Espruino Lightsaber

Hi guys. I'm planning on building a lightsaber for my 6 yr old daughter and was looking for assistance on how to do so. The espruino pico looks like a perfect choice. It'll fit inside the hilt for younglings. I just need a grocery list of components for the electronics. Basically I need to drive two led strings each about 32-34 inches in length that I will solder together myself. One string blue (5mm) and another white (3mm) for flash on clash effect. I need them to flicker as well. Next i would need to tie that into a soundboard that will produce the ignite, swing, clash, & shutoff sounds. I was wondering if anyone could help me make a "grocery list" of components to buy so I could accomplish this task. I live in the philippines and the custom saber scene here is non-existent. Thank you in advance everyone! May The Force Be With You All.

I guess you need the lights, an Espruino Pico, a speaker and amplifier (you could probably just buy something meant for amplifying stuff from a headphone jack), some power source (a USB battery pack), and to detect you hitting something I'd actually just use a vibration sensor (http://www.espruino.com/Vibration). They're cheap and easier to interface than a proper accelerometer.

I'd probably get a decent size 6.3v capacitor to put across the power rails too - the LED strips tend to draw quite a lot of power and the capacitor really helps.

For the LED strip, what about the WS2812B/Neopixel strips? Some of them have the LEDs almost right next to each other: https://www.adafruit.com/product/1507

But if you did want to go for single-colour LED strips, you'd just need to buy some FETs - there's some info on FETs here and there's actually a brief tutorial on how you might go about wiring them up, including which FETs to buy.

Oh, and for sound you'd use Espruino's Waveform class - you should be able to get a few low-fi sound effects into an Espruino Pico.

I'd definitely use WS2812 LED strips. You could then simulate the way the light sabers light up from the handle outwards when turned on. It's all in the details.

seems like this is getting a big boy toy ;-)

Hey guys this is great stuff. I'm a total electronics noob so I've been studying a lot the last couple of weeks. Boy do I wish that I listened in class before. Haha. Guess I was too caught up in music at the time. The LED strips are cool but it would cast a shadow in the tube, that's why I opted for individual bulbs soldered together in a long chain but will definitely use those for a future project that popped in my head. Man. These microcontrollers are awesome. Now I'm thinkin up of all kinds of stuff to do!

Yes a big boy toy for a little girl. Mainly, I just want to see her face when she ignites this sucker and then the faces of all the other kids (including the ones by heart) when she goes and shows it off. I'm also gonna be using polycarbonate for the blade (1/8) thick wall and 1" OD so she can whack it on a steel bar if she wants. Thanks guys. This is definitely a lot of help. I'll be back with more questions another day hehe. Cheers!

to avoid shadows use three led stripes and put them on a carrier, this should create a nice all-over sword light

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Thanks MaBe! I'll give that a try. Be back when I have results. Have a good one bud.

Gordon. The headphone jack idea is great. That way, if I want to upgrade the speaker, I can just plug another one in. Nice! (virtual fist bump)

For the "swing" sound, won't I need an accelerometer for that?

found this online. http://www.dfrobot.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=1121
features gapless playback. What do you guys think?

Well, the Espruino Pico can play back short low-fi sounds pretty easily - so you may not need the MP3 player module at all.

To get the swoosh, you could consider using different sensitivity vibration switches - a sensitive one goes swoosh, and one that responds to harder knocks creates other noises. You could use an accelerometer for sure, but it depends how confident you are writing code. If you are that's great though - an accelerometer will give you more ability to fine tune things, it'll just be a little harder to get started :)

where does one find a 1" polycarbonate tube for a reasonable amount of money?

http://www.amazon.com/Small-Parts-Clear-Polycarbonate-Tube/dp/B003TJ9YI8 Prime shipping, even on the 6 foot lengths!

Calling it a pipe instead of a tube gets you tons of results - clear PVC exists and is apparently cheap.