head around Ohms and Amperes. :-/
I was reading about your problem with the red becoming more “intense” on the TCSS forums, to me it sounds like voltage drop over time ie green and blue usually require a higher voltage, but red requires less so as your batteries peak then drop off in voltage the greens and blues dim more but the red runs fine, you see this behavior in cyan luxeon 3 stars as well as the battery drops off the green in the led becomes more predominant over the blue in the blade.
very legit. just add some heat to the blade and that baby is ready to slice some droids!
awesome job man. i’m jealous right now. there should be a way to fix that timer problem. just ask the ppl on the TCSS forums. or Erv. maybe they can identify it. i have decided that i want to use this kind of set up for my RGB.
can i have that for free
lol does any one else notice that the camera looks like it cuts off then back on every time he changes the color! I know its not fake though
@kevinthumann Now that you mention it, yeah, it does look like that. LOL I guess that’s an unintended “special effect” produced by my cheap old video camera, reacting to the sudden change in light. Time for a new camera, huh?
LOL yep time for a new one