Hello everyone, my name is Dako. When I was 10 years old, my dad bought me a set of juggling sticks. I quickly picked them up, and so he bought a pair and decided to play along also. Long story short, I decided I want to make him some LED sticks. I have a pretty simple idea in mind. Using micro LED's and 30 awg electrical wire. My only problem is, I know nothing about circuits. I want to power and alternate between 40 lights or so, 20 on each end. I also thought it would be cool to throw in one of those things from a kids toy. So each time it hits, the lights will alternate colors. I'm not sure if this is possible, but if anyone could point me in the right directions that would be wonderful. At this point, I didn't even know what to google.. sorry for not being the search. Once again, this is a grey area for me. I soldered on my xbox plenty of times, but thats about it.

Devil sticks (LEDS attached to the tips of black things, and ran through pipe in the middle. )

 

Welcome to AAC!

Some friendly advice... Your post would be easier to read if you organized your thoughts into paragraphs. I've tried to do that for you below. Click on "Click to expand..." to see.

Hello everyone, my name is Dako.

When I was 10 years old, my dad bought me a set of juggling sticks. I quickly picked them up, and so he bought a pair and decided to play along also. Long story short, I decided I want to make him some LED sticks.

I have a pretty simple idea in mind. Using micro LED's and 30 awg electrical wire. My only problem is, I know nothing about circuits. I want to power and alternate between 40 lights or so, 20 on each end. I also thought it would be cool to throw in one of those things from a kids toy. So each time it hits, the lights will alternate colors.

I'm not sure if this is possible, but if anyone could point me in the right directions that would be wonderful. At this point, I didn't even know what to google.. sorry for not being the search.

Once again, this is a grey area for me. I soldered on my xbox plenty of times, but thats about it.

It seems to me that for juggling, weight and balance would be important.

Since a DIY project will not benefit from techniques available from a manufacturer, collect the components you want to incorporate and weigh them to see if it's practical. Can you find RGB (Red, Green, and Blue) LEDs in the package you want? Can you fit the wires for them through the tube (you didn't mention whether they should blink together or independently)? Can you find a way to attach the LEDs? Can you fit the required circuitry and power source into the tube? And so on...

The only LEDs in "micro" package are surface mount and will require at least 4 connections. Attaching wires to those packages will be difficult and having no mechanical support will be problematic; the wires will get ripped off because solder joints aren't intended to provide much of a mechanical connection.

This is the same process anyone would go through before attempting any project.

I think you're going to end up buying something...

 

If you want to go the DIY path here are some color changing leds.
A.H.W.
edit
You can get fast changing and slow changing leds.

 

The electrical aspects of your project are 'easy'. We can help you with them and you can assume you can do almost anything you want. The hard part, in my opinion, is building it. I assume it needs to be fairly strong and not very big (wide). It'll need a battery and holder, and a way to replace the battery. Challenging.

 

I Googled it. Found some $200 items, but this link had them starting from $40...

 

I Googled it. Found some $200 items, but this link had them starting from $40...

If you can find something commercially that you like, I'd buy rather than build. You'll spend a lot of time to save $40, and your materials may add up to half that anyway. Maybe reverse-engineer the ones you buy and then build something better/unique once you can see what others have already done. Don't spend time reinventing wheels.

 

Just in case: What is length & inside diameter of tube ?