Cloak & Dagger- Tandy's Dagger

The show is up to episode 9 the other night and I've been working on bits and pieces of this since episode one. The daggers themselves are cg about there are several distinct types: medium fat, skinny and kitchen knife style. I wanted to have the thing light up from the inside so the kitchen knife style was beyond my limited electronics abilities. The longer skinny one I've set up but trying to get the workings inside it is too tight of a squeeze at the moment with smaller stronger batteries it could be done but as mentioned my skills are limited. So I've been working on the medium fat one. I made it to be a a square cross section (the skinny one is a triangular cross section).
I'm making it out of paper I snagged a sheet of my girlfriend's artist sketch pad drawing paper and used that I put clear packing tape on one side to catch any outside light and put a hot glue layer on the inside to diffuse the light from the inside, as well as to adhere the sides together. I'll put up the graph paper plans A is the fat dagger B the skinny one.
The inner workings consist of a battery pack (6v -from 4 1.5v watch batteries) 8 led panels or strips I cannibalized from night lights (2 strips per nightlight, times 4) a switch also from one of those nightlights and 2 additional LEDs to light up each dagger pointy end.

Here's the video of the set up and the first progress report: https://youtu.be/IZgBGO9V1B4



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I found some older pics on my phone of the original drafts I did with regular legal pad paper. I had thought briefly of having it being cylindrical/conical (therefore a circular cross section) dagger which is I'm sure still a possibility but it isn't the way I decided to go. I had a crystal which was about the correct size in my hand so one of the pictures was looking at that for ideas as well


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I'm stuck at the moment. I can't keep a circuit for what I have. Once I installed the LEDs (bulbs, not to be confused with the LED panels) that go into the points of the dagger I no longer have a circuit. I already checked to see that the bulbs were oriented the correct way. The next step is going to have to be removing the LEDs (bulbs) and making them their own circuit so that I'll know the LED panels have a circuit.
If they don't I'll be really annoyed, that'll mean there is a wire lose in the set up out there is a component that had gone bad. I'm not looking forward to either option. Tbh I'm not confident enough with a multimeter to know how much and what to test.
Any expertise and advice would be appreciated.
https://youtu.be/SgvTppAA-ig

Fingers crossed for you that you can solve the issue,D

I'm no electrician, but I feel confident saying it doesn't matter if you've got "braided" or "solid" copper in your wires, they should work the same.

Just as a sanity check, remove the LED Bulbs from both ends and make sure your LED Strips still work the way you expect. Then try and join the two LED Strips sections together, make sure they still work when joined together. If you can get all of those working but the LED Bulbs are still giving you issues, then test each LED Bulb on it's own (you can burn out LEDs, it'd suck to spend a bunch of time troubleshooting wiring if it's not the wiring's fault). If the LED Bulbs are still good, and the LED Panels light up without the bulbs, then the only other option is that you got your wires mixed up somewhere along the line. In that case, some still pictures may be more useful to troubleshoot than a video.

Another thing you could check is that your LED Bulbs and your LED Panels expect the same voltage.

A trick that can save you time in your testing: Don't solder things down unless you're highly confident they're working. For these LED Bulbs you can hold them to the connections with your fingers to test if they circuit is right.

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Edit: I bet I know what's wrong. I bet you've basically got a fork in your wires, where you're taking the Positive Out from one LED Strip and you're sending it to the Positive In of your next LED Strip AND the Positive In of your LED Bulb. That won't work, because you're basically cutting the voltage in half right there, and LED's need a minimum amount of voltage to work. Go from the Positive Out of one LED Strip, into the Positive In of the LED Bulb, then from the other side of the LED Bulb go to the Positive In of the other LED Strip.

I do a lot of electronics kits/work for props...

can you explain your issue? I'm not clear on what the exact problem is?

braided or solid core wire doesnt make a difference as far as usability. Maybe using solid core wire is a bit non-flexible... and can break off or rip pads off if bent around alot.. but will still have a valid connection.

current draw could be an issue.. or forward voltage.. depending on how things are wired up..

Thanks I will check those. I need to wait until my work area is less ungodly hot. At the moment I can't get spend any time in that room at all.

Alright I could get a bit done tonight as it cooled down I removed the LED bulbs at the ends so I could figure out why the panels weren't working and I still needed to backtrack a bit to make sure all of components were still working. I'm not positive what was wrong but going two steps back made me confident in my one step forward and my plan for the next 4 steps. I put up a progress video. https://youtu.be/8EnZSKb-WvQ
After peeling everything apart or back into the components I made sure I labeled each panel's positive and negative end to avoid confusion (it's possible that one of the panels was flipped I dunno if that would've botched the whole apparatus but... Anyway it's right way round now.) I'm going to still do LED bulbs in the tips I'm just going to make them on their own circuit, let the panels be on their own since I think their issues are gone now (fingers crossed) I find out the panels are actually called cob LEDs Cob standing for chip on board learning is fun. Anyway.
I also broke down and learned enough diagramming of electronics to do a very rudimentary circuit diagram of what I'm planning. So if any electronics experts see something really stupid they can tell me before I do it. Hopefully saving frustration.

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I realized the next day that there of course wouldn't be any difference between solid core and braided wire. I'm not sure if it was just exhaustion making me talk nonsense or I was thinking that that particular wire might be damage in some way (broken inside possibly) at that point I was even considering that maybe my solder wasn't allowing current to pass through. Moment of frustration.

Woo! Progress!
Alright I'm fairly sure the electronics is good to go I separated both tip LED bulbs into their own circuit so now there are three circuits sharing a 6 volt battery and a switch the two tip light bulbs and the chip on board (COB) LEDs for the middle the length of the dagger.
I have a progress video here ( https://youtu.be/asqFyQAbMaM ) since then I finished soldering the wires and attached the switch. So soldering is finished.
I taped up the switches part that'll stick out of the dagger. The switch is black and need to make it seem a little less obvious against a pure white dagger. I know masking tape beige isn't the same as white but it's a beginning. I'll most likely brush white acrylic on but I'm nervous about it getting into the switch and messing something up so I'm starting with masking tape and not going to be heavy handed.
There most nerve wracking store step is to attach the switch to the outside meaning I'll have to cut into the paper. So I'll need to find the best, least intrusive spot and cut it very carefully.
Other than that everything fits but barely inside the dagger. This is the biggest dagger being done I have no idea how to miniaturize further for the skinny dagger. I may make it empty to complete the set but it's beyond my skill set to light it up from the inside. Anyone else care to tackle it, have at it.
So I realized I didn't really show pictures out the shell of the dagger so some of the pictures are those. Otherwise I have the pictures of the fittings. And the new and final updated circuit diagram. As well as a peek at how well the light shines through.

So next step is to get the switch installed in the Shell then make sure all the insides are properly inside and seal it up. Murphy be merciful. Oh and paint up the switch, that's a pre install task. Then installation, final fitting, and sealing it all up.

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Well that's a project I'm calling done or close enough to done that I will put up the finished pics and video https://youtu.be/sOu7fwh4OgQ

I couldn't sleep last night so I got up found the proper place for the switch (I painted the switch white before attempting bed) cut the notch for it and glued it in place. I glued the cover piece on tonight. To complete it.
I need to go over the seems with packing tape just to keep the paper together so there isn't any buckling in places.
If I were better at the electronics... Or if I weren't so burnt out on electronics, soldering etc. I could think of a few places that some extra LEDs would be useful a few dark patches on places but I'm so ready for a non electronic project. I just can't. Not that I think the project is difficult for those inclined... You guys could probably do way better than me in a weekend project
One other thing I might do soonish is put sleeve over the dagger something clear and removable that I'll paint blood onto... I really like the scene I'm almost positive is in episode one where Tandy stabs her potential rapist and the dagger has blood on it for a few seconds. I'd like to recreate that... Also that scene is the thick dagger as opposed to the thin dagger. So it's the light up one I finished (I am giving up at least temporarily on trying to get the thin one light up able). That should just be some painting on Saran wrap or Ziploc bag then turning that into a sleeve that can be slipped over the tip... Now it sounds condomy... Sorry I think you guys get what I mean though.
So for the pics I took a pic of the switch side and the side where the switch isn't visible then did the same with it on then did the same lit in the dark to get the full affect. The video shows this also.
Hey I appreciate everyone's help on this. Electronics probably won't be my forte ever but the confidence boost was much appreciated.

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I know it's probably the camera playing tricks, but the last 3 pictures really make it look like it's a transparent Crystal with something glowing inside. Well done!

DrCyanide said:

I know it's probably the camera playing tricks, but the last 3 pictures really make it look like it's a transparent Crystal with something glowing inside. Well done!

Click to expand...

I apologise for my poor camera and poor camera skills. You might get a better idea of how it looks I have the YouTube link in the last post; it's dynamic as opposed to still anyway.

I appreciate the crystal note. That's a bit of what I was going for originally. What the TV show most reminded me of