how many lumens

how many lumens should the rangefinder led be. think i need to know for when i start building mine

Don't feed the trolls, folks.
Ignore it, and it will go away.

when filming a scene you couldnt get a good part of filming because the led was to bright

Let's not start insulting people on open forum. If you are having a problem with a member, then please contact the administration. Thank you.

not insulting anyone mirax h. can i not ask questions? sorry you seem to be upset.

[EDIT]
Meant for PM.

Mirax H - PM sent.

If, indeed, you ARE geniunely asking these questions, I will do my best to answer them now:

It's not known how many lumens the LEDs in Boba Fett's rangefinder put out.
This is because the helmet was built a very long time ago, and we don't have access to the original to check the LED output. Almost all of our helmet specs come from photographs and movie stills.

My advice to you, should you be having a problem with filming your helmet, would be to simply replace the LED that you're having problems with with a slightly dimmer model... And repeat this process until you have success.
I must admit, I'm slightly confused as to how you can be having problems filming your helmet if you haven't begun construction yet, but I'm sure that's easily explainable and that we'll soon be seeing a top-quality fan-film from you as well as plenty of pics of your helmet during construction and after completion.

Originally Posted by phat-fetts

not insulting anyone mirax h. can i not ask questions? sorry you seem to be upset.

I was referring to you being called a troll.

at last............... a better answere instead of just having a go at me...... thankyou.

ive tried 2 attemps now and havnt been happy so scrapped and started again.

now im just seeking advice and answeres to matters i have had problems with.

Originally Posted by Mirax H

I was referring to you being called a troll.

ok no problems.

i was getting the impression that this site was clicky and i hope not, now i seem to of had a decent answere. thanks

What LEDs and batteries did you use on the last two attempts?

Also, what sort of camera are you using for filming? Perhaps it's a white-balance issue?
Is it a film camera, or video tape?
Digital or analogue?

All of this information will be invaluable for anyone leaping to your assistance here.

i used a 9 v battery and led from radio shack. sony digi cam, trv14e.

Hmm...
How did you hide the wires from the battery to the LED? There's no way you could have hidden a9v battery in a rangefinder...
And did you only use one? Since the rangefinder has two.

Also, did you make sure that you had the appropriate resistors in the circuit? Driving an LED straight from a 9v battery will most likely make it explode, or burn out, if not.
:|

Actually, come to think of it - Which Boba helmmet are you doing all of this with?

clearly all your doing is trying to make me out as some sort of liar.
my freind has boba armor...i dont as yet. the 9 volt battery is connected with a wire....a conductive material thats used for connecting electrical equipment to a power supply..maybe youve heard of it. no resistors are needed for a 9 volt battery to a led light unless you want to dim it ( maybe youve used different leds working on different power) but clearly your the one trying to wind up do step back and realise that my questions are serious ( the nose picking one was a bit silly but i can show you threads from other members being silly)
if you dont have anything constructive to say then stand down and let someone who thinks they can help me have a go.

I actually am quite familiar with wires - In my line of work, I encounter them quite often in all sorts of thicknesses, lengths and colours.
In actual fact, I mentioned them in my last post - I asked how you hid them, since my initial assumption was that you hid the 9v battery in your helmet and ran the wires to the LED from there.
This would necessitate a hollow rangefinder stalk, and I've yet to see one of those rigged up to carry a wire up to the rangefinder itself and still be able to freely rotate.

Which helmet ARE you using, then? Since I don't think that the Don Post / Rubies would have enough room inside to even store the battery!
Are you one of the lucky few who managed to get hold of a MSH? Or a Marrow Sun?
It must have taken quite a bit of work to install the mechanism you describe - Why did you decide to go for a 9v battery, instead of the more-commonly-utilised button-cells?

Battery life, or was it simply a brightness issue?
Also, how are your two LEDs wired up? In series or in parallel?

Well, for my LED's, I went to Radio shack, bought two red led's, wired them, placed them inside the rangefinder (very little room), ran the wires down the stalk (after I matched the paint to conceal them and then re-did it with tape), ran the wire into a small hole behind the stalk.

Once in the helmet, I attached a battery pack (9volt and holder) on the right side of the helmet. The on off switch was a small silver push (off.on) that stuck out of the middle hole under the rangefinder ear cap.

This was all done on my DP 97, so it did fit with no problems and can be run with a 9v and was quite bright. I plan to do the same with my DP95.

clearly your having problems reading rs .......i dont own a helmet my freind does...how he rigged it is no real concern of mine except i said i would see about new leds.
9 volt batterys are very common.
if you want to know about whether the leds circuit is parralel then i could find out if you stopped clearly trying to wind me up.

Thanks - That's exactly what I was wondering about phat-fett's setup.
How did the stalk look with the wires on the outside, though? I take it it was visible, but not TOO bad?

Your LEDs - Which ones did you use? Were they the models that have a resistor already built-in? Any time I've tried to run LEDs directly from a battery pack, the LEDs have become EXTREMELY hot! ( Back before I learned any electronics in school, and was told that it's a bad idea to attempt so )

Just mess with your camera's exposure until the LED's look dim enough. If you can't do that, try using less power or something. Or if you have some older batteries that are run down perhaps that would look as dim as you want. Goodluck!

Originally Posted by phat-fetts

clearly your having problems reading rs .......i dont own a helmet my freind does...how he rigged it is no real concern of mine except i said i would see about new leds.
9 volt batterys are very common.
if you want to know about whether the leds circuit is parralel then i could find out if you stopped clearly trying to wind me up.

Well, if from now on we just assume that when I say "Your", I mean "Your friends".

I'm genuinely curious about your whole setup here!
You're a very lucky man, with access to two Fetts for your fanfilm, and an entire Slave One set in your yard.
I'd LOVE to be in your position. So please excuse all my questions - I guess I'm just the sort of person who's interested in all the little details.
For me, if I do something, it has to be done RIGHT.

So I want to know exactly how YOU'VE accomplished all your great stuff - So when I come to try it out for myself, I can learn from your mistakes ( Or lack thereof. )

Originally Posted by Reverend Scapegoat

Thanks - That's exactly what I was wondering about phat-fett's setup.
How did the stalk look with the wires on the outside, though? I take it it was visible, but not TOO bad?

Your LEDs - Which ones did you use? Were they the models that have a resistor already built-in? Any time I've tried to run LEDs directly from a battery pack, the LEDs have become EXTREMELY hot! ( Back before I learned any electronics in school, and was told that it's a bad idea to attempt so )

Scape, let me go back and look at my old images. I will get you a diagram and parts number, etc. The wires were not TOO noticable as I taped them down and then re-painted the stalk. In fact, I do believe if I can find the old stalk and batteyr pack it would still light up (being close to a year or so old).

If your using it for a movie, but are finding it too bright for your camera, then the answer is simple. It doesn't matter what Lucas Film did or didn't do on the real thing. Simply tone down your leds until it looks right on your camera! I've made enough movies to know that you can't use someone elses calculations because the conditons and equipment could be different! Simply sit there with your camera on, filming the leds, adjust them, film them again and so on until they look right with your camera.

Originally Posted by BobaN00b

Scape, let me go back and look at my old images. I will get you a diagram and parts number, etc. The wires were not TOO noticable as I taped them down and then re-painted the stalk. In fact, I do believe if I can find the old stalk and batteyr pack it would still light up (being close to a year or so old).

Sweet
I actually used a solid wooden stalk for my RF - Currently, the LED is a sanded-down flashing Xmas-tree earring!
I do intend to replace that, but it does fit neatly into the RF

Scape, this is the old setup I had. I will still have to get you part numbers, etc, but this should give you an idea. this is WITHOUT the stalk being repainted and taped down.







How the wires connected (this is my current bucket, so this is approx. where it should be)





I will hit radio shack sometime this weekend and get you the part numbers and draw up the wiring diagram for ya. I did the same thing on my gauntlets:

Originally Posted by OrtharRrith

If your using it for a movie, but are finding it too bright for your camera, then the answer is simple. It doesn't matter what Lucas Film did or didn't do on the real thing. Simply tone down your leds until it looks right on your camera! I've made enough movies to know that you can't use someone elses calculations because the conditons and equipment could be different! Simply sit there with your camera on, filming the leds, adjust them, film them again and so on until they look right with your camera.

thanks ortharrrith much appreciated

I know hes been banned, and so this knowledge is useless to him, but to all those out there workin on this, the lumens is not important, he has no idea what hes talking about.

a 9v battery will short out ANY LED if connected directly, get the recommended resistor and if its too bright for your tastes, knock it up a notch (if you used a 140 resistor, get a 180 or whatever more til your happy) so it dims the LEDs

for "Phatt Fett" even though hes banned. (he may visit) you apparently dont know what your talking about since a 9v battery is over 2x too much power for 2 little LEDs to take, unless of course your WIRE is acting as a resistor (an abnormally high amount of wire fillements or a very long wire) its all hard to explain.

For anyone wanting to know the lumens, dont worry about em, no one is going to come up and go "hey your RF has too many lumens coming out of the LEDs" and if they do, promptly show them the business end of your blaster.

as for the actual LED questions, Power supply for 1 led is normally 2v, plus a resistor (normally those are 2v as well) so for 1 led to work without shorting (ever) 4v is needed (mostly squeezing by at 3, smaller resister, but brighter LED is the result)

A typical standard LED will drop about .7V, so if using a 9V battery and 2 LED's your resistor will be dropping approx 7.6V. You want your circuit flowing about 10mA, so to figure out your resistor size- 7.6/10mA= 760ohm resistor.

Well, interesting that something useful is coming out of an "irritant" thread!! Thanks for the info guys! I had read that the LEDs wired directly to 2 AAs would be fine, but a 9v would fry them. (As well as a servo for the helmet) Do you need a resitor in all cases?

Shinobi