Hi people, a few months ago I started to think about an interactive RGB illumination for Star Wars sides LE.
I wanted a powerful light effect that can be seen even in direct sunlight.
so I made a variant of my lightsaber program and made a mirroring system, it mean the colors will be in phase between the two mods except that when the lightsaber was off, the sides would be lit in white .
I used addressable led strip (commanded by 3 wires in C language)
three size problems to solve.
1 / manage the good light ratio compared to the joule effect, has involved many tests and a very large external power supply.
2 / the homogeneous diffusion of the luminous flux
3 / How to safely insert the thick system behind the sides.
the led strip is 2 mm thick, not possible to place it between the side and the cabinet.
We must dig the box, the problem is that if the light module is too close to the white filter, we see them and it's not pretty.
it was necessary to move the module as far as possible from the white filter and even to insert a diffuser.
this involves digging into the cabinet a little more than 6 mm, or 1/3 of the thickness.
so I "milled" to the machine three strips on each side taking marks using the holes cut in the side.
we have to remove the backbox and the playfield to work properly and do not spoil anything.
the playfield is very heavy.
a shot video of the machining