Glowing tanhì?

Started by Ertew, December 27, 2017, 06:44:41 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Ertew

QuoteYou never shine if You don't glow.
~ Smash Mouth - All Star
QuoteEngineer start from draft, then research, plan and finally act.


As mentioned earlier on forum I preparing for cosplay. One of problems to solve are tanhì (bioluminescent dots).
In human case real bioluminescent may be dangerous thus We need to find different way. This topic is intended to collect all possible solutions and chose best one. Basically only there are four main ways to have tanhì:

  • Reflective - white paint, silver paint or true reflective material (only for photos with flash).
  • Glowing - everything that emit light.
  • Projection on skin (3D mapping, etc), not very practical in real live.
  • Photo manipulation (photo shop, gimp, etc) - the best results on internet.

Reflective is the simplest solution, just grab white marker and paint. I'll chose that way when other fails. Glowing sounds best for me, but still searching for optimal solution, there are so many ideas to use...

  • Fluorescent - grab invisible (UV) light and emit visible (blue, yellow, white, ...) light.
    All You need is fluorescent pigment and UV light source. UV pigment can be used as a paint (see  Jane's guide) or tattoo ink (see Eana Unil's posts)
     
  • Phosphorescent - store light energy and release it later.
    Same but with phosphorescent pigment. What's the different? Phosphorescent pigment may glow few hours in complete darkness. Sadly, light intense are very poor and dots should be big to notice. Basically city lights can kill phosphorescent effect without much effort.
     
  • Chemiluminescent - chemical reaction that emit light, see lightning bugs.
    Glowing solution are available as glowing stick, used for fishing. Sadly available sticks are way to big. And thrust me, You shouldn't open that stick and use mixture as paint. Glowing solution are caustic and may be toxic. It's not the best substance to play with.
     
  • Electroluminescent 1 - phosphor plus high voltage = light.
    EL wire is very nice light source. With outer diameter of 2mm can emit light at any direction (need opaque cover to stop unwanted light between dots). Sadly, driving voltage is as high as 100V. Not danger when insulated but not nice when insulation fail. And personally I'll never try to put that around whole my sweaty body. Btw, not compatible with body painting. Full costume required, face costume may be problematic.
     
  • Electroluminescent 2 - LED (light emitting diode) or actually LOL (Lot of LEDs).
    Another solution not compatible with body painting. Full costume required, face costume may be problematic. LEDs are small, energy efficient (in some applications too much efficient) but need a lot effort to solder them all to fine wires. First tests with regular LED tape already happened but that tape are rigid and not elastic at all. I have problems with that tape on my hands and cannot imagine wiring that all over my body/costume. Only idea that looks promising are to solder each LED to thin copper wires and sew that wires to the fabric. Lot of work but may give nice effect.
     
  • Electroluminescent 3 - any light source and fiber optics.
    Similar to two solutions above. This need separate light source and fiber optics cables to transfer light to individual dots. Sounds more rigid than hand made soldering but at least better than LED tape.

"Lot of LEDs" is the solution I trying to use. Sadly no glowing dots over my face because I don't have any idea how to glue LEDs and hide wires. Maybe LED implants or fiber optics implant within next decade? On the other hand, white LED at 20mA will be noticeable even through layer of fabric under powerful street lamps. 1mA per LED sounds reasonable for darker environment like cinema, where I plan to perform my cosplay. With good battery and proper dimmer I may be the star of each event, spreading more light than regular 15W incandescent bulb  8)

Do You have any other solutions?
Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors.

Hi! I'm a signature virus. Copy me into your signature to help me spread.

Toliman

Quote from: Ertew on December 27, 2017, 06:44:41 PM
1. Reflective - white paint, silver paint or true reflective material (only for photos with flash).
2. Glowing - everything that emit light.
3. Projection on skin (3D mapping, etc), not very practical in real live.
4. Photo manipulation (photo shop, gimp, etc) - the best results on internet.
I really would like try to realize second way - glowing, despite that is not easy to realization. But it can look really impressive and spectacular, if you will be able to find right way. And if it will be not successful, you can use reflective paints/materials, as you write.


Quote from: Ertew on December 27, 2017, 06:44:41 PM
Glowing sounds best for me, but still searching for optimal solution, there are so many ideas to use...

Chemiluminiscent sounds interesting, but as you write - really don't try to use it.
I would try use some elecroluminescent or fluorescent - maybe fluorescent would be my choice, because I have not such experiences with electronic as you.


Quote from: Ertew on December 27, 2017, 06:44:41 PM
In human case real bioluminescent may be dangerous thus We need to find different way.
I completelly agree - use nothing like this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goi%C3%A2nia_accident
;D ;)

Quote from: Ertew on December 27, 2017, 06:44:41 PM
Do You have any other solutions?
I am affraid that you already mentioned all possible reasonable ways :-\


BlueHusky2154

I personally would go with fluorescent. Small UV LEDs can be easily found at any electronic parts retailer or just as easily online. You just need a way to conceal a battery compartment, the wires, and the actual diodes.
Avatar, Furry, Amateur Astronomy, IT, PC gaming, Minecraft, Fortnite, music.
My life summarized.
:ikran: 8)


Ertew

Thanks Toliman, I forgot about radioactive light sources. As dangerous as real bioluminescent by glowing bacteria.

TEA: I need space for store documents, phone, wallet and keys but don't have slaves to hold my items and follow me ;) There are few options to store my items: backpack, hip bag or kidney bag. Any of them allows me to store battery pack. Just need to figure how to pass wires through costume fabric.
Sadly bag/backpack limits me to play only as avatar driver, not real Na'vi. But who really cares about that details.
Alternatively I can hide batteries along the entire length of the tail, same way as Jane MacMillan add extra weight to plastic tube.




BTW, Two new solutions found!
1. LEDs on fabric tape, by adafruit.
- Expensive and not stretchy but at least flexible. Made of fabric plus two stainless steel wires. 20 LEDs per 1m, comes in 1.5m string.

2. LEDs already soldered to copper wire, by adafruit.
- I may fold wire between each dot and sew individual dots to my costume. That extra amount of wire should give me enough elasticity. Wires and sewing may be visible through fabric but hope they don't show up.
Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors.

Hi! I'm a signature virus. Copy me into your signature to help me spread.

`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

Jane McMillian's outfit, the last I saw it, used fluorescent sanhì, with UV emitters on her bow. It was effective, as long as she had her bow with her. Fluorescent and phosphorescent sanhi are the type I have most frequently seen.

LEDs are a very interesting solution, and perhaps the most convincing. However, to do a really good job of it will take some serious work. What you want to use are SMD Leds, or tiny LEDs with beam leads that are designed to mount to a flat surface. SMD LEDs are available in sizes that coreate convincing tanhì. You will have to use a suit with these, and stretch will be a challenge. You also need to use fine, flexible wire, and solder it directly to the LEDs. IMHO, hooking 4 or 5 LEDs in series will be the best compromise between buildability and applied voltage. This will be, in my experience with surface mount parts, a daunting challenge, and may only be good for one wear.

The challenge with a fiber optic solution is that the light comes out the end of the fiber. To get the fibers to lay flat against the skin and still emit light straight out will take some sort of terminal that will act as the tanhì spot. The terminal will bend the light at a right angle, and be the attach point to the skin (or be held in place by the almost obligatory suit.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

Ertew

EA, thanks for advice. I plan to use fabric costume over whole body, except face which I'll paint. Mostly because of typical temperatures in Europe - one or two layers of fabric are better than thin layer of paint on bare skin. In that case hiding LEDs shouldn't be a problem. If this fail, fluorescent dots are my backup option.

I have access to enameled (magnet) wire, few SMD LEDs in 2835 size (about 3x3mm) and soldering gun. Hand soldering for single LED isn't a problem, most of LEDs survive my soldering skills. Just overall number of LEDs to solder looks ridiculously high. My estimations:

  • 3 lines of dots per arm
  • 3 lines of dots per leg
  • 6 lines of dots over front of my torso
  • 6 lines of dots on my back.
  • Total 24 lines of dots.
  • Each line are about 1m long.
  • Each line contain about 60 glowing dots.
  • Total 1500 LEDs to solder and about 100m of wire (including spare wire for extra elasticity).
What do You think about that size and total number of glowing dots?

I plan to connect all 60 LEDs in line parallel without extra resistors. Not very clever but should do the job for low current. Each line should have current source set between 15mA (0.2mA/LED, night mode) and 300mA (5mA/LED, day mode). IMHO single 10 ohm resistor per each line and one or two variable voltage source (3-6V step-down dc/dc converter) for whole costume should do the job. Add 12V lithium pack and looks like complete solution.

Now I need to purchase zentai suit and start testing.
Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors.

Hi! I'm a signature virus. Copy me into your signature to help me spread.

Toliman

#6
Quote from: Ertew on December 28, 2017, 02:10:17 PM

  • 3 lines of dots per arm
  • 3 lines of dots per leg
  • 6 lines of dots over front of my torso
  • 6 lines of dots on my back.
  • Total 24 lines of dots.
  • Each line are about 1m long.
  • Each line contain about 60 glowing dots.
  • Total 1500 LEDs to solder and about 100m of wire (including spare wire for extra elasticity).

I think that it would be really interesting. Location of all lines sounds good for me.
Do you want use really 1500 LEDs?



`Eylan Ayfalulukanä

#7
I'm going to guess that the number of LEDs you will need will be less than you estimate, as many of the 'lines' won't be fully 1 meter long.

LEDs are current mode devices, and have a constant voltage drop across them, determined by the diode material's bandgap. That actual voltage differs ever so slightly from LED to LED, even in the same lot. That tiny voltage difference though, can result in a large current difference between individual LEDs for a given applied voltage. So if you use LEDs in parallel, you need to have a small value resistor in series with each LED that drops 2-5% of the total applied voltage. This will help all the LEDs shine at a uniform brightness. This, BTW, is why virtually all modern LED lighting schemes use series connected LEDs. A series-parallel arrangement is also possible, and there, you need just one balancing resistor per string of LEDs. So, instead of using 60 LEDs and 60 balancing resistors, you could use 4 X 15 LEDs with 15 balancing resistors, or 5 X 12 or 6 X 10, with 12 or 10 balancing resistors respectively. The balancing resistors in such an arrangement could go on a small PC board so you don't have to have them at each LED string.

If you want variable brightness, consider using a PWM driver. Since the brightness whill change very quickly with applied voltage (unless you use larger balancing resistor values), its hard to simply use a voltage source. A variable constant source will work better. However, virtually all LED drivers I have seen are PWM, where they operate the LED at full brightness for a fraction of a second, and vary how long that fraction is to control average brightness. This creates the flicker you often see with dimmed LED lighting. Make suse your PWN frequency is high enough to eliminate noticeable flicker. Such a PWM driver is easy to implement with a device like a 555 timer driving a poweer MOSFET.

Magnet wire has some drawbacks in this application. Being solid, it will work harden with flexing. You will want to use, if you can find it, a very small gauge stranded wire, with either fine strands or tinsel construction. The size of the LED devices you have chosen to use should give you a range of choices for wire sizes, as they will accommodate larger size wire. Even so, a great deal of thought needs to be given to the mechanical layout and wire routing.

Yawey ngahu!
pamrel si ro [email protected]

BlueHusky2154

As for small stranded wire, buy some bulk Cat5 cable. Strip it and there will be eight wires inside, color coded, but all the same gauge. It's usually 24 AWG. Usually this cable is solid bit if you look you can find stranded.
Avatar, Furry, Amateur Astronomy, IT, PC gaming, Minecraft, Fortnite, music.
My life summarized.
:ikran: 8)


Ertew

#9
Thanks for keeping eye on my project. You motivate me to finish this.

Quote from: Toliman on December 29, 2017, 01:19:51 PM
[...]
I think that it would be really interesting. Location of all lines sounds good for me.
Do you want use really 1500 LEDs?
Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on December 29, 2017, 03:29:58 PM
I'm going to guess that the number of LEDs you will need will be less than you estimate, as many of the 'lines' won't be fully 1 meter long.
As my first estimates, Na'vi have about 60 slots over leg (single line) plus few more over foot. My leg (excluding foot) have exactly 1m hence scale. As You may see each dot have different brightness and few slots have zero brightness. That may save few LEDs but not many. Arms are much shorter than legs but have higher density. Let say about 50 LEDs excluding hand, 60 including. Same with torso - shorter but even higher density. Need to watch Av i HD and count dots again...
Answering to Toliman's question: I don't like the idea of solder that much LEDs but looks like I have to use at least 1000 LED for full blue costume. Maybe I should cosplay as Avatar driver? No LEDs on torso, just arms and legs  :-\

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on December 29, 2017, 03:29:58 PM
LEDs are current mode devices, and have a constant voltage drop across them, determined by the diode material's bandgap. That actual voltage differs ever so slightly from LED to LED, even in the same lot. That tiny voltage difference though, can result in a large current difference between individual LEDs for a given applied voltage. So if you use LEDs in parallel, you need to have a small value resistor in series with each LED that drops 2-5% of the total applied voltage. This will help all the LEDs shine at a uniform brightness. This, BTW, is why virtually all modern LED lighting schemes use series connected LEDs. A series-parallel arrangement is also possible, and there, you need just one balancing resistor per string of LEDs. So, instead of using 60 LEDs and 60 balancing resistors, you could use 4 X 15 LEDs with 15 balancing resistors, or 5 X 12 or 6 X 10, with 12 or 10 balancing resistors respectively. The balancing resistors in such an arrangement could go on a small PC board so you don't have to have them at each LED string.
Thanks again. This time I know what I'm doing. I know that voltage phenomenon and I'll try to abuse it ;). If I connect all LEDs in semi parallel (wires between each should act as small resistors) and apply supply current on each end (+ on first end, - and second) I may achieve ugly effect - each LED have different brightness. That's what I want to achieve, as irregular as Na'vi bioluminescent dots.

Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on December 29, 2017, 03:29:58 PM
If you want variable brightness, consider using a PWM driver. Since the brightness whill change very quickly with applied voltage (unless you use larger balancing resistor values), its hard to simply use a voltage source. A variable constant source will work better. However, virtually all LED drivers I have seen are PWM, where they operate the LED at full brightness for a fraction of a second, and vary how long that fraction is to control average brightness. This creates the flicker you often see with dimmed LED lighting. Make suse your PWN frequency is high enough to eliminate noticeable flicker. Such a PWM driver is easy to implement with a device like a 555 timer driving a poweer MOSFET.
That's one of problems that need to be solved later. I like PWM too but that technique wasn't very photogenic. Camera can catch flickering even when eye cannot . Constant current will be better, just need to figure the right way to do that. Also DC/DC converter may be required to adept variable supply voltage (as battery discharges) to almost constant LEDs voltage.


Quote from: `Eylan Ayfalulukanä on December 29, 2017, 03:29:58 PM
Magnet wire has some drawbacks in this application. Being solid, it will work harden with flexing. You will want to use, if you can find it, a very small gauge stranded wire, with either fine strands or tinsel construction. The size of the LED devices you have chosen to use should give you a range of choices for wire sizes, as they will accommodate larger size wire. Even so, a great deal of thought needs to be given to the mechanical layout and wire routing.
Quote from: TEAgaming2154 on December 30, 2017, 01:33:44 AM
As for small stranded wire, buy some bulk Cat5 cable. Strip it and there will be eight wires inside, color coded, but all the same gauge. It's usually 24 AWG. Usually this cable is solid bit if you look you can find stranded.
I never seen ethernet cable with stranded wire. I mean bare wire to purchase by meters. Patch cables with stranded wires are standard here, but purchasing them to salvage wires are bad idea.
I can purchase AWG37 magnet wire at local store. That wire are designed to withstand only 155*C (easy to solder through enamel layer) and fold that wire few times to achieve durability. On the other hand I can purchase AWG30 single wires with stranded core but coated with silicone (sticky) or teflone (hard to remove before soldering). Future tests needed.



But first I need to purchase zentai lycra suit. Poland stores offer me standard blue suit while Chinese for the same price can make custom fit one with few extra options like separate toes and detachable hand gloves. Waiting for replay from china, can they make tail for me.



Also new found, LEDs under lycra:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxMiDvhkTXs
Overall effect looks great. Hope I can achieve similar effect. Ofc. I'll chose regular white LEDs, not the magic RGB, cost does matter. For 10$ I can purchase: 100 pcs Chinese WS2812 or 400 pcs white SMD 2835 from local store or 1000 pcs white SMD 2835 from china.
Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors.

Hi! I'm a signature virus. Copy me into your signature to help me spread.

Toliman

Quote from: Ertew on December 31, 2017, 03:49:55 PM
Answering to Toliman's question: I don't like the idea of solder that much LEDs but looks like I have to use at least 1000 LED for full blue costume. Maybe I should cosplay as Avatar driver? No LEDs on torso, just arms and legs  :-\
I would like see realized your originally idea with 1500 LEDs on "whole" body.
However I understand that soldering of such number of LEDs would be hell work... xD

Ertew

Here are one of my inspirations for LED cosplay: Night Sky Costume
Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors.

Hi! I'm a signature virus. Copy me into your signature to help me spread.

Toliman

O.o ... looks great on this images :)

Ertew

#13
Small update.

Logistic things:
I ordered zentai costume, LEDs and LED drivers, everything from China. Everything should arrive within month (first april), worst case two months (first may). That gives me 5 months to deadline (meetup).
If international post lose any package I may need to order some items second time, that gives me 2 months of waiting for second order and 3 months to finish my costume. Looks like a plenty of time.
Costume - I don't have any info about type of the fabric (cotton/nylon/wool) and seller cannot help me with it. Photos doesn't look too shiny. I chose "light blue" color because alternative colors are blue (IMHO too dark) and white (required painting whole fabric). Darker stripes will be painted with blue fabric paint. Hope fabric will be easy to paint and doesn't look too bad.
LEDs - as they are cheaper (8$ for 2000 pcs) so I purchased 2000 pcs from one seller and 2000 pcs from second one.
Same story as with suit - need to wait 2 months.
LED drivers - I chose 50pcs WS2811 (same as in addressable LED stripes) for 10$ from single supplier. Reason for choosing them can be found below.
Magnet wire - I'll purchase it locally because I don't thrust Chinese suppliers in every technical aspect. More info below.


Technical things:
I have "LED Copper Wire" from two different Chinese sellers. First one have reasonable quality LEDs but wires are way too thick. Second one have thinner (better for me) wires but LEDs efficiency are really bad. I mean 20mA/LED gives me less light than 2mA/LED on regular SMD 2835 LEDs. This forces me use (and solder) 1500 single LEDs. So "it's decided", soldering iron ready.

LEDs required constant current driving. I'm still unsure about right current. At the moment I can assume that 5mA/LED should be visible on cloudy day (valid for modern 2835 white LEDs). That's the upper limit for future analysis as tanhì should be barely visible during day. Assuming 5mA/LED and 3 LEDs in series (~9V driving voltage) I need 100mA current for each line of dots (60 dots = 20*3 LEDs).
For LED drivers I decided to use WS2811. That little chip have 3 outputs. Each output have constant current source factory set to 18mA + PWM dimming. For my build I need 6 channels (2 chips) for each line of dots. Total 48 chips + few more for tail. This solution would give me 7 step dimming (0-6 channels active) and single channel PWM dimming between steps.
400hz PWM solution offered by WS2811 chips is a compromise between complexity of this build and issues with photography. 400hz is barely noticeable by human eye and peoples may catch this only when I make fast move. Summarizing, if nobody takes photo with exposure time below 1/100s everything should be fine.

Last thing, magnet wire. I chose local store because they have special 155°C version. In this type of magnet wire, insulation should vanish at 250°C (regular soldering temperature). Regular 200°C magnet wire need higher temperature to remove insulation. That changes a lot in soldering technology and slows down whole process.
Let's assume that each line of dots is 2m long (reduced to 1m after adding zigzag pattern for elasticity) and each required 3 separate wires, see attachment (source). I'll compose single wire by 6 thin (AWG37) magnet wires for elasticity and durability. This results about 36m of magnet wire per line of dots and total 864m for whole costume. Sounds like a lot, but smallest roll (0.25kg) contain 2551m of wire and costs about 10$. That's 3 times more than I need. I think I can add a lot more wire (durability vs elasticity).
Alternatively I can create separate LED sections and blink them independently to freak out peoples trying to take a photo  ;D



TODO: soldering, right arrangement of dots, sewing to spandex, cables and connectors (invisible under spandex), power distribution and and case for hide battery, maybe even basic remote control.
See You next time - right after components arrive.

P.S. some security mechanisms ssuck. Forum forces me many times to complete recaptcha and leaves empty field many times when I tried to preview or post my reply. Fortunately I have a ctrl-a - ctrl-c habit before send post. And that saves my work many times.
Any errors in spelling, tact or fact are transmission errors.

Hi! I'm a signature virus. Copy me into your signature to help me spread.

Toliman

Good to see any update! Hope that all will be delivered at time.


Quote from: Ertew on February 25, 2018, 05:25:53 PM
I have "LED Copper Wire" from two different Chinese sellers. First one have reasonable quality LEDs but wires are way too thick. Second one have thinner (better for me) wires but LEDs efficiency are really bad. I mean 20mA/LED gives me less light than 2mA/LED on regular SMD 2835 LEDs. This forces me use (and solder) 1500 single LEDs. So "it's decided", soldering iron ready.
Hmm ... how big is difference (light) between 20mA/LED and 2mA/LED?


Quote from: Ertew on February 25, 2018, 05:25:53 PM
TODO: soldering, right arrangement of dots, sewing to spandex, cables and connectors (invisible under spandex), power distribution and and case for hide battery, maybe even basic remote control.
See You next time - right after components arrive.
Sounds as a lot of work, good luck with it!