Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual story

[JediJeremy]

I hope you guys will appreciate this, everyone else is too used to Adobe After-effects lightsabers to do the double-take (with Rei especially) and go "Wait.. that's outside? In daylight?"

Oh yeah, and also my second saber is completely 3D printed, and inspired by Ahsoka Tano's new curved sabers from Rebels. And fairly nicely balanced too if I do say so myself.

Best regards to all the Cosplayers! And a special shout-out to the Sons of Obiwan Saber Academy who do fantastic work with Autistic children.

What I can't decide is if I should paint the new hilt (it's PETG), and what colours it should be. I'll likely reprint some of the details (like knobs) in a different color, but my range of filament is still a bit limited. I like the raw white in person.. It's almost other-worldly... but it doesn't look that good in pictures compared to my ratty old painted PVC hilt.

My hilts are jokes compared to the incredible workmanship that's gone into the metal hilts and exact replicas I've seen around here.. I'm more electronics / comp sci and trying to replicate the feel and the effect of the artifact. The best thing you can say about my sabers is they make people smile, even experts, and little children keep running up and asking "Is that real?"

If anyone is interested in the details, please ask!

(And yes, I know some of the colours are wrong for the given character, but I let them pick their favorite blade colour and did not impose.)

 

[Dann]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

Holy Bejeezus, thems is bright! Very nice work.

What LED are you using to light the blade?

 

[HighlanderFX]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

I'm looking to make a saber pike and would be thrilled if it came out as bright as yours. so how'd you do it?

 

[JediJeremy]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

I'm using a 1 meter 144-"neopixel" strip for the (double-sided) 50cm shoto blade, (all documented here: http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/projects/how-to-build-the-brightest-led-saber-in-the-world/ )

I've also serendipitously discovered that correctly 3D printed transparent blade inserts (to replace the usual foam used in stringblade-style sabers) have a "holographic" effect: as well as letting out more light, it blurs the LEDs together laterally, but also squeezes them axially! So it creates this thin "beam" up the core that looks very strange, sort of like the thin sabers in Rebels.. but it's very hard to capture on film.

I'm making a second longer (80cm) blade this week.. which means more LEDs which means more brightness... the hilt is capable already. In theory it could run two separate 50cm pike-ends within design specs, (just) but the hilt would get warm after a while and you'd want a bigger battery.

 

[Dann]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

Ahhh, so it's an LED strip situation! That's cool. I'd like to see a photo of the blade with and without its outer shell!

 

[Halliwax]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

needed :cool to watch the videos! very cool!

 

[JediJeremy]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

Ahhh, so it's an LED strip situation! That's cool. I'd like to see a photo of the blade with and without its outer shell!

I also took a timelapse of the blade re-assembly, but it didn't come out very well. The inserts come in split halves in lengths that "clamshell" around the LED strip and It all slides into the usual polycarbonate blade tube - the one part that cannot be 3D printed to engineering specs. (yet)

These were some of my early experiments:

I changed the profile considerably while experimenting with the optical effect (and dropped the extra outer shell which I thought would help, but didn't) but the basic concept is the same as what's in the blade that went to the con. The original purpose was to improve the thermal situation compared with wrapping hot LEDs in a foam blanket, but the surface of the 3D print has a "microlensing" thing going on due to the 0.2mm layers

This was done with transparent PLA which is more fragile than I'd like. (I'm trying to source clear PETG) For those with super-printers, polycarbonate inserts would be possible which would be nigh-invulnerable.

 

[yaris]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

Excellent light work, well done

 

[OBI WAN KEN0B1]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

Awesome. I can't wait to read thought your whole how to guide. Very interesting so far.

 

[Ob1gynob]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor

Oh wow. Just read the entire build site and watched your videos. Just incredible how that looks! Wonderful work, I shall be following your career with great interest...[emoji2]

 

[kristen jones]

Re: Took my insanely bright prototype 3D printed Lightsabers to a Con, the usual stor



Even non-strip style blades can be quite bright.

This too is in daylight. Though it's indoors, to be fair yours was under a covered overhang...which is effectively the same thing.

There's nothing at all wrong aesthetically with a strip style...especially if you don't plan to duel with them. The one big drawback in my book is the inability to remove the blade. Of course this isn't *always* a problem... it depends on what you're doing.

Because I occasionally duel with mine, and because i also use it as a static prop without the blade on occasion that's why i chose to go with a non-strip style configuration.

Bright blades rule...regardless how you achieve them!