- Fri Mar 22, 2013 4:06 pm
#157314
A co-worker recently guided me to this forum to get some insight on a (hopefully) simple project I was thinking about undertaking in the next few months. I'm from around the Boulder area, and I spin a number of things similar to poi, if you're familiar with that, it's a pair of spheres or rods attached to leashes and you swing them around in neat patterns and stuff, usually they have LEDs or come as a ball wick you can light on fire.
In this case, I'm looking to make a custom glow "buugeng" or "s-staff", much like in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQbrSi4V5RQ
Mainly the problem is that no major companies in this kind of work make such a prop. I've worked with 5050 LED strips on some simple costumes, at home, and can do some basic soldering, and design the actual prop itself, the questions come in with making the prop rechargeable and keeping the weight/size reasonable. Usually for recharging LED props/clothes I use a 12v lithium ion battery pack, which would be fine here except the ones I typically use add a couple lbs and also tends to be too bulky. So after hours of googling around for a "thin 12v rechargeable lithium ion battery", I'm kind of lost as to the best type of battery to use for this project.
Balance is KEY for these kinds of props, if one end is even slightly heavier than the other it can feel really awkward and make certain patterns/trick timings harder to adjust to. The best thing I can think of is to find a battery that is thin enough to fit dead center of the buugeng grip, ideally the housing for such a battery wouldn't exceed 1" in diameter, but I may be asking for a lot. The LED strips use 12V, and ideally the battery should be able to fuel the LEDs for up to 2 hrs of constant spinning at the brightest/most power consuming settings on the lights. (The LEDs also usually include a controller and remote, so housing this element is important also).
I have the general idea in my head how to accomplish it, just the battery and controller housing may be tricky. Any gurus or people with experience that can offer a suggestion on how to move forward with this would be awesome.
In this case, I'm looking to make a custom glow "buugeng" or "s-staff", much like in this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TQbrSi4V5RQ
Mainly the problem is that no major companies in this kind of work make such a prop. I've worked with 5050 LED strips on some simple costumes, at home, and can do some basic soldering, and design the actual prop itself, the questions come in with making the prop rechargeable and keeping the weight/size reasonable. Usually for recharging LED props/clothes I use a 12v lithium ion battery pack, which would be fine here except the ones I typically use add a couple lbs and also tends to be too bulky. So after hours of googling around for a "thin 12v rechargeable lithium ion battery", I'm kind of lost as to the best type of battery to use for this project.
Balance is KEY for these kinds of props, if one end is even slightly heavier than the other it can feel really awkward and make certain patterns/trick timings harder to adjust to. The best thing I can think of is to find a battery that is thin enough to fit dead center of the buugeng grip, ideally the housing for such a battery wouldn't exceed 1" in diameter, but I may be asking for a lot. The LED strips use 12V, and ideally the battery should be able to fuel the LEDs for up to 2 hrs of constant spinning at the brightest/most power consuming settings on the lights. (The LEDs also usually include a controller and remote, so housing this element is important also).
I have the general idea in my head how to accomplish it, just the battery and controller housing may be tricky. Any gurus or people with experience that can offer a suggestion on how to move forward with this would be awesome.
Last edited by Mephs on Mon Mar 25, 2013 8:40 am, edited 1 time in total.