Lightsaber to act as a Bluetooth switch

[briandt75]

Hi there. I'm the noobiest of virgins to this whole world, so please be gentle.

I've spent the better part of this year putting together a costume for cosplay, and the final piece I'd love to integrate is a bluetooth switch in the hilt of the lightsaber I have which, when I press the button to activate the saber, it activates two LED's located as cloak clasp buttons, as well as two strips (probably El Tape) that will be in a tabard which hangs down from my belt.

Is this possible? I'm a complete dunce with this stuff.

[adafruit_support_rick]

Hmmm. Bluetooth won't work for this, since you can't have two bluetooth clients talk to each other. They have to talk to a central device, like a phone or computer.
You best bet might be to use a pair of Feather RFM69 radios. The lightsaber button would be attached to one feather, which would send a message to the other feather. The other feather would turn on the LEDs. That would work.

The EL tape is a problem. Small battery-powered inverters can only run a couple of inches of tape. Plus, they aren't set up for external control. You'd have to rig up a relay or power transistor in place of the switch to turn them on.

[briandt75]

Thank you so much for the reply!

That gives me a good direction to go in. So it sounds like I"ll need:

(2) Flora unit LEDs
(3) Feather RFM radios
(1) Power transistor

Does that sound right?

[adafruit_support_rick]

If you want, you can use a feather RFM69 instead of a flora. If you want to stick with the flora, then you would get the RFM69 breakout.
https://www.adafruit.com/products/2000?q=rfm69&
If you're in North America, get the 900MHz version of the radios

I'm not sure how you would wire up the transistor and the EL inverter. I'll see if someone else here has any ideas.

[briandt75]

Flora seemed like the easiest led to use for this, and I'm fairly tech savvy but not in the realm of wearable or programmable leds.

If I dont use a flora, what LED would I use? I really would just love to have the following:

2 LEDs and 2 strips (or strands of lights) that turn on at the push of a remote button. A concise list of items to make that happen would be invaluable. Shouldn't take much I wouldnt think.

[adafruit_support_rick]

If you want to use a Flora, you'll need conductive thread, a battery, an RFM69 breakout, and some NeoPixels. For a sewable project, you don't want to use NeoPixel strips, you want to use individual flora neopixels.
https://www.adafruit.com/products/3070
https://www.adafruit.com/products/1559
https://www.adafruit.com/products/2000?q=lithium&
https://www.adafruit.com/products/641

For the lightsaber, I'd use a Feather RFM69 and a battery
https://www.adafruit.com/products/3076
You'll need some sort of button
https://www.adafruit.com/products/3418?q=button&

Mount the Feather so that you can get to the USB connector. That will allow you to program the feather and charge the battery without removing it.

[adafruit_support_rick]

SparkFun has an EL shield. It's made for an Arduino Uno, so would be tricky to use with a Flora. You'd be using battery voltage, do you could only do an inch or two of EL tape.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10878

The EL would be easier if you use an Uno, and you could use a 12V battery pack to allow longer tape. In any case, you'd also need an actual inverter to attach to the shield. None of that is really compatible with a wearable.

I think you want to think about skipping the EL.

[briandt75]

Thank you for all the info and advice!

I think I'm going to downshift and simply have one circular EL panel that lights up in the breechcloth, which I'll mask out a shape onto with vinyl tape. I can't seem to find a 3.5" circular El Panel on this sight, so I'll probably have to order one from here:

http://elpanelandtape.co.uk/products/ro ... -el-panel/

and use the 2xAA power pack button to turn it on. The saber button as a power up would be awesome, but it seems like it's a pretty extensive bit of work and programming that I'm just not savvy with.

[adafruit_support_rick]

You can cut a square EL panel to a circular shape.

[briandt75]

Or I could just buy a circular one.

Why don't you offer circular shapes?

[adafruit_support_rick]

Sure, you could just but a circular one.
No particular reason why we don't stock circles.

[briandt75]

I'd so much rather order it from you all. If you get a 3.5 or 4" round panel in stock, please let me know. I'll buy it. No hurry.

Heck I'll probavly get a couple other things as well, just to mess around with. I love what y'all do.

[adafruit_support_rick]

Thanks, but we don't have a circular panel. Go ahead and order it elsewhere.