Multi-color EL Blades?

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

The EL blades I've seen so far are very mono-colored, all green, all blue or whatever. But I was thinking that the lightsabers on screen have a variation of colors and the EL blades would look a lot better if they had a white wire in there, too. It looks like there's enough room in the saber hilt for two 9-volt batteries. Has anyone tried that? An EL blade with a white wire or two in the middle and blue on the outside?

[Faylana Torena]

There was some mention of making custom colors on TheForce.net forums, I think it was in Jedi Loreen's tutorial thread (someone had made a purple blade from red and blue neon wires, they twisted them together to get an even color from all angles of the blade). But basically they said that if you wanted to add a different colored strand in there then just have 2 strands/lengths of your dominant color and 1 of your second color and solder them as normal.

So yeah it's deffinately possible to make a different colored blade.

Why would you need 2 batteries though? EL blades are typically made with 3 strands or 3 lengths worth of EL wire; using 2 lengths/strands of one color and one strand of another color wouldn't require a second battery - either way you're still using the same amount of power from the battery since the drivers work based on the total length of wire hooked up to it not how many different wires or colors of wires there are. Atleast that's what I understand from reading Jedi Loreens EL thread.

[Ani-Chay Pinn]

Well, I was thinking that 2 batteries might make the blade brighter with one for the blue light wire and one for the white light wire. However, twice as much power does not translate to twice as much brightness. Light intensity goes more on a log scale. But I would be curious to see if two 9-volt batteries would look much better since it doesn't seem like it would be much more effort for two.

[Olos Nay]

I think the idea of 2 batteries is more in the sense of battery longevity... maybe I am wrong.
If you have a white EL in the middle, and colored EL on the outside, would this make a white core and colored aura like in the film?
That is interesting.

[Jeffrek]

Regarding the 2 battery in parallel question.

An EL inverter will use a certain amount of current. This is determined by the design of the inverter and the length of wire it is driving.

If your batteries cant supply the needed amount of current then the inverter cannot work at full capacity and your wire will be dimmer.

Some 9V batteries (especially cheap ones) cant meet the high current demands. Wiring 2 batteries in parallel does 2 things. First it doubles the capacity and secondly it doubles the amount of current that can be supplied at any instant.

In effect you do generally get a slightly brighter, longer lasting EL blade. Its alot more noticeable when cheap batteries are used though.

You certainly dont need 2 inverters though if your total wire length is within the capacity of the one your using. You can mix and match as many different colours/lengths as you want as long as you dont exceed the total the inverter is designed for.

[Leda EmBorr]

All of my el bladed saber take one 9volt battery... but I don't think there would be room for another battery in the tube.

It would be nice to make the batteries last longer because it really is a pain carrying extras along in the pouch!

[LoreenShadowchaser]

I don't think you can really achieve the "white core" effect with EL wire, it's not bright enough.

I guess you could try putting a white strand in the center of, say, 3 colored strands, but I think you'd probably just end up with a lighter color.

I can try it this weekend, if I have the time. I have a piece of white EL wire and some blue, aqua, red and green. I can just strip the wires and twist them together with the white in the center and the colored strands on the outside and slide them inside a diffuser tube with the stripped ends hanging out and put an inverter directly on the wires.

I know you can't really mix different colors, like green and yellow, you're just going to see spots of the separate colors inside the diffuser. I've played with that idea before.

Unless you try diffusing is so much that there's no room for the EL wire inside the blade or it gets too dim to even matter.

[Johann Shinobi]

loreenshadowchaser said:

I don't think you can really achieve the "white core" effect with EL wire, it's not bright enough.

I guess you could try putting a white strand in the center of, say, 3 colored strands, but I think you'd probably just end up with a lighter color.

I can try it this weekend, if I have the time. I have a piece of white EL wire and some blue, aqua, red and green. I can just strip the wires and twist them together with the white in the center and the colored strands on the outside and slide them inside a diffuser tube with the stripped ends hanging out and put an inverter directly on the wires.

I know you can't really mix different colors, like green and yellow, you're just going to see spots of the separate colors inside the diffuser. I've played with that idea before.

Unless you try diffusing is so much that there's no room for the EL wire inside the blade or it gets too dim to even matter.

What about Taking a White strand inside a colored blade? you would get a white core and colored corona whouldn't you?
Also if you double the strands does it double increase the intensity?

[LoreenShadowchaser]

In order to make a colored blade, you're either going to have to find a piece of colored film that's long enough, or use a colored acrylic tube, which I wouldn't recommend for dueling purposes, because it's not as strong as polycarbonate.

I think the white EL wire would just light up the colored film or tube, not really produce a white core effect.

Maybe it's possible to do it with some sort of LED array, but I don't know how feasible that would be, size and power wise.

[Johann Shinobi]

what about Dying the Polycarbonate to the color you want with a alchol or tanning dye

[Ldi-Ovef Te_Azi]

one day we will be able to get the white core effect, that will probably be the day that a real lightsabre would be made

[Olos Nay]

with a properly made Luxeon saber, you can have not a white core with colored aura, but a paler brighter colored core - its thinner then what you see in the movie, but its still very impressive.

I'd post pictures, but I didn't manage to replicate what I really have off my blade on camera.

[Ldi-Ovef Te_Azi]

yeah, pictures and the real deal look very different

[Ldi-Ovef Te_Azi]

looking at some of randomsabre's el blades, the green and the purple have a definate white core with the colored aura. it looks pretty good on picture, i wonder how it looks in real life

[Olos Nay]

Randomsaber's blade are essentially the same as mine... the white core is due to the camera not being able to compensate for the exess of light from the blade. I suspect hyperblades are the same. However, a well-made luxeon blade supply you with a paler thin core that is impressive.