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Making a Lightsaber

10/8/2013

2 Comments

 
As I said before, my 9 year old is working on making a lightsaber for his monthly science project. Or course, whatever the 9 year old has, the 5 year old wants. I decided to assemble a light saber for the little guy tonight so I know how much work the older guy is going to have to do. 

In this post, I am only showing the base of the lightsaber. It's quite straightforward. I am using four super bright LEDs from Sparkfun, two 220 ohm resistors, a 9V battery, and a switch. For the housing, I cut down some PVC pipe and bought some fittings for the end. The most expensive piece of equipment is the switch at about $4. The entire lightsaber comes in under $10. 

As an exercise, I had Devin (the 9 year old) use this website, which generates a circuit and the necessary resistors for a given number of LEDs. It's a good tool and perfect for a child with very little knowledge of Algebra. I'll include a schematic of the LED circuit below. I have also included pictures from throughout the project.

After I finished James' (the 5 year old's) light saber, Devin decided to solder his up tonight too. They both turned out rather well. All that is left is attaching the tube.
Picture
2 Comments
Psychoturtle
10/10/2013 02:30:17 am

Does anyone know if the light defuser from LCD displays backlighting would work for this? I don't know how flexible they are, but they distribute the light across the screen and if rolled in the tube, might allow the light from the LED's to more evenly shine through out the tube.

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Ben link
10/10/2013 03:34:03 am

I don't know about the LCD diffusers, but I was thinking that just roughing the top of the LED with some sand paper might do the trick. The sides of the are opaque, but the top is clear. I don't have enough of the super-bright LEDs left to play around with it too much before my son's project is due.

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