I made a Kylo Ren lightsaber from Home Depot plumbing parts and FastLED…
I used a modified sinelon to turn it on (no fading), and a combination of Fire2012 with modified cooling and sparking, and a modified red color palette, and added in some really fast orange glitter. I think it is kinda cool so figured I’d share the code. Here is a link: https://github.com/modustrialmaker/Kylo_Ren_Lightsaber_Neopixel
Looks great! I’ve been wanting to build a light saber for a while. Any build details you’d mind sharing?
@Jason_Coon Thanks!
Sure, the majority of it is a 1.25" pop-up drain, and a 1.25" drain extender…a 4-AA holder barely squeezes into the drain extender. Due to space, I’m running two control lines to LEDs, one to two 119 pixel strips in the blade, and another to four 12 pixel strips making up the cross guard.
The cross guard is 3/4" PVC tee, and the blade is 1" polycarbonate tube (from amazon). I used #17 and #18 O-rings to hold it together, and put 1/4"-20 bolts through it where it needed extra sturdiness. Everything came from Home Depot except the clear tube, which I ordered from amazon.
The diffuser is just a roll of packing foam wrapped around the LED strips. I wrapped scotch tape around the packing foam, which had the unexpected benefit of creating a wavy look (great for ren’s saber, but not desirable for others).
I’m just using an Arduino Nano wrapped in a bunch of electrical tape and stuffed in the hilt as the controller.
Here is some more footage showing the “party mode”…should be fun when out and about with it… starts about halfway through.
Party mode cycles through FastLED examples, and some of @Cine-Lights non-music syncing patterns.
missing/deleted image from Google+
That looks awesome! Thanks for sharing!
Bruh thats awesome!
@Mike_Clifford bouncing balls! 
Wow! Great job! I’ve looked at some lightsaber designs with interest, but you might have finally sold me on building one! What is the density of the pixels you’re using?
@Karl_Tinsley I’m using 2x 144 LEDs/m strips. 2x 119 pixels in the blade, and 2x 12 pixels in each of the cross-guards.
@Mike_Clifford Thanks for the info! How long was the piece of poly tube you bought? Is 3 feet enough, or did you order something longer?
I ordered a 6 ft tube. With a 3 ft tube, I think the main blade might look a touch short after you cut off two pieces for the cross-guard, and factor in that a few inches will be inserted into the hilt and hidden in order to attach the tube. If you are making a normal saber with no cross guard, then 3 ft is about perfect.
@Mike_Clifford Thanks again for the tips and info. Never done one of these, but it looks like I’m suddenly building 4 lightsabers - a Kylo and probably Rey’s, Luke’s, and Vader’s. Friends have asked for them to take to the premier of the new movie. I’m going to build them using the Disney official sabers for the hilt, since they have sound effects built in. Wish me luck!
@Karl_Tinsley Cool, and good luck! The trickiest thing will be getting the Arduino/Teensy integrated with the existing sound boards…voltage may be different and you’ll have to figure out how to sync the on/off button for LEDs with the sound board.
If you want sound, check out the DIYino saber boards…they are a bit pricey…about $60, but they integrate the Arduino, LED interface, sound interface, motion module, etc. all in one fairly compact PCB package. Just google around if you are interested – the guy making them just sells them on Internet forums.
Whatever you decide, I’d love to see it. post pictures here or tag me on Instagram (@modustrialmaker) – I’d love to see how they turn out.
I’ve seen the dedicated boards - the nano biscotti is the one I was looking at. If I decide to get serious building these I will probably try one. Hopefully, I can overcome the challenges you pointed out. I’ll be happy if I can just get them to light up in time with the sound. I’ll definitely post some pics of the finished products!