More LED poi

Having already spent about 50 quid on HOP in the last month and finding I wanted LED poi too I decided it was time i made some myself.

The photos are here (4 sec exposure, 2.8f, 400 isa):

Forwards Crossover
Random
Forwards Weave
Corkscrew into Windmill
Windmill

You'll perhaps notice there's only 1 poi there, I bought 10 high power (7000mcd) LEDs, then blew 6 of them this afternoon whilst being a pratt. Hence one of the ones used was an unlit firepoi (i'm not sure how well fire and plastic mix), which isn't visible. They are rated 2v and in the pictures running at 1.8v. They will be a lot brighter (almost twice as) when i sort the voltages out. There's also only 4 now 5 at current.

Obviously not as fun as fire, but not bad for a monday night

nice stuff! go flid go flid lol
ya i almost blew up one of my LEDS it got really hot and i had to slightly burn myself before i noticed. (applied 3v to a 2v LED )

on a semi related note. i finally got off my lazy butt and made my second piece it was a lot easier this time coz i knew what to do. it took around 30 minutes. the first one took an afternoon of messing around lol

well, its red and this time i used telephone wire to carry the electricity rather than the thick stuff I had for the first one. this makes it more flexible and rope-like.

i just have a few pics of me messin w/ it. I have barely any room in my room to do any moves so I couldn't do much D:

its neater this time:

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/ajian/HPIM0233.JPG

fig 8-ness

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/ajian/HPIM0227.JPG

bfly:

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/ajian/HPIM0228.JPG

i'm going to hit a wall or a cieling fan:

http://pages.sbcglobal.net/ajian/HPIM0230.JPG

[ 17 September 2002, 19:51: Message edited by: Ender ]

beautiful ender!

I was going to try a similar technique, having looked all over the place for a store that sells piping I might be able to use. tell me, do you drain the liquid first or let it be? I was thinking if you drained the liquid there might be room for a watch battery in there.

yeah i drained the liquid. it was actually pretty easy. just took a pair of scissors and cut half of the tube on the bottom then pulled it back. the piece of plastic still conecting the pieces acts like a hinge and keeps everything on.

glowgoo smells like crap tho and do it in the sink and watch out for the glass! they're small sharp pieces! make sure u clear out the whole thing good

i woulda used watch batts but they're damn expensive =( (i think)

word to the expensive thang. if I made the sticks with those I'd only really use 'em for performances & other such occasions.

I'm sorry to say that I my electroglo poi arrived in the post today and they do look a hell of a lot nicer than my homemade attempt. They arn't nearly as bright, but they light up the tube really well. When in use they actually look better than fire, becuase you can really see the trails - it looks like time lapse photography. It looks like a scene from Star Wars.

They are VERY light, i did some fire afterwards and couldn't beleive how heavy they felt. I still prefer fire from an exhileration point of view, but i think the electroglo ones are gonna get a lot of use.

Some piccies, for those who like that kind of thing are here.

cool!

If anyone is interested in a home brewed solution, you can do a 50/50 duty cycle into the leds using double the current of what is suggested (and a higher voltage) on the leds. This will give you just as bright as a constant one, but the batteries will last longer (current is on for only half the time, thereby, in theory doubling the life of the battery (theory only)). This is a tricked used quite often in battery operated circuits. If anyone wants information, just email me, and I'll dig up the articles that I read about this a while ago (just gotta dig out the magazines)

As soon as I find good led's im makeing a set with 4 or 5 LED's per unit and a 9 volt battery for power supply.

having seen commercial ones and making my own, my 2 cents are:

The brightness of LEDs isn't as important as the diffusion. That is, of the high power ones i've seen the viewing angle is very tight. They are only bright if you look at them at the correct angle, at any other they are really dim. When spinning you need to make sure the light is diffused properly, otherwise no matter how many LEDs you have it will still not give off a satisfactury amount of light as at any one time you will only maybe see 1 at a good angle. The electroglo ones available from this site only use 1 LED per poi, but the diffussion is excellent, and many people who have watched me use them say they can see the trails with them a lot better than fire. Using bubble wrap to diffuse as suggested on this site is pretty useless IMHO.

It will of course be cheaper to make your own than buy some of the electroglo ones, but they are made to a good standard (the handles are really nice) and for a tenner more than buying expensive LEDs and battery holders, you get something which looks like a proffessional job. I'd like to see them a bit cheaper and possibly with an LED at either end, but I can totally recommend them.

Im going to use clear pastic beeds to difuse the light and possibly tissue paper or waxed paper.

When looking for LED's, try to find out/look and see on the package what the viewing angle is. Naturally, the lower the number the better; I use about 35 degree viewing angle.

lower the number, the better? how'd you work that out? The lower the number the less likely you are to see it when spinning, unless you happen to see it from the correct angle. only with proper diffusion will a small viewing angle be of a benefit

Has anyone tried using these for poi?

Maybe I've got it backwards. Whoops.

Speaking of brightness, has anyone tried to put a second LED unit into the other end of the electroglo poi with any sort of success?