This allows the sound to emanate without obstruction. Speaker: The speaker is placed at the bottom of the lightsaber hilt. The external power supply can power the system for over 30 minutes. Typically the internal power supply can only power the system for about a minute.
#Lightsaber sound effect extended portable
The white cable connects this portable charger to the system. It is secured to the handle with duct tape. On the lightsaber, this looks like a lump on the hilt of the lightsaber. Next, there is also an external power supply. The black cable is used to charge this internal powerbank. It is a standard 5V 1A phone portable charger. There is an internal power bank that we were given from a friend. Power: Our system has two portable charges, either of which can power the system. Level shifter - we use the DM74L1S to convert the 3V signal from the microcontroller to 5V signals needed to control the LEDs. MPU6050 - to measure the angle of the lightsaber, we use Adafruit’s Triple-Axis Accelerometer See the appendix for a schematic of the systemĪmplifier - to amplify the audio for our system, we use Adafruit’s 3.7W Class D Amplifier.ĭAC - we use a digital to analog converter to convert the digital synthesis into analog values for the amplifier. Solder Board: Adjacent to the microcontroller board is a solder board with most of the system’s peripherals. The board design is provided through the ECE 4760 course, and is referred to as Sean Caroll's Little board (SECALB). Microcontroller: Our project uses the PIC32MX microcontroller. Within the handle is a microcontroller board and a solder board. Lastly, we use bronze copper tape to accent the adaptor. Next, we add black grips with blakc electrical tape. First, the entire handle was wrapped with grey duct tape, giving it its predominant silver color. Tape: The handle is stylized with various types of tape. Duct tape is used to increase friction and the tightness of the pressure fit. The polycarbonate tube is also pressure fit into the adaptor. It is then pressure fit into the 1.5” PVC pipe. The adaptor is slightly too large and needs to be sanded. The blade’s polycarbonate tube connects to the handle via a ¾”-1” PVC pipe adaptor. The length of the handle is 1.5” PVC pipe purchased from home depot, cut to about 16 inches in length. Pipe: The structure of our handle is a PVC pipe. To deal with the excess, we roll the extra strip material into a tight ball and tape it at the top of the blade.
However, this strip is slightly longer than 3 feet. We chose the strip with 144 LEDs because it is closest in length to 3 feet. LEDs: Inside of the tube, we inserted the Adafruit Dotstar Digital LED strip. We chose to purchase a 3 foot long clear polycarbonate with ¾” diameter on the outside bought here. To emulate the proportions of the movie, we chose to make our blade 3 feet long. Tube: The blade of our system consists of an LED strip inside of a polycarbonate tube.
#Lightsaber sound effect extended software
The circuit design, software and integration are developed independently. We referenced their documentation while purchasing parts.
Note: There is a similar project found here by bitluni. Lucasfilm historically is supportive of the fan community creating projects based on the films We will be careful to not create any copyright issues by selling or claiming ideas like the lightsaber as our own. Lucasfilm owns rights to Star Wars and associated intellectual property like the lightsaber. The measured angle is input into a mapping function that maps each LED to a coordinate on the image to be drawn. To control the LEDs, in particular to generate persistence of vision, we include a gyroscope in our handle that enables us to measure the angle of the lightsaber. To generate sounds, we run an ISR on the microcontroller performing direct digital synthesis. The speaker sits at the base of the handle. The amplifier is soldered onto a project board inside the handle. To generate the sounds from the blade, we included amplifier and speaker components. We use about 3 feet of clear polycarbonate tubing and LEDs for the blade of the lightsaber. As a result, we cut PVC piping for the handle to be about 1 foot in length. Skywriter was designed on the exterior to replicate the appearance of the lightsabers in Star Wars movies.