Built few light saber before but this is my first multi color Lightsaber. LED string was finished years ago but never really finish this project and I think it's time to pick it up again before the Starwar VII will be here soon. Again, I am not good to explain thing in words so I rather using more images to support my post.
Here we go. First, get RGB LED x 70 and band the legs like this:
Weld them in a string and do the test while you welding them in case you might falling asleep and weld the wrong color pin:
Put them into foam tube for protection and for diffusion purpose. After that, put them into polycarbonate tube (never use acrylic tube, too fragile). BTW, I did this in 2013 and never touch it again until now.
I bought a mini lathe last year and this is my first time using it to make this hilt:
I use the Arduino Leonardo campatible board Beetle from DFrobot. It's very small to fit in the hilt even it only has 8 pinouts. Also, I use their MP3 player as well. These 2 tiny boards are ideal for limited spacing projects.
At the back I use 3 NPN transistors to control the LEDs. 3 colors, 3 transistors.
BTW, I am very weak in picking up what resistor I should use on projects. I forgot which resistor I pick 2 years ago. So, if anyone can show me how to do this in proper way will be much much appreciated.
Measure the spacing and length to fit all these into a tiny tube. The hilt is about 12" long with OD 1 1/4" x ID 1".
I am trying not to take those out so I also insert a charger plug beside switchs:
Re-wire the core unit and insert into the hilt:
The 8 Ohm 2W tiny speaker at the end with 3D printed housing.
Now here is the ugly part to make this big hole on hilt. I cut and shaped an aluminum plate for buttons and plug to make it easier to do wiring and welding outside of hilt. Then use 4 M3 screws on coners to put this plate on top of the hilt.
And this is how it looks like after put everything all together. The only thing missing on these images is Vibration sensors. I have it in between hilt and blade.
It’s really depends on how you want to program it. There were tons of ideas comes up in my mind when I program it but I was rush to see if this works well so I was quickly done the programming part. You may check the video to see it in action.
Even thou I am still working on it but only on programming part so I concider this done.
Haven’t post anything for while, if anything missing or anything want to know or suggestion, please let me know!
Hope you enjoy it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-QdzGWd5tk