Hi folks
A few years back, I started designing my own lightsaber fx system. However, despite the many versions i came up with, I'm more than a little Dysmumeric and while I can just muddle through enough to make electronics a hobby, it turns out I can't write code for toffee, despite my best efforts.
Having failed to find someone with enough knowlege or time to help in that area, I saw it as a challenge to see if I could design an analogue equivalent with the kinds of features one normally associates with uC control and so far it's looking like it could happen, with a maybe a little help from you guys in one or two areas.
At the moment I'm looking for a way to recreate the bright pulsating effect when two lightsaber blades are pressed against each other (known as "lock up" in the saber smithing community).
I looked at using a 555 array and other semiconductor shenanigans to produce the pulsing effect but eventually rejected them for various logistical reasons and it got sidelined until I read an article by evil mad scientist.
In the article, he provides a small schematic which shows how one can use a candle effect LED and transfer it's output characteristics to a high power LED using a transistor:
The artical itself
https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/does-this-led-sound-funny-to-you/
the schematic from the article:
It's worth noting that the transistor in the schematic has long been discontinued but I have found others that are a close match on the RS website.
I've designed the system to support 1w RGBW LEDs, the white LED being resurved for the lock up effect and "flash on clash" which is just a single bright flash whenever the blades connect momentarily.
What I'd like to do is integrate the above circuit to share control of the white LED with the flash control circuit via a mosfet gate but its my lack of understanding regarding transistors that brings me here.
The schematic below shows how I've arranged the circuits in qestion, just not sure if it will work as tended:
A few years back, I started designing my own lightsaber fx system. However, despite the many versions i came up with, I'm more than a little Dysmumeric and while I can just muddle through enough to make electronics a hobby, it turns out I can't write code for toffee, despite my best efforts.
Having failed to find someone with enough knowlege or time to help in that area, I saw it as a challenge to see if I could design an analogue equivalent with the kinds of features one normally associates with uC control and so far it's looking like it could happen, with a maybe a little help from you guys in one or two areas.
At the moment I'm looking for a way to recreate the bright pulsating effect when two lightsaber blades are pressed against each other (known as "lock up" in the saber smithing community).
I looked at using a 555 array and other semiconductor shenanigans to produce the pulsing effect but eventually rejected them for various logistical reasons and it got sidelined until I read an article by evil mad scientist.
In the article, he provides a small schematic which shows how one can use a candle effect LED and transfer it's output characteristics to a high power LED using a transistor:
The artical itself
https://www.evilmadscientist.com/2011/does-this-led-sound-funny-to-you/
the schematic from the article:
It's worth noting that the transistor in the schematic has long been discontinued but I have found others that are a close match on the RS website.
I've designed the system to support 1w RGBW LEDs, the white LED being resurved for the lock up effect and "flash on clash" which is just a single bright flash whenever the blades connect momentarily.
What I'd like to do is integrate the above circuit to share control of the white LED with the flash control circuit via a mosfet gate but its my lack of understanding regarding transistors that brings me here.
The schematic below shows how I've arranged the circuits in qestion, just not sure if it will work as tended: