Glowstick alternative invention!!! (Also fire and glowing poi)

I was getting sick and tired of buying glowsticks, not to mention the garbage it creates. So I thought of an alternative to glowsticks but not loosing the glowstick look! I went and bought four of these little Photon micro-lights (two blue and two red) These little lights are made by Nasa and can be seen over 1 mile. They can also be seen from space.....Cool.....Anyway I took 4 old glowsticks and emptied out the dead liquid inside into a proper waste bin cut on each side hole the length of a quarter and the width is so it can just slide in. I left the bottom on so I can just pop it in and out at any time and they fit in there good and tight and will not come out if hit even at super speeds.... With the red and the blue together it looks purple almost and the brightness never fades and the batteries last up to about 15 hours of continues time. They have about seven colors ruby Red, orange, yellow, emerald green, Turquoise, diamond white, and Sapphire blue. These are well worth the effect and the brightness for shows or just playing around. I know your thinking but what happens if yuo smack them together? these things have an unbreakable ultra-bright bulb, remember this thing is the size of a quarter and the plastic it unbreakable too with what we are using it for. If you are interested in this you need to find the ones that are able to switch on and not the ones that you just squeeze. You can replace the batteries and that is about all...any questions just ask! Have fun and give it a try....

sweetness. where did you get them from? can they be ordered easily? it there a website? inquiring minds want to know.

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Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath, fire my spirit

I bought them from an arm surplus store or I know you can get them from some of the glow stuff sites on the web. They are about 25 to 30 dollars each. Worth it though!

What a great idea, I'll keep an eye out for them. My friend Rob is an electronics whiz, and he's started designing a set of beaming poi that generate their own electric as you swing them round!! Has any-one else had/seen this idea? Any hints for him?

Cheers all,
Happy swinging,
Tim /|\

Actually I just invented this last night. I am also working on a ball idea, that you can put one color on one side and another on the other side. here is a site were you can get them www.photonlight.com here you can read all about it. I would like some one to invent some thing that has almost a remote gadget that fits in your hand and you can change colors while spinning. Or even have little lights built right into the chain and you can turn them on or off. Also have you seen those little things that you spin around and the say the time or happy birthday on them, that would be cool to put on the chains as well. If got ideas coming out of everywhere!

the only problem with Rob's idea i would imagine is that when you spin slowly the brightness will fade Tim, but then again if he is really good i guess he can get round that too...as an engineer-to-be myself i'd love to have a look at them when he finishes
happy swinging,
Simos

Another cool thing that I have heard of, but can't find , are "polarised" LED's. Apparently they change their colour, depending on which angle you look at them from! Now they would be the nuts in beaming pois.....but where to get them from?

Happy swinging,

Tim /|\

hey Tim...for some peculiar reason i think that Malcolm somewher mentioned that he once got his hands on some LEDs that changed colours with temperature variations or something similar - perhaps Malcolm can shed some light into this - he is after all and electronics guru, huh Malcolm ?
happy swinging,
Simos

Anyone know if these photon lights are available in canada? haven't found any canadain distributors on the net, but my search skills aren;t the best.

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Earth my body, water my blood, air my breath, fire my spirit

You get LEDs that are polarised in that if you reverse the battery they change colour usually from green to red. Other interesting variations have two leds in one package that you can control the brightness of individually and go from green to orange to red. Perhaps the best though are the full colour version - 6 leads a load of leds in the one package and you can get any colour you like. Attatch a microcontroller and an accelerometer and you could have a complete rainbow in each full swing! It would be a similar idea for having lights up the chain

I have checked out these "photon lights" and they are high output LED's (same as beaming poi). The White LED's they use have a light output of 5600mcd. Which appears to be one of their brightest looking.
You can get dual colour LED's that change colour (as tkerby says) although I have not seen them with a high enough light output. Better to have two seperate coloured LED and switch power between them. You can even get LED's that can produce 256,000 different colours, but these require a special controller circuit. Beaming poi are limited to 4 x 3V high output LED's (std 4600mcd sunbright orange). I have used some 14,000mcd Green LED's and they have a narrower beam to increase their output rating. The advancements in technology have meant that they are now able to create narrower and more concentrated light beams which appear much brighter if viewed directly (not at an angle). These narrow beams only look really good in smoke. The tube idea (from cooper) sounds familiar. I made some similar as early prototypes. I wish you all the best in designing and making your own. It is really fun

cooper, i did the same thing this morning with rav'n lights, wow we must have been on the same 'wavelenght' or something, yeah the botachtactical site works really well and it's hecka cheap, compared to glow sticks the rav'n lights were less bright but much cooler cause of the ribbon effect, are two photons in an empty glow stick as bright as a glowstick?

The url above should be http://www.botachtactical.com/

Search for photon. They seem to have the lowest prices.

bleu

nice!does anybody know what these rav'n lights look like?do they look like a rope?how long are they?

Biotachtactical.com is definitely the way to go. I got my rav'n lights on sale there a few weeks ago for $20!!! They are priced $24 right now but hat is still the cheapest you'll find them right now and trust me I've looked everywhere! Also, they might go on sale again! Also, photon II on sale right now for $10 which is the cheapest you'll find them (aqua is really good! I just got that color and was pleasantly suprised!!) They have High INtensity (30 min) and Ultra High Intensity(5 min)glowsticks for $1 also a good deal. Anyways, the rav'n lights are the best lights I've swung. They are the same size as the photons (quarter size) so there is the same problem with weight. (I still haven't come up with a good weight source that doesn't block the light or take an eye out! Any suggestions???) Besides that they are beautiful and incredibly trance inducing! There are two types strobe which makes strobing dots going from red-green-blue-red-green-blue....or there is one with a continuous ribbon of color changing redgreenblueredgreenblue....you get the idea. They are both cool and I personally like them equally but most people seem to like the ribbon one. Happy spinning!!!!

hey
here are some that:
strobe through differnt colors
seemlessly cycle through colors
random color
one color
and a few hidden tricks

http://www.cksauce.com/main.htm

small handheld lights
i got mine at REI (site is on their homepage)
haven't gotten them YET, should be here today!

cooper...thats a great idea....i got a little confused about which site to go to to get the little micron lights that you were talking about...which is the best site to go to???? i read a couple of other replies but my computer sucks and the webpage that other people said to go to wouldnt load....so if someone could help me out i would be very grateful!!!!
Stay Swingin'-Ebombs

Heres a better idea. Go on ebay. I just got 4 pairs (which is 8 photons) for 80 bucks in one auction. Then in another, i got a pair of red ones for 8 bucks.
And yes, they are all brand new, and they are micro light II's.