Energy Sword 2015 – Westaby Home

This is the new Energy Sword for 2015. Featuring dynamic and reactive lighting, motion activated sound effects, and an internal rechargeable battery. Videos on the bottom of this post show off the lighting and sound effects. I built my original energy sword design with the help of Sean Bradely in 2009. This work was expanded by Joshua Kane in 2013 / 2014. I took Joshua’s work to the next level with multiple animation modes with reactive and multi fade lighting. Kudos for the sculpting and paint job still goes to Sean Bradely.

Note: I abandoned the custom circuit that I detailed in a previous post and instead went with inexpensive circuit modules from Adafruit and Sparkfun.

Electronics Part List

Adafruit
- Adafruit Pro Trinket – 3V 12MHz – The Pro Trinket is the brains of the energy sword, constantly communicating with the Motion Sensor, Sound Board, and NeoPixels; all the while watching for user input for mode changes.
  - Source Code is available for purchase – Send me an email: thatdecade@gmail.com
- Adafruit Audio FX Sound Board 2x2W Amp – WAV/OGG Trigger – 2MB and Mini Metal Speaker w/ Wires – 8 ohm 0.5W – The Sound Board is from Adafruit and is the best sound card I have ever used. It is extremely easy to use. The .wav or .ogg sound clip files are installed by connecting the Sound Board by USB and dragging them onto the Flash Drive.
- 2x – Adafruit NeoPixel Digital RGB LED Strip – White 60 LED – 1m – WHITE – The NeoPixels are fully addressable down to the individual LED. There are 50 RGB LEDs on each blade, that is a lot of pixels for our Trinket to control and it couldn’t have been easier with the Adafruit library.
- Adafruit Pro Trinket LiIon/LiPoly Backpack Add-On and Lithium Ion Polymer Battery – 3.7v 2500mAh and 5V 4A (4000mA) switching power supply – UL Listed – This battery capacity is quadruple that of my old dual 9V capacity, and the new sword needs it too. My old sword design had 30 LEDs per blade, the new sword upgrades that to 50 LEDs per blade. The LiIon backpack allows the battery to be recharged without opening the hilt.
- ADXL345 – Triple-Axis Accelerometer (+-2g/4g/8g/16g) w/ I2C/SPI – Motion Sensor, enough said
- 4700uF 10v Electrolytic Capacitor – Helps even out the demands of the NeoPixel lights from the battery.
Sparkfun
- LED Tactile Button – Blue – This is an illuminated switch, is used to activate or extinguish the sword. In addition, it provides some good feedback to the user and allows mode changes.
- SPDT Mini Power Switch – This is spliced into the LiPoly Backpack so the battery can be disconnected for storage or faster recharging.
- Barrel Jack to 2-pin JST – Connects the Power Supply to the LiIon Backpack.
- Barrel Jack Adapter – USB to 5.5mm – Allows you to recharge from any USB source, such as portable battery chargers.

Arduino Code

The source code is on github https://github.com/thatdecade/Halo_Energy_Sword

Install the libraries from the Arduino IDE library manager. If you run into any errors. You can replace the library manager versions with the ones I have on github, so you can run the exact same versions.

Here are some more links if you need help with this step:

Sword Usage

While OFF
- Press button to activate
- Hold button to enter color selection mode > Press to cycle color modes > Hold to save selection
  - Energy
  - Fire
  - Water
  - Rainbow
While ON
- Press button to extinguish.
- Hold button to enter animation selection mode > Press to cycle animation modes > Hold to save selection
  - No extra animation
  - Flicker on, Comet Off
  - Flicker off, Comet On
  - Flicker on, Comet On

Note: Additional animations are ignored in Rainbow Color mode