Darth Vader's light sabre booster

[JeffdaMaori]

Built this a while back for a laugh...
Story goes like this:...my son and I watched a music video and the guitarist had a similar stompbox, stepped on it and the lights burst out. I don't remember what the band was nor the song, but I still have to laugh about the effect of the guitarist stepping on that thing to launch into the solo then...

We totally laughed our heads off and I instantly knew I had to build one like it but with more LEDs in a smaller box AND with a working circuit in it (because I bet the one in the music video was just a dummy for the show... it didn't have any knobs on it was a bit of a give away...).

So I present you "Darth Vader's light sabre booster of merciless doom and blinding destruction", the LEDs are so bright it actually hurts when you stare into them and when it's switched on there's a blue circle of light on the ceiling... it doubles as stage lighting for a bit.
Hope you enjoy and have a laugh too...!

Cheers
Andy

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[JeffdaMaori]

... and engage the weapon.... a total of 44 bright blue LED suck on the internal battery... venemous stuff!

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[JeffdaMaori]

... and here's the guts before circuit is in there. I was originally thinking about a two knob drive  but ended up putting a one knob booster ('stratoblaster' circuit, sounds quite nice although the looks are on this one more important for a change...) into it for space reasons.
The LED wires are insulated with clear epoxy resin.
Mohahahaha... evil world destruction 


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[JeffdaMaori]

... and just another shot of the alien ship landing for good measure....

Cheers

Andy

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[bigmufffuzzwizz]

You rule for making this!!! Didn't realize it was so easy to hook up multiple LED's. I bet your LED resistor is huge.

[JeffdaMaori]

Having fun rules... still laughing... cheers for comment!
No LED resistor in there, all those LEDs run directly off a drained/much used 9V battery that puts out 5 to 6 V (measure on DMM), so I recycle 9V batteries in there that are too weak for normal stompboxes.

The booster circuit in there is completly independently powered off the 9V jack on side, so it doesn't interfere with LED powering and circuit sounds just fine even if battery runs too low. Battery actually last quite some time and as said, it's anyway batteries that I would have to throw out as the are running low. Gives them a second run for the money...

Andy

[nzCdog]

Awesome! Must have taken a while to drill that out... I wonder will having them on different power source mean you could get away with those noisy multi color flashing LEDs... I'm starting to think of a psychedelic color version of your cool Darth Vader idea... 

[JeffdaMaori]

Multicoloured flashing.... Mohhahhahhaaaa almost get seasick imagining it...!
The battle has begun....

Ya could be a way to avoid noise interference as well I guess with different power source. Haven't tried anything with flashing stuff yet though, so not sure.
Let the force guide you I reckon'....

Andy

[jkokura]

AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Awesome. I love star wars.

Jacob

[petesz]

  Haha that rules so hard!! 

[Myramyd]

PEDAL...OF...THE...YEAR!!!!!!

Bloody awesome man, bloody awesome!

J

[night-B]

Awesome work !
These would be cool too http://www.banzaimusic.com/LED-20mm-red.html
BTW I don't know how to wire them...

[sgmezei]

That thing is absolutely ridiculous. I LOVE IT! I was thinking of doing something of this sort with the colorsound overdriver (cherrybomb) but with different colors and not as EPIC!

Awesome job man! I cant even handle ONE ultrabright LED.

[pauloman80]

Forget Charlie Sheen.  This pedal is WINNING.  That's just amazing, and I want to make one.

[crash]

Love the pedal!  The only thing is, Vaders light saber wasn't blue, it was red.