3DSciFi

Quote from: scifieric on Jun 09, 2019, 01:07 pmScott, that is an incredible game!  I could become addicted to such a game!  The reason I didn't ask for the Android version is that I'm afraid I might play it at work if it was on my phone.

Nice job!

haha well, it can be arranged it much better on phone.

droid apk
you have to download it someplace on your phone and give it permission to run
http://xerotolabs.com/downloads/nutbuster2d_20190511.apk
so far it seems to work on newer Android smartphones.
some may have to let their celly use non-store apps then give it 1-time permission to instal lthis app.
I'm not sure how far back in droid os that works. Pie seems to be fine in all cases as it has per-app permissions for downloaded .apk's

Excellent!  I've got it and I want to play with it this weekend!

Thanks Scott.  I appreciate it!

So, the world of custom lightsabers is an interesting one, always evolving. A guy I know in the saber world likes a newer type pf board called a Proffie, and he apparently no longer likes other boards. So, I bought a board off of him by NEC called the Igniter 3. It's NEC's top of the line board. I decided last night it was time to install that because I got my chassis in the mail from Shapeways. Here's the board and chassis next to the saber:



That hilt is made using Saberforge's Adaptive Saber Parts (ASP) system, where you choose an emitter, switch section, body and pommel and put together a hilt. I soldered in a regular 18650 battery and my recharge port (never done one of those) wires for my switches and my speaker. Everything was going well. Then I soldered in the LED. This was the result:

video link

Needless to say, I was pissed. I poured over my solder connections, looked at config files, nothing. Well, a little bit ago, I looked at the wiring diagram again and found out what the problem was. There were some pads that had to be bridged. Intentionally bridging stuff always throws me off, as the tendency is to avoid that. But, it works now:

video link

So, that was an interesting experience. Now that I figured that out, all I have to do is put it in the hilt and wire up my switches. But, that's for later as I have to go to work. So, the moral of the story is, never stop learning, kids.

Nice Saber, at least you got the issue sorted out.

Nicely done, Chris!  I don't think I would ever have figured that out.

Thanks guys. If I hadn't figured it out, the guy who sold me the board could've helped me. He told me the front breaks away in case you need to put it somewhere else in the saber. I didn't know that about this board.

That saber is turning out to be a real pain in the ass. So, I got it assembled and working, but the blade is dim as hell.



LEDs get blown out in pics, but you can see how much dimmer the saber on the left (the new one) is than the one on the right is. They're both running the green die in the LED. It's the same brand of LED, the same brand and type of battery. Neither battery is fully charged. The blades are different kinds, but there's not that much of a difference between them. Inserting the kill key and then hooking up a battery pack to just the LED solder points leads to a much brighter blade:



I was literally just holding wires hooked up to a battery pack to the LED solder points. As you can see, it's much brighter and less overpowered by the other saber. I have to go through config files on the board's SD card to try and figure out what's wrong with it.

Other than that, there are some other things I don't like about the board. I stepped out of my comfort zone on this one, and this is the type of thing that can happen when you do that.

First, I'm impressed you got it working.

Second, I have faith that you will solve the problems, if they can be solved.

And third, light sabers are just flat out cool.

I don't know, I have to dig into the configuration files and see what's wrong. If I can figure it out, that is. I'm not familiar with this board, the manual doesn't lay out the settings like Plecter Labs does. And, finding help online with NEC boards is turning into a crap shoot.

Yeah, lightsabers are cool. The one on the right is by a company called Illuminated Saber. I put it together a while back with the same type of LED, a Plecter Labs Prizm 5.1 and my usual battery and speaker set up.

 don't know the specs on that LED , but running a led directly to a battery without a way to control current can burn the LED out. if it has some type of on-chip power control it no issue, like some of the old 12v stuff.

if the driver on the board is weak, then you will see the same sort of thing, either way directly drives an unregulated current source into just a LED can degrade them.( they start to get dim ) Its heat that is the enemy . and a led directly on battery on its own is a dead short if it is hooked in the direction that lets lit light up. there is a small drop in voltage the is a fixed amount for the led. LEDs have an ideal voltage a milliamperage, and the driver on the board has to be capable of controlling it.
 
same thing for my laser diodes. the same exact thing actually just laser diodes are also sensitive to static until soldered into a circuit.

in perfect LED world, you have a constant current variable voltage driver.
so you have battery voltage  - the  LED drop  - the driver drop.

Is the blade/diffuser the same ?

it would be interesting if both LED's are the same. to disconnect 1 leg of the good led and measure its forward voltage. ( the put it back OC )
you could compare the two .  if they are the same the forward voltage should match +-3%
if the dull one is the same, the driver on the other unit wants a LED with a lower forward voltage.

Quote from: Prime_8 on Jun 18, 2019, 06:37 amit would be interesting if both LED's are the same. to disconnect 1 leg of the good led and measure its forward voltage. ( the put it back OC )
you could compare the two .  if they are the same the forward voltage should match +-3%
if the dull one is the same, the driver on the other unit wants a LED with a lower forward voltage.

Scott, dude, you never cease to amaze me!

The LEDs are the same make/type, they're from a 5 pack that I bought on Ebay. So, they have the same forward voltage. The LED I put in the new saber has been used before, it is a solid LED. Without swapping the LED to another one, which would be the best way to tell, I'm assuming it's the board. I don't have another LED to test, beyond the one with the nonworking red diode or pulling one out of another saber. Though, I can easily test the LED itself without the board.

I'm regulating the current with a resistor. It's the same type being used in the other saber. It's been calculated using Ohm's law to be correct for the battery and LED. The lithium ion batteries I use also have protection circuits built in to prevent surges. The battery will shut itself off before it sends a power surge through anything. The LED is also on a copper and aluminum heat sink to keep heat down.

There's a whole hobby built around this with parts made specifically for it to prolong the life of components and make sure they're compatible. I buy most of my stuff from The Custom Saber Shop, as it's some of the best stuff to use for sabers.

I've built probably a couple dozen sabers, (conservative estimate) and I've never had an issue like this with LED brightness. The LED I'm using is the type suggested in the manual for the board to use in this type of setup.

The blade and diffuser aren't the same, but switching the new saber to the same type of blade as the other was no help. (first thing I tried)

Well, I can rule out the LED. I'm always up for testing stuff, and I do appreciate the feedback and suggestion, Scott.

So, to test this. I temporarily wired up the LED into a different saber. (no worries, this one is getting redone anyway) For a proper test, I wired up both the green and blue diodes, and set the board on the other saber to a full green and blue mix. I charged both batteries, both are Trustfire 18650 Li-Ion batteries. I put in identical Ultrasabers Ultraedge thin walled blades and the results speak for themselves:



Both blades are identically lit. So, the LED is fine. It could be the board, it could be the battery. To be honest, I don't know. My next step is to wire the guts of the saber up fully outside of a saber and mess around with it. I can wire it up with my usual battery setup, with an 18650 holder, and take a look at it. To test the illumination, I simply need to shine the LED down a blade.

hmm, with the dim one when it running can you check voltage getting to the led.
i would suspect the driver on that board is buggerd or underrated.
its not the correct dimming from overvoltage, and it doesn't look like overcurrent. It's possible the FET/transistor in the driver is duff or some hwo a wrong spec  SMD component got in place.
i have a batch of 32bit MCU's that were sold in bulk because they were 'defective'  when i saw the defect as  unstable comes and resets, i knew the china-fab had the wrong cap or resistor.
the funny thing was i was thinking of getting some daughter boards and making a custom sabre brain.
~ i made a custom RGB driver and controller app for my PC instead at the time. LOL

i did this instead LOl , just using a 8 bit AVR. my STM 32 bit ones can do way more, some have wifi and run web servers :
https://youtu.be/-9zGY5V2_iE
running here https://youtu.be/mrvqC4krXd0