What up Sir Henry
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Love your forum name btw!
Oh dude, don't even sweat it haha!! Like Corwyn said- that's the beauty of the forum. There's a whole slew of talent and expertise here, and everyone's super helpful. All u need is an interest... maybe some
patience determination lol and this place will enable you to learn more than you could imagine. I only started out learning the ins and outs of Sabers and small electronics and building stuff recently, and I can't even believe the stuff I can do now all things considered. The forums and online communities involved in this stuff have a lot to offer.
Ok, so I'm gonna elaborate a bit on what I said up there to show you what I meant about having lots of options to light it up with leds. And this will be a nice little intro to typical saber leds in general so this will help you get started.
All the stuff about the size was to figure out if the idea of having the 4 side blades was even feasible- if the blades could fit all in a ring around hilt without having to be so small it doesn't look right etc. Turns out your all good there lol
. You can fit 5/8" side emitters, which is tiny, but I can say from experience it actually looks perfect for crossguards... and that size is out there on the crossguard scene lol, and you just might know a guy with his ear to that lol, who can tell you where to find a lot of handy stuff like custom little parts etc that will help you overcome the challenges of fitting all the necessary stuff in such tight quarters. It's very doable with leds, both in the sense of fitting a bunch in to light all those blades, and also powering them all with reasonable battery life.
Here's what I mean:
Here are just a few of the typical led modules from various Sabers. You'll notice they don't all look identical, there's slight differences in size and appearance, but the basic design and principles are the same.
So these are what actually kick out the light to illuminate your blade(s). These led modules all have same basic components. The outside bit you see is the module. It's got a sleeve/ jacket which is basically just a protective casing that also holds all the parts inside together and helps dissipate the heat generated by the led. At the very bottom there's a metal slug, a heat sink, which goes up inside the outer jacket. The led star gets secured right to that slug/ heat sink with star shaped thermal tape, thermal epoxy, thermal grease etc. This led star is what your leds come on when you purchase them. It is itslef a type of heat sink, which transfers heat from the diodes to the slug/ heat sink of the module and in turn the outer sleeve, which then dissipates the heat further to the hilt body.
Those diodes I mentioned are super tiny, and they are what actually produce the light. You usually see these come on stars in 1up, 3up, or 4up configurations, which just means there's either one diode mounted on the led star, three diodes, or four. In theory, the more diodes mounted on a star, the more potential they have to run brighter/ hotter/ more current draw etc... but it's not really cut and dry like that. A lot more to all that but no need to worry about it for now. For now this is simply an Intro to leds and modules
. Finally, sitting ontop of the led star, is a lens, or 'optic', which focuses the light from the diode(s) into a concentrated little beam, perfect for shooting out into a blade. This lens is what you see when you look down into the top of led module, and they are tailor made for 1,3,4 up led stars naturally, so you'll spot that when u look at the top/ open side of led module- can see if one or three up inside.
So here we're opening up a module and finding all those standard parts I mentioned-
Here's a custom deep red module.
This particular module, unlike most which thread together, simply slides together and is held with a set screw. Whoever made it must have been particularly clever lol
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So we're loosening the screw and opening... note- you can see from the lens that there is a 3 up led star inside this one right off the bat.
With the outer sleeve removed we can now see all the parts of the led module. That big metal bottom piece is the slug/ heat sink. Sitting on top of that, you can see the little white (in this case) led star. Between the slug and led star is a piece of thermal tape cut to the shape of the star, holding the two together tight and helping with heat transfer. And then sitting on top of the led star is the lens/ optic. In that pic if you look at it for a while u can really get a sense of how everything in the module works to suck the heat away from the diodes on the star, down to the big slug and then out to the sleeve and hilt body.
The lens specifically for 3up led stars.
And the money shot lol. 3 up deep red led star (3 light emitting diodes).
Here's where I'm going with all this, aside from being useful stuff to help start your research in general.
So this is what lights up your saber right? But look how tiny those actual diodes are!! They're the size of a pencil lead for cry'n out loud lol! It's only the module that takes up so much space... and that's only because normal modules are actually designed to take up all the space inside a hilt. This is convenient/ practical for securing in hilt, good for heat transfer and all that. But you can find modules of all diff sizes if you look hard enough, and more importantly- the module isn't the important part- the diodes are all that really matters when it comes down to it. They're what make the light.
In a tight space you can skip the outer sleeve part of module all together and just pop a tiny one diode led on a heat sink. If you wanted you could sand a lens down to fit, but I honestly doubt you'd even need one. For your side blades, since they're stubby/ short, the diode can probably light them up just fine on its own. And in fact you probably wouldn't want a normal/ full sized led module running at full power in a side emitter because it'd turn those small blades way brighter than your main and look weird. If nothing else it'd be a waste- wouldn't need all that lighting power to light a short blade so why have your battery supply it?
So to bring this all home- remember all the size figuring above? Turns out you could fit 5/8" side blades in a ring of four on an average width hilt. Well, lol, here's a custom 5/8" heat sink, with a one up led (this is a warm red rebel). This could easily fit in your side emitters. These aren't commonly available but I can point you to the guy who makes them. He also could hook you up with the small one up leds, I bought mine as a set- pricey, but for completely custom parts well worth it.
See how tiny it is compared to main led module?! BUT notice how the diode itslef is the same size as the diodes on the other star? We've only shrunk the package that all this stuff comes in here is my point- shrinking down the size of the module doesn't have any bearing on the light power you've got in place. You can choose to run an led low or high power, which will factor into battery life, but again this has nothing to do with size of led/ modules you install. So with something like this right here, you can get the same exact type and power of illumination in the crossguards as in your main. These heat sinks fit right inside the side emitter 'barrel' and allow you to sit an led on them. So you could still have a normal sized led module sitting in the normal place to power your main blade, then pop 4 of these little guys in the crossguards and slap leds on them- bam, five bladed saber- easy peasy
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Here's a 5/8" side emitter with that heat sink, which would allow you to pop a tiny led like that in, and at same time, keep everything out of the way of where your main/ full sized module and blade would have to sit. It would be as simple as popping 4 of these in, plus one main module, and running all the wires down from there. Can get tricky sneaking wires around stuff inside hilt- but I've learned a thing or two about that as well
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IMO honestly, this would be WAY easier than trying to rig up mirrors that can actually light all those blades, let alone ones that can do that AND stay aligned/ in tact when struck. Nothing against Corwyn at all- trust me I know he has awesome ideas, I'm literally working with them right now lol! Just think there's no need to get too elaborate on the lighting front- there's so many easy/ straight forward options when comes to that. And in terms of power consumption/ battery life, you can choose how much you want them to drain by how you set them up. But that's a bit advanced for now.
IMO, the hard part won't be lighting it at all- with all the right parts sitting in front of me (costly parts, admittedly) I could have this thing wired for 4 quillions and a main blade in 20 mins lol.. the hard part will be actually creating / then cutting in/ then permanently securing them to hilt so they're sturdy... to me that sounds like cold sweat and lost sleep haha! But everything is possible- just matter of working out the ideas. I actually have a pretty good idea of how to make really nice side emitters... it's the mounting them to hilt part that's got me thinking ATM- that and the thought of trying to cut 3/4" holes into the side of a hilt is beyond terrifying lol. Lemme think about this some more... I'll get back to you.
Hope that helps
. Look forward to watching this! Lemme know if want more info on any of this stuff. Good luck, MTFBWY.
