Thanks everyone!
Sneak peak of the string being assembled:
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Interesting. I know a few of us on here might be insane enough to try something like this. What are your totals costs at so far?
It’s not cheap compared to a normal blade. You could lower the cost by have the PCB’s panelized and assembled by the board manufacturer…but that would require a larger quantity to be purchased.
Just a warning, I have spent about 20 hours so far in manual assembly. I could not do it again.
Here is my cost to build it, including the blade materials:
| BOM | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part | P/N | Cost | Qty Needed | Ext. Cost |
| Pixel | IN-PI42TASPRPGPB | $0.30 | 570 | $170.43 |
| Capacitor (0.15 uF) | GRM155R71E104KE14D | $0.01 | 190 | $1.33 |
| Board | $11.44 | 0.5 | $5.72 | |
| Stencil | $16.07 | 1 | $16.07 | |
| Wire | $22.00 | 0.3 | 6.60 | |
| Board Shipping | $17.01 | 1 | $17.01 | |
| Wire Shipping | $10.69 | 1 | $10.69 | |
| Components Shipping | $8.89 | 1 | $8.89 | |
| Blade Tube | $10.25 | 1 | $10.25 | |
| Blade Tip | $6.50 | 1 | $6.50 | |
| Blade Base | $4.00 | 1 | $4.00 | |
| Foam Tube | $9.50 | 1 | $9.50 | |
| Blade PCB | $4.28 | 1 | $4.28 | |
| 0 | ||||
| Tax | $26.45 | |||
| Total | $297.72 |
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Wow, I know you ran through some basic figures earlier but holy moly.
I hope ot ends up being the “one blade” you just have to show off!
Yeah, it added up fast…
I think it is going to be really nice looking. None of my sabers are built to handle 15 amps at the moment. But, with mono-color it sits around 6 amps, which is reasonable.
I got some of the new “thin” ID foam from TCSS, the only problem is the OD is still really loose in a 1" thin walled blade. I’m thinking about going down to 7/8". The only problem with that is there are no good tips for 7/8" trans-white blades on TCSS…
would love to see what the blade looks like versus a dual strip neopixel blade
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I’m planning on doing a comparison once it’s done. Some sort of undersaturated photo would probably be the best comparison.
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Actual HDR photage requires fairly expensive cameras.
My recommendation is simply to do the comparison in a bright room, or maybe even outside.
If the environment is bright enough, then the blades won’t be clipped and you might actually be able to tell the difference in the pictures.
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All good advice. I will probably have to do some testing to get a good picture. My main concern right now is finishing assembly of the blade. I have 40 disks stacked, ~130 to go.
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yeah, i’m now also quite interested to see our super blade here outside
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It’s done. Here it is next to a skinny-mini blade. They are both running 0,20,255 as the color. I’m not sure how charged either one is, as it is 1 AM and I cannot deal with it right now.
I have a few dead pixels that need to be resurrected.
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Nice job, take a well deserved break!
Looking forward to comparison shots.
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Well done, your dedication to this is unparalleled 
Looks mighty impressive too.
And like @NoSloppy said… take a well deserved break.
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In theory, how would power consumption stack up against something like a KR stick?
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Thanks everyone!
As for the current. Running one color uses 6.12A…so 18A for white, although I will probably derate any white colors to a lower brightness.
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So not much more than a normal blade? Are they smaller pixels?
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The pixels are rated at 12mA per die, so 36mA when the LED is set to white. There are 510 pixels in the blade…as opposed to ~260 for a normal neopixel blade.
They are much smaller physically than a normal 0505 pixel.
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