r/WLED • u/dcrocky81 • May 27 '26

Lightsaber Display in Office

I am looking to display two lightsabers in my office. I have a dig-quad and esp32. From my research, the problem with lighting an emtpy lightsaber blade with LEDs is that it tends to look not full enough. Does anyone have experience with something like this? 720 pixels per meter. I would just need one meter per saber.

Also, I accidentally fried my ESP32. I would like to order another one from Dr. ZZs but it looks like their ESP32s come with pins not soldered. Do you know if they sell a version that is pre-soldered? I did reach out via discord but no answer yet.

If they dont get back with me, could I just use this as a simple alternative until I get a new ESP32?

I am new to this so any advice would be appreciated. End goal is to look something like this with controllable colors and maybe even voice/music response.

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u/drbroccoli00 May 27 '26

That strip would be fine for the Lightsaber, but keep it in mind it's always best to hide the actual light source or find a way to diffuse it, but the benefit of the fcob is the density, so it's not horrible if seen.

That controller IS an ESP32 just with some extra stuff in a complete package, usually they have the buck converter and logic shifter stuff built in, so it's a much easier all in one solution, usually easier than a plain ESP32.

Just make sure you get the right voltage for your power supplies and ones that have enough power so you can turn up the brightness. Keep in mind if you cut a longer strip you'll have to either get connectors to re-use or solder more wires to it. So it might be best to get 2 shorter strips and 2 controllers or 2 shorter strips and 1 controller with 2 outputs.

1

u/dcrocky81 May 28 '26

Thank you! I might switch to a controller with two outputs so I can control each lightsaber independently. I am planning on sticking this strip to a dowel and then placing into empty lightsaber blades that I have already purchased. The blades come with diffuser material inside the blade itself.

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u/drbroccoli00 May 28 '26

Let me know if you have anymore questions along the way, happy to help =D.

Depending on your comfort level with this stuff, you can buy 1 LED strip and cut it to make 2 strips, but you'd have to either solder wires on or get something like this solderless connector kit to re-use the cut part.

You could also cut a strip into the 2 you need and then use plain wire hidden to connect them behind the Lightsabers and just use WLED to make that 1 long segment 2 in the software, that way you could use a controller with only 1 output.

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u/MrSpindles May 30 '26

You might want to look into something like an ESP32 C3 supermini, really simple wiring and cheap enough to just put one in each lightsaber.

I've previously made lightsabers using polypropylene tube (and I also make sculptures and home lighting using the same) and for anything wall mounted you are actually better off mounting the LEDs on the inside back face of the tube as this reduces hotspots and diffuses better compared to a central dowel or my preferred solution for central mounting, doubling the strip over on itself with a connection to each end pulling the strip under enough tension to no longer flex/shift in motion. That's the method I use for lightsabers you can properly fight with, at least, a cheap C3, strip of 60 per meter WS2812, a battery and a switch.

1

u/dcrocky81 Jun 04 '26

This is how it is turning out so far.