Neopixel Lightsaber is becoming more and more prevalent and a lot of people are really excited about it. So what that allows people to do is things like a scroll on effect which you can see a scroll off, where the power feeds from the bottom and retracts back into the hilt. Actually, Durability, Brightness, and Versatility are the three main reasons that people pick up Neopixel blades.
I have also discussed the Beginner guide to understand the Neopixel Lightsaber. You must check that to understand every term, definition, and word associated with Neopixel Lightsaber.
Previously it was in-hilt Lightsabers meaning not Neopixels Lightsabers. But at present, the Lightsaber is more advanced and programmable called Neopixel Lightsaber. And the price of this Lightsaber is more costly. So people are confused before buying because a lot of scammers are selling duplicate products at high prices. People cannot understand which Neopixel Lightsaber they should buy and which company they should trust and also if there is good customer service.
We thought we just give you the people a website with all of the information we could possibly put into. So I have discussed the top 5 things to avoid when buying a Neopixel Lightsaber and also discussed the top 10 best Neopixel Lightsaber, you can check this out.
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| Neopixel Lightsaber |
So a Neopixel Lightsaber is a type of Lightsaber with individually addressed LED lights inside the blade to achieve many different effects as well as a scrolling effect when you turn the Lightsaber on.
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| Neopixel Lightsaber |
What to know before buying a Neopixel Lightsaber?
Versatility
The first thing that I wanted to talk about is versatility. Neopixel Lightsaber does have some interesting features that it has programmability. Because you've got LEDs in the blade and you can tell those LEDs to do different things.
Localized flash-on clash is one of the things that Neopixel offered. During the clash, you notice that instead of the whole blade flashing one little pixel up here flashed and that is something that Neopixel Lightsaber offers.
All right so there you go another interesting thing that you can do with Neopixel blade color differentiation this goes from red to blue with purples and Pinks in the middle. There’s that localized blast again. So Neopixel gives you the ability to do stuff like that.
It also has some animations in it like a rainbow cycling animation. This is one thing that you can do with a Neopixel Lightsaber. This rainbow that there's a strobe and there's a flame effect. Now the flame effect is something that a lot of people really love.
Brightness
The second thing is that Neopixel Lightsaber collor is brighter than the traditional Tri-Cree and more even you've got the scrolling up and down effect which is very cool. But there are some things that you need to know about before you purchase your Neopixel blade. Now the first thing you need to know about a Neopixel Lightsaber is that the light doesn't come from the hilt. The light is all produced inside the blade and of course, the blades are going to cost a fair bit more.
Brightness is one of the things that Neopixel is known for and our Neopixel blade is brighter, yes they are. But a lot of the hype that goes into Neopixel brightness is a little bit underserved as you can see from these images right here.
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| Neopixel Vs non Neopixel |
You take a Neopixel Lightsaber out into direct sunlight and you end up with exactly the same thing that you get. If you had a regular blade in direct sunlight you end up with a white blade with maybe a little bit of pinkish. If it's red, if it's real, it is red from spot to spot but you don't end up with the true color. From direct sunlight, you take it into the shade and you get your color back. You get that on a decent quality LED as well as you can see in this picture.
So are they brighter? Yes, they're brighter by a little bit, and as I've said in the past. If every lumen matters to you the Neopixel might be the way to go. The one thing that I will give Neopixel in terms of brightness is that they market themselves as being more evenly illuminated and that is definitely true.
Neopixels are more evenly illuminated on a standard blade. You’ll often end up with flare and then the blade color tapers out a little bit towards the end. This is more something that shows up on camera than it is something that you see in real life, but you will see it at least a little bit. The biggest issue with blade diffusion though is the tip illumination.
Shorter battery life
The third thing you need to know about Neopixel equipped Lightsaber is shorter battery life this is significantly shorter for a couple of reasons.
Reason one is the Neopixel strips and there are two of them in each blade they draw a lot more power so it's going to drain your battery more quickly.
Reason second is that AD because they draw more power. It’s going to come to a point where the battery gets low enough that it's going to starve the app. The app will start to crackle. It doesn't hurt the saber but you'll hear crackling in the sound.
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| Neopixel Lightsaber Battery |
So usually a lithium-ion battery cuts out if you put in a new one or you charge it up. Your saber with Neopixel will start to crackle the sound before the battery runs out. So you're going to have shorter battery life for this reason. Replaceable lithium-ion batteries are ideal. Because if that starts to happen you just pop in a new cell and you keep going with sabers that have a recharge port. You’re going to need to think a little bit more and make sure that your saber is charged up before you go out. Because you won't have as long battery life and you don't want it sitting on the charger all day.
Because you’ve got all those extra lights on your power, your battery cell is going to be heavier with a Neopixel Lightsaber. Again that is also kind of a big deal if you want to carry around a standard blade for a few hours and use it intermittently and take it as a ticket to a con. It's a whole lot easier to do if you put a soundboard in it. The draw increases and you get less life out of it. You put Neopixel in it and the draw increases again rather dramatically.
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| Neopixel Lightsaber Battery |
So your battery dies quicker, and you get less use out of it. You have to carry around extra battery cells. It's something that's manageable but again if you're going to carry the saber around and light it up from time to time and get that wow what the heck is that factor then great. If you want something looks good for prolonged use and for versatile use and for day to day use then maybe not
Second configuration file
And that leads me to the fourth thing you'll need to know which is that any crystal shard for the saber that's equipped for Neopixel comes with a second configuration file, it's called config power saber. If you want to make a second SD card and then rename that config power saber as config dot txt.
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| Second configuration file installation |
you’ll have a second SD card that has a 60 percent power setting. So you still have all your animations and it is still as bright as or brighter than a traditional Tri-Cree saber and you have all the animations. But what it does is it allows your battery to live a little bit longer. So if you're going to be up for the day you’re not able to change your battery you can use the power saber config file in order to create a second SD card. So that your saber will last a little bit longer and still have all the features, still function really great and you won't have the short battery life.
Durability
The fifth thing you're going to need to know about buying a Neopixel Lightsaber, is whether they are durable? They’re probably just as durable as a tri-crees saber. They are thin-walled 1-inch blades which are generally mid-grade blades. So they’re suitable for most dueling. For your hardest dueling, you'll probably want to make your own blade that goes for the standard blades, and for the pixel blades, all the tests have been really positive that these blades are super durable. I mean you're going to be paying probably 150 dollars for a blade unless you're making it yourself. So you want to make sure you're not going to crack it. So these are suitable for most medium dueling choreography. So I hope that helps you make your choice and enjoy your Saber thanks again.
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| Neopixel Lightsaber Durability |
The people who argue that Neopixels are very durable. If you've ever used an old Black Series saber and sparred with it, you'll notice that most people have broken one of the little LEDs in there and have ended up with a dead spot on their saber. Now Neopixel, well it is guarded, it has a light strip that has foam, it has a polycarbonate blade. You can get them heavy grades. The fact of the matter is that a Neopixel Lightsaber is still less durable than a standard blade. I have this on pretty good authority from some people within the saber and the saber Legion community who have already broken Neopixel blades.
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| Neopixel Lightsaber Durability |
I’ve actually broken an LED in a Neopixel blade just from a drop on the floor. So it doesn't even take a very hard hit but you can break blades or you can break connections or cause blades to malfunction. So a Neopixel blade, if you go for it you are sacrificing durability. Yes, you can duel with a Neopixel blade but why would you. There's wear and tear.
Why would you spend a hundred and some odd dollars on a blade when you can get a Dueling blade and duel with that with less worry and less potential for breakage Neopixel blades. Because they do have all this technology in them and there is more potential for breakage. The Neopixel connector pad on the remakes contact with pins inside putting it in and out sliding it around is going to wear on that path. So durability, yeah they're a lot more durable than a Black Series but they're a lot less durable than a standard blade.
The Neopixel blade is a little bit heavier
Now one point I do need to retract about the Neopixel in my original reservations about them is the weight. So I have a standard Vader's vault mid-grade blade and it's actually an enhanced day blade and in a standard saber, the point of balance is a couple inches out from the emitter. The Neopixel blade is a little bit heavier.
I originally thought that the Neopixel blades or my original impression of the Neopixel blades which was kind of generated by my experience with other string blades is that it would add a lot of weight in the case of heavy great Neopixel blades that might be the case but it's the heavy grade adding the blade rather than the Neopixel itself. So they still handle fairly well what you're limited on in terms of use is what you dare do with it because of the technology and the extra parts or breakability of it.
Neopixels Lightsaber cost a lot
If you can kind of see that this is honestly in my opinion the greatest custom Lightsaber board that you can get and it’s generally very expensive just due to the properties inside the board and what it can do. To give an example of what a Neopixel ignition looks like. It is as you can tell it has that full blade illumination and ignition. Neopixels Lightsaber generally cost a lot more than hilt LED lightsabers mostly just due to the complex boards inside with smooth swing etc and if you were to duel with a Neopixel blade.
Malfunctioning
The chances of malfunctioning cannot be avoided in terms of Neopixel Lightsaber. See the picture. I think it looks more like a malfunctioning saber because if you see it in real life you see those dark spots or those waves that are traveling up that get darker towards the tip. Because you're dealing with an actual white blade those aren't dark spots or the absence of a blade those are just places where you see the blade itself. I’m illuminated and it doesn't look very good. In my opinion in real life, you can see it in the tip quite a bit, it’s an interesting effect, it's a novelty but it gets annoying after time.
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| Neopixel Lightsaber Malfunctioning |
When I talked about things malfunctioning let me see if I can show you that a little bit here. So this is a white blade but this blade specifically has some malfunctions in it, where a couple of the pixels work great with red and with blue. They just show slight dead spots with white or anything that has red in it too. They over trigger on red and trigger on anything else so what that leads to is not certain. If you can see it, here is a pink spot. When you get damage to these things they get weird colored spots or they get dead spots within them or the scrolling effect doesn't start or doesn't work as well and that will happen with Neopixel blades.
High Repairing Cost
If the tube of a Neopixel Lightsaber is broken down, you have to buy a new one and the cost of the tube is very high. That is more than 70 dollars.
So in the end I want to tell you guys that the Neopixel Lightsaber has some limitations but everyone loves it. Because it has that programmability, Ignition, smooth swing, flash on clash, flame effect, and a lot of things you can do with it. If I miss something in my writing please comment below. Enjoy your saber life. May the force be with you.
Thats good information.
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