Forums > Technical Discussion > Hyperlights update...

I've been busy designing recently and I'm happy to report I've made some serious progress! I've very nearly got the final prototype board fleshed out and a design I reckon ought to work very well for the casing.


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I'll send off for the first set of prototype boards some time next week (still needs some tweaking and double-checking). I need to investigate a few more companies to find someone to make my polycarbonate balls. Just need to get the software up to scratch now. As it stands you'd need to have some special hardware to add new light sequences etc. into them... once I've got my head around a few things, you'll just be able to plug your hyperlights into a USB socket, fire up your software and tell them what you want!

Watch this space

Cake or Death?

ok water is out the window, but i was thinking about lasers. weak ones so it doesn't blind anyone!does anyone know how to make beam wider? thinking about lens to magnify it so i could make a real lightsaber. wich wont cut your hand off! or take a laser pen apart and fit as many in a ball a possible. laser poi would be wicked

Didn't your mother tell you not to play with fire? You'll get burt. Did i listen, No! Burns heal!

To be honest, if you made the beam wider, you'd basically have a HyperLight. I've been playing with the new versions today and I'm fairly sure they are brighter than the last set!

Cake or Death?

'n Boer maak 'n plan.

I have some ideas on that which I need to test further, but yes, it's certainly something I have in mind

Cake or Death?

I'd really love to, but I've got a beer festival on Friday followed by a weekend of climbing large rocks in the peak district!

I've been busy this evening - check out the screenshot I took a moment ago:


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...can ya tell what it is yet?

Cake or Death?

Well those are certainly both possible... however, I won't be adding either of those functions to my HyperLights any time soon. Spelling out words would require a load more LEDs. It wouldn't be all that tough to do, but it's not what I want for my toys.

The microphone idea has been tossed around a few times before, but once again, I have no particular plans to add anything like that. If you want to sync your poi to music, I'm planning to have a way to load and MP3 (or whatever) into the program that sequences the poi.. so you'll be able to sequence them that way if you want.

I might well have a play with those ideas, but for now I'm focussing on getting the current design out the door so people can start playing

Cake or Death?

you got a usb connection!
man i cant wait to see these things, the whole thread is fascinating, really.
roll on falmouth!

"This dark place planet Earth, orbits one star,
Come from afar, far away state of mind,
open up your third eye, black helicopters in the sky"

Gold star for you my friend.. Man I was excited when I saw that little balloon pop up

Cake or Death?

Not yet.. I've only just got it enumerating as a USB device (at 2am this morning ). Next step is to start trying to write data down the USB cable to the thing. If I can get that going, programming the thing should follow fairly shortly

Cake or Death?

Wow, thats really cool

Well done you!

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

 Written by: Motley

Shall I start saving my pennies now?


Depends how long it takes you to save

 Written by: Geeza

Presumably it can charge via the usb connection at the same time as doing other things (or is that what the usb connection was originally for)


I currently have no intention to add circuitry to charge them via USB. The reasons being:

1) That they take AAA batteries so you can recharge them in any standard charger.
2) That if you go away to a festival (or on holiday or whatever), you don't want to have to lug a laptop around... and if you have access to power, you can take a charger. Also, you can buy USB battery chargers if that's what you want to do. To sum up, I reckon it's more flexible (and cheaper to you, the customer) to no have that on-board.

That was my thinking, but I'd be very interested in hearing your opinions. Remember; these things are being built for people (you!) to enjoy so if most people reckon that something would be better done another way, that's the way I'll probably do it

Cake or Death?

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

Cake or Death?

Ah, if they are rechargeable NimH then thats fine No need to charge over USB either - as it would be a pain.

Sorted, sorry I missunderstood a little before

There's too many home fires burning and not enough trees

"This dark place planet Earth, orbits one star,
Come from afar, far away state of mind,
open up your third eye, black helicopters in the sky"

No probs Sym - I suspect as much

I agree it's a nice option... just plugging the thing into a PC would be kinda nice, but for it to work, you generally need an externally powered USB hub (charging requires a lot of current which in most cases won't be supplied by a computer's on-board USB hub(s)). So if you need an external hub, you might as well just have a regular charger and be done with it.

Cake or Death?

Cake or Death?