LED Glowstick ideas

Ok, first of all I've been reading for a bit but this is my first post. I'm currently trying to decide on the CMG Reactor, the InReTech adapter, or the Opalec adapter, but that's a whole other thread.

Anyway, I've started lately learning to do Poi (the art of spinning stuff around you, for all of you confused by this LEDmuseum review check out HomeOfPoi for some example movies) using Glow Sticks and I've decided that 1) glow sticks are too expensive in the long run and 2) LEDs would be SO much sexier. So I've been thinking up some ideas for creating an LED glowstick. What I'm thinking is taking a current glowstick, cutting out the bottom and soving everything inside. So far I've branstormed some ideas for the LED and batteries:

LEDs:
</font><ul type="square">[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">single Luxeon star</font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">3-4 Super Bright LEDs (preferably all different colors)</font>[/list]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Batteries:
</font><ul type="square">[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">single 12V 23A (or is it A23?) camera battery in the stick</font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">single AA (lithium) in the stick with a step-up converter</font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">single 9V held at the handle, with power wires braided down the rope to the stick</font>[/list]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Now I'm pretty sure that any combination of those will work, but I'm not totally sure and I'm not sure which would be the best. Basically I want some sort of descently bright LED glow stick (at least visible in normal room light) with descent runtime (a few hours or something) and cheap. Also it'd be nice if I'd not have to revert to holding the 9v, as it might get in the way.
Any suggestions would be great.

Welcome to CPF! I know someting that would be real nice--Arc AAAs with BP clips on them on the end of ribon or rope or Poi chain or whatever you call it. As a side benefit you could use the Arc AAA for "normal use" when not spinning it around. Unfortunatly, I think a flying Arc AAA could injur and or mame somone...there goes that idea (Idea only, not the Arc) out the window.

There is already a product like the one you are looking for. It is called a glo-toob. It uses a 12V 23A battery to power 3 or 4 super bright colored LEDs. the whole thing is excased in Epoxy. Lots and lots of epoxy.

If you do decide to make your own out of a salvaged chemical glow stick be careful! Chemical glow tubes are actually glass vials encased with plastic. When you activate a glow stick you're literally breaking the glass open.

hrm, thanks for the bit on the Glo-Toobs. They are almost exactly what I'm looking to build, only thing is they're $35 a piece (that's $70 a pair, bit expensive for a highschooler with no job).

Looking around a bit more I just found the Sauce Lightwand. Seems to be almost exactly what I'm looking for (3 color LED) and reasonable price ($15). Only thing is it's probably not nearly as bright as one I can make, and nowhere near as fun =). Oh, and I'm aware that glowsticks have glass vials in them, I'd carefully wash out the broken glass.

I really like my lightwand. Surfing LED sites last night I found a page where someone has replaced the LED's that come in the lightwand with some high brightness ones. Unfortunately I didn't bookmark the page. But if you're handy with a soldering iron you may be able to make something really bright out of one.

If not there is always the light show LED from www.bgmicro.com (search for LED1081) which you could directly power from a couple of button cells, or solder on a long cord to a bigger power pack in your pocket. At $3.50 a piece you could run several of them. I think that would definitely look very cool, as a matter of fact I ordered a couple to play with myself a couple of days ago

-James

rycen: hrm, that light wand seems a bit boring, single color. But the desgussion of battery types helps.

James: DAYMN!! that thing looks sexy. Could hook up 2 of those to a 12v a23 or something for each poi, so 4 changing color lights flying around...starts drooling. Wonder what the light output is on them. Do you know of any site with more secs on it or anything? Also I wonder if I can find them on any other site. I'm in Texas so I'd pay both shipping and tax

It was Trevor/Aragorn that changed out the Lightwand LEDs. Changed them out for Photon LEDs I believe...

woohoo, another high schooler. and bonus, he has no job! Welcome to CPF.

James: any idea what the actual BG Micro LED is? I found this review of an almost identical ETG unit at the LEDmuseum. Thing is the ETG runs 3.6v@20ma (very normal and reasonable) while the BG Micro one runs 4.5v@90ma (very heavy when running off a weak battery like a 23a...or is it a23...bleh). Anyone have any idea where to get the ETG one (their site is horribly useless, doesn't even list the particular LED).

I ordered myself 2 of them, and they just arrived today! I've only had a few moments to play with them. At their requested voltage/amperage it started to get rather warm after just a few moments, so I wonder if perhaps that is over stated.

I think the 90ma is a worst case load, when all 3 led chips are on at the same time. during flickering and fading and whatnot I imagine the load would be all over the place with an average of about half of that, or even less. As far as the batteries were concerned at least.

I'll do some more testing tomorrow at various voltage and ma levels and see what the performance is.

I can say that at their rating of it is very bright. In a dark room it will be quite striking. The 2 I've got are a little different from that big picture on Craig's site. The substrate is the same, but the actual LED chips are not visible, there is a milky white cover over the chips, very similar to what is under the chips in that picture. however, the case is still clear, and it doesn't do a good job of diffusing the light. If I hold it near enough to the wall to cast a beamshot the 3 lights focus into different places. Might need some sanding or something to better diffuse the light for poi.

As far as what it really is, bgmicro is not forthcoming with that info I have no idea where it came from or what it was originally planned for. You might call in your order and ask them, they seem like great people the little contact I've had with them.

I'll post again tomorrow with some pictures and more info.

Thanks
James

Originally posted by Saaby:
It was Trevor/Aragorn that changed out the Lightwand LEDs. Changed them out for Photon LEDs I believe...

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">YES! Thats right, it looked like a great mod. I have to fight with my 2 year old daughter for who gets to play with our lightwand But she would probably not miss it long enough for me to do something similar to it...

Whats a little bit troublesome is that I didn't think to do that to it right away. Normally I take apart and break things before I've really had a chance to play with them. I must not be getting enough sleep. It's kind of late right now actually.

OK, here's the scoop.

I did some testing today with the resisters scaled for 3.2v at 40ma. In order to find the best resister to get that from your choice of battery power I would use http://linear1.org/ckts/led.php

At those settings it's still plenty bright and does not get more than just slightly warm to the touch. You can try pumping that up towards 90ma if you like for experimenting. As long as you don't go too far over that you wont burn them out.

Here are a couple of picts







It doesn't flash constantly, it does go through some slower fades through colors so it wont be totally frenetic the whole time, but I still think it would look cool. The ma usage is all over the place, sometimes it's almost nothing sometimes as much as the 40ma, but the batteries will last much longer than they would supplying that current to a constantly on LED.

Give these a try and post some pictures of what you build with them!

Thanks,
James

bah, I had this response typed up then accidently closed mozilla

Anyway, since they run fine at 3.2v @ 40ma, they look perfect. I'd really like to use a pair of AA/AAA lithiums with a step-up, but I'm afraid the extra circuitry will break too easily (I'm wondering about the durability of even the most simple circuit when it's hit against a hard surface, such as my face or body 0_o). I'll just stick with some 12v A23's for now. Since I have 12V to use, I'm figure I might as well use it all and go for 3 of these LEDs for a total of 9.6v @ 40ma. Bassed off energizer's A23 datasheet I'm thinking of using a small 39ohm resister that'll offer 87ma @ 13v, 61ma @ 12v, and 35ma @ 11v. I think that's a descent compromise for not running it *too* hot to start with but still allowing descent battery life. An other idea I just had was using a fixed 10v voltage regulator such as the NTE1932 and then an extremely small (8ohm) resistor. Only thing is I'm not sure how reliable it'll be with that small of a resister or if it'll even work with such a small Vi - Vo.

Thanks a bunch James, I really appreciate the imput.

One other thing I meant to mention...

I did try running them in series and it will work OK, but the time bases are not the same, so the displays won't be doing exactly the same thing at the same time and will get further off the longer you run them. It actually makes for a nicer more random display, but something that might surprise you otherwise.

I have a couple of those tiny 12v batts that I use for my modded solitaire. I suppose I could test with that too. But I'm sure that will work OK.

The A23's have a lot of internal resistance and so will keep the current down a bit, but you still may need a bigger resister. If not for the internal resistance of the cell you would be looking for a 68ohm resister. You can probably get away with less, but make sure you try it out before you glue it all together or something and make sure that the led's aren't getting too hot.

While the voltage regulator would be great if you were running from a wall wort of some other power supply, I think it's overkill for the little battery. Those little batts will drop below 10v very early on in your use of them and so all the regulator would be doing after the first few minutes is wasting power.

Good Luck!
James

Alright, ditch the regulator idea. The reason I was thinking about using half the resistor that you suggested was for extended battery life. Looking at the datasheet for the batteries most of it's life seems to be in the 11ish range. Using a 68ohm resister there will be a measly 20ma of current ((11v-9.6v)/68ohm) pushing through it. Using a 39ohm resister I'll be maxing out the LEDs with 87ma on fresh batteries (which are 13v), but this'll quickly drop and it will still be providing a full 30ma down to 10.8v. That is assuming that my calculations are correct and I'm understanding basic electronic theory from Physics I (which are both very possibly not true).

Oh, I got impatient while I was at a local amusment park type thing, and they were selling for $9 a piece multi-color light wands. I have no digital camera, so I'll mearly describe it. They have 3 rapidly switching high-power LEDs housed in a metal case which glow into a clear plastic tube that does a good job of reflecting the light along the entire length. The cool effect is that when swinging around the switching causes a flag pattern to appear, with like 2 inches of blue, 2 inches of green, and 2 inches of red. Only problem: I've had them for maybe all of a single hour, and BOTH of the clear plastic tubes broke off of the base. I tried hot-glueing them back on (anyone have better suggestings for attatching plastic to metal?) but if they break off again I'll probably just canabalize them (the plastic tube thing is very cool) so hopefully it won't be a complete waste of $18.

Oh, and these new lights reminded me. How do the LEDs you have fade? Is it slow fade between each color, instant change between colors, or some sort of strobing?

Btw, I just confirmed with B. G. Micro that their LED is indeed the same ETG one reviewed at the museum. They sent me the spec sheet on it, but it seems fairly useless:
link

Also I directly e-mailed ETG and they say they'll sell me a few dirrectly at $3.50 a piece (same at BG) but whatever shipping I want, including $0.37 USPS (as opposed to BG's flat $6).

Hrm, just looking around randomly I found the other ETG flasher available at All Ecectronics: link . It has a simpler flashing pattern, is a bit more expensive, and All Electronics also has a $6 minimum shipping.

Hopefully I'll be able to whip something together this or next weekend.

Have you considered krill lights? They are about the same brightness as a chemical glowstick, but use 2 AA batteries. I think you can find them at www.glow-bug.com
I must admit,though that the Sauce lightwasher wands are pretty cool!

Originally posted by Brody:
Have you considered krill lights? They are about the same brightness as a chemical glowstick, but use 2 AA batteries.
I must admit,though that the Sauce lightwasher wands are pretty cool!

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<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Krill lightsticks are as bright as chemical lightsticks??? You must have an amazingly good one. My own Krill 180 Extreme is about 20% as bright as my chemical ones. It is waterproof and ruggedly built though. Just not a good illuminator, IMHO.

I still suggest the Lazerstik at $13.US. It floats, is waterproof, and runs 12 hours on 20 cent button cells.
-Not near as much fun as that Lightwand though.

Krills are supposed to be markers, rather than illumination devices.

I was a touch peeved at B.G. Micro one time when they shipped me a bunch of different LEDs unmarked and left me to sort them out. They did get the order out quickly and the amounts were correct though. The flat rate shipping can be good or bad depending...

My Krill 180 was unreliable enough that I sent it back for a refund. Check the Princeton Tec Eco Flare or Sport Flare for another marker option.