Made my own light stick, what do you think?

CaveDweller

CaveDweller

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Paul
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I'm not after critique on the image just the light stick, I was just testing it. Mind you I did put a lot of effort into the shot lol. I made the light stick out of a broom handle and a £15 set of 5050 RGB LED's off Ebay. The way I have wrapped them round the broom handle has given it a strange staggered effect, I'm not sure if I like it or not. I can re-arrange them because they are only stuck on with double sided tape, but what do you think? I quite like the look of it when I did the rainbow shape but when it's coming towards the camera and the way the LED's go round the broom handle I'm not too sure, it looks a bit messy. I don't know whether that's because I'm crap at gadgets or because I tripped over the coffee table in the first picture. Either way I'm finding it hard to explain what I mean.

Also, when it gradually changes colour, the way the LED's dim it leaves dotted lines when you look closely, but I can't change that. I could make it shorter as well but I don't want to go cutting LED's off before I decide I like it or not.

Cheers.








Edit. It's looks a bit better when I do it more smoothly. Still not sure though.
 
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coldpenguin said:
Quite cool, like number 2.
What does your kid think?
Click to expand...

Not sure, he was laughing lol. He was tired out after the 10hour drive to get here to his nan's, so me waving a light stick around didn't really help. I've not done any light painting around here in the Pembroke area so hopefully the weather holds up. I leave to head back up to Scotland on tuesday so surely I'll get out with it at some point.
 
Did you take any pictures of the products and the actual build so others could try the same thing?
 
Cool. :cool: This type of photography is not something I personally would consider doing but I still enjoy others efforts. Agree with Bazza that you should photo the light stick for those who may want to try themselves.

Steve
 
Thanks. I'll take some pictures now and get the links to what I bought. All in all it cost me about £22
 
This is what I got to make it.

LED's, power supply, remote control and control box: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/350896181...eName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
Battery cases (you can order other ones but as long as it adds up to 12V it shouldn't matter): http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271358353...eName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1497.l2649
Broom handle and electrical tape from your local DIY store.

I ordered two battery holders so I had to wire them in series to make it up to 12V. I then cut off the wire from the mains power supply that plugs into the control box and wired it to the battery cases. Plugged it all together and wrapped the LED's round the broom handle. The LED's only have to be connected at one end and they can be cut to length every three LED's along the cut lines. I just used the whole length to make sure I was happy with it first.

I've not finished making it yet. As you can see everything is still loose as I still have to secure everything onto the pole. Also going to tidy up the wiring with proper heat shrink wrapping to ensure they don't pull apart and cut off the end of the pole to tidy it up a bit.

It has lot's of different functions and you can even make up to six of your own modes.

Here's a few quick snaps to see what's what.

You can see what wire I cut off the power supply in this picture. Wired the two cases in series to make 12V and connected it to the cut off power supply wire.


This is the control box and remote. The big plug goes into the LED strip and the other little wire is the IR receiver for the remote. You just leave that and stick it somewhere.


The pole.


Everything wired together, just has to be mounted to the pole now.
 
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Forgot to add that if someone does go out and try this, buy the 5050 LED's, not the 3528. The 5050 are a lot brighter.
 
Looks like it works well plus a decent write up, I may invest in the parts myself at some point.

Thanks
 
Be careful when using it though. I don't think those Ebay lights are the best of quality. I dropped it the other day and now have three lights not working right in the middle of the stick which you can obviously see in the final images. It should be alright if you're careful, but then again they are only cheap to replace, because I have the whole kit I will only have to buy another strip of lights so it should be cheaper anyway.
 
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