Table of Contents
  1. How does the HyperBlade™ look with the lights on?
  2. What does the HyperBlade™ system consist of?
  3. What sound options do I have?
  4. What is in the hilt sound system?
  5. What is wireless sound system?
  6. How does the bluetooth wireless system work?
  7. What is the range of the wireless bluetooth?
  8. Where do I get saber sounds?
  9. Do I have to purchase a blade with a sound option? Can I just get a blade?
  10. What are the dimensions of the HyperBlade™ driver board?
  11. What is the minimum width the "blade" electronics will fit in?
  12. How bright is the blade?
  13. What exposure setting were the pics taken in?
  14. What kind of batteries does the HyperBlade™ system take?
  15. Is the battery rechargeable?
  16. Whats the battery life on your blades?
  17. Are you making a purple blade?
  18. What is the blade made out of?
  19. Does the HyperBlade™ cut?
  20. In some of the videos the blade looks like it has dark spotty areas. Why is this?
  21. What hilt options do I have?
  22. Can I use an MR hilt?
  23. Can a Larbel EL saber hilt be used?
  24. Do you happen to be using those luxeon leds?
  25. Is the HyperBlade™ system removable?
  26. Is the Sound Board separate from the Blade Effects?
  27. Also, how does your blade attach to the hilt? With a 1/4" mono jack?
  28. If I were to make my own hilt how much space would I need to allocate for the
    electronics (blade driver board and batteries)?
  29. What is the force feedback Vibration unit?
  30. Do the blades put out a burst of light?
  31. What is pitch control?
  32. Can it do force push?
  33. Can it play music simulatniously using my computer?
  34. What is CorePulse™?
  35. Can I set the CorePulse™ speed rate?
  36. How are the CorePulse™ speeds activated?
  37. How are lockup sounds activated?
  38. Can you make a kid size or little green friend HyperBlade™?
  39. What colors are available?

 

How does the HyperBlade™ look with the lights on?

You can actually see it in a fully lit fluorescent room.  That should be an indication of the light output you are seeing (over 100 candela) either day or night. 
Click photo to enlarge

Here is the green blade in DIRECT sunlight. The sun was coming right through
an unfiltered window on the upper left side. Below is the pic w/ no flash.
The blade is certainly bright enough to still be seen in direct sunlight
(plus I'm at 5500 ft so I'm 1 mile closer to the sun ).

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What does the HyperBlade™ system consist of?

HyperBlade™ LED driver board, HyperFlex™ LED blade assembly, DuelCore blade tubing, sound board (optional in-the-hilt or Bluetooth wireless), and battery pack.

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What sound options do I have?

In-the-hilt sound board with 1" speaker, or a bluetooth wireless sound board.

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What is in the hilt sound system?

The in the hilt sound board can be programmed to automatically handle swing sound playback and clash sounds - no extra buttons or user intervention needed! Everything is computed onboard the sound module, and the proper sounds are played back based on motion of the saber (sound familiar ). All synchronized with blade driver board. The basic downside to an in the hilt sound system is loudness and sound quality when you go to an in-the-hilt sound board with speaker. The in-the-hilt version uses a small speaker to playback the sounds. Using a 1" diameter speaker (smaller than I typically use) and our mini 1W amp the sounds are about 2 times louder than the current FX saber.

Features: small in hilt sound board, 10 sounds, plug and play with driver unit, ClashEffect™ enabled.

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What is wireless sound system?

It can do everything the in the hilt sound board can do but louder! It uses bluetooth wireless technology.  You use your PC to handle the sound playback, which results in CD quality surround sound playback.  It is the ultimate in interactive saber sound.

 
Features: CD-quality sound playback over PC sound card, realistic motion detection in 2 planes, plug and play with driver unit, ClashEffect™ enabled.

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How does the bluetooth wireless system work?

Bluetooth is the wireless link between the PC and the saber module itself. It sends data to the PC so it can figure out which sounds to play out (swing, clash, lockup, force push, etc). The bluetooth version relies on an external sound source (stereo, PC speakers, PA amp, etc) to play out the sounds. This is the more professional setup that guys like Ben Burtt, Elstree, and saber demo practictioners use in their line of work. For wireless sound you have to use a PC (or Mac if you are like Ben Burtt ) to analyze the hilt movements and then generate proper sound effects. So typically a laptop, desktop, or handheld computer is connected to some external speakers or stereo system to play out the DVD-quality sound effects. The hilt also receives information back from the PC telling it to "do" certain things.

It also seamlessly hooks into our blade driver board for synchronized sound and lights. The PC also now talks back to the saber hilt feeding it information on what sounds are being played back. That has never before been accomplished!

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What is the range of the wireless bluetooth?

The clear air range of this bluetooth module is maxed at 300ft.

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Where do I get saber sounds?

For the Bluetooth wireless system you can download whatever sounds you want. They must be is wav file format.

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Do I have to purchase a blade with a sound option? Can I just get a blade?

Yes, but we don't see why you would want no sound. Just like sound is 50% of the movie. Sound here is 50% of the whole experience.

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What are the dimensions of the HyperBlade™ driver board?

Dimensions: 1.7" x 1". The driver board will fit in any saber hilt with more than 1" ID. A hilt ID of 1.25" or more would be ideal.

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What is the minimum width the "blade" electronics will fit in?

The blade electronics will fit inside a 0.5" ID (inside diameter) tube. The only thing here is getting enough diffusion with a really thin blade. That might take a sandblasted or frosted blade assembly.  So the short answer is "yes with a little work". The electronics do not require the 1" diameter tube, but it does help with blade diffusion. So if you can get a smaller properly diffused blade then everything will fit inside a 0.5" ID tube. Actual dimensions are: 36" x 0.5"

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How bright is the blade?

On paper this blade gives off more than 200 candela!! So minimal Luminosity: > 100 candela

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What kind of batteries does the HyperBlade™ system take?

The blade runs off a standard battery pack.  We prefer a nice small Li-ion battery which is not as large as a conventional AA batts but packs the same energy.

We have done some initial tests on battery life. Right now we are using a rechargeable pack, it seems to last about 45-60 minutes continuous.  We havent done a rigorous test as its been easy to plug it in and give it a charge when needed. We are using a 7V Li-ion battery pack to deliver the needed current to the blade. You could also use 5AA or AAA batts if need be. A 9V will light up the blade, but not for long (and they are not recommended)...

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Is the battery rechargeable?

Yes, no more taking your hilt apart to change batteries.

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Are you making a purple blade?

A purple blade is certainly doable, we are actually looking into that as one of the colors to proto later on...

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What is the blade made out of?

The blade consists of a inner core (Hyperflex LED assembly) with a diffusion tube and an outer 1" nylon tube.

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Does the HyperBlade™ cut?

No. Nor is it design to be a weapon.

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Can I use an MR hilt?

Yes, you can gut out the electronics and blade electronics of a FX saber. Our system does not utilize and part of the MR FX electronics or blade. You do have to gut the MR stuff out of the hilt - their driver isnt compatible with our blade. So you need to use our driver with the blade to get it this bright and have all the extra features...

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Do you happen to be using those luxeon leds?

No we our not using those luxeon LEDs. We are using a different system that we designed fromt he ground up!  The blade does the proper activation/deactivation light scrolling and includes some other very nice unique features! You can't achieve uniform side lighting with blade activation/deactivation utilizing single luxeon led system.

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Is the HyperBlade™ system removable?

Yes, these blades are totally removable, they simply plug in to the driver board. The way we designed them you can change blade colors by plugging in a different colored blade in the same HyperBlade™ driver board.  No need to take apart the hilt at all, as the driver board works with any of the blade colors. You can replace any color blade and still use the same driver board.

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Is the Sound Board separate from the Blade Effects?

The sound board is separate. It can either be seamlessly controlled from our blade driver board, or it can be used standalone using 2 pushbuttons (one for up/down sound and one for clash sounds).

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Also, how does your blade attach to the hilt? With a 1/4" mono jack?

The blade does not use a 1/4" jack (like EL), instead it uses a DIN connector.

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If I were to make my own hilt how much space would I need to allocate for the electronics (blade driver board and batteries)?

If you are doing your own hilt the mininum ID should be 1". All our electronics are 1" wide max. The blade assemblies are the same size as the MR sabers since we are retrofitting, but they can be made smaller if necessary.  We recommend at least a 1.25" ID hilt to fit the battery pack.

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What is the ForceFeedback Vibration unit?

This works for the speaker-in-the-hilt sound modules or the wireless in-hilt sound module.  It works with our ClashEffect™ feature to synchronize lights, sounds, and feeling!

The speaker-in-the-hilt sound module also has a variable speed force feedback motor that vibrates when you get a clash sound.  It also vibrates at a slower rate when you swing or the blade is simply just humming.  The wireless version can also use a vib motor as an add-on option. Plus the wireless version can also do blade lockup sounds that are triggered by the hilt or the computer user. 

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Do the blades put out a burst of light?

The blades do not put out a burst of light, but they do have a special clash shimmer when a ClashEffect™ feature is activated. With this feature the blade will automatically shimmer every time a clash event is detected.

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What is automatic pitch control with the wireless sound board?

For the bluetooth sound module, basically when the saber is pointed down towards the ground the saber hum gets deeper and more menacing. When you point the saber up, the hum gets higher - as if the saber is ready to fight! The pitch automatically changes while you fight too.

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Can you do a force push sound?

You can use the bluetooth wireless sound module to initiate a force push using the "Strike" motion option.  It is very cool to initiate a force push with the hilt!

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Can you play music mixed with sound effects using my computer?

Yes, using the Bluetooth wireless sound module.  There is also a feature within the Scimitar saber program that will let play music in wav format, and everything is mixed in with the saber sounds!  Imagine recreating your favorite duel with background music playing!!

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What is CorePulse™?

This feature replicates a movie-like shimmering effect of the blade.  You can choose between 4 different pulsing "rates" at will by using the multi-featured pushbutton.  If you see the effect in person it appears as if the saber has an "aura" around it.

Click here to see movie of CorePulse™ in action.

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Can I set the CorePulse™ speed rate?

Yes, you can set the pulse rate to one of 5 settings:
1) full on
2) slow pulse
3) med pulse
4) fast pulse
5) flicker pulse

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How are the CorePulse™ speeds activated?

The saber pushbutton cycles through the settings. Also the driver board remembers the last setting so it comes on in that mode, and you can change it anytime you like while using the saber!

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How are long lockup sounds activated?

For the bluetooth wireless sound module, you can either

1) have a 3rd person trigger the lockup sound effect on demand via the PC, or

2) you can automatically set up one saber to do lockup sounds when it is contacted harder than normal by the other saber (by increasing the impact threshold on that saber).

You can also hook up a button to the in-hilt sound board to initiate a stream of clash sounds if you like!

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Can you make a kid size or little green friend HyperBlade™?

We actually already have a 2' version blade. It has all the features of the 3' blade too!

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What colors are available?

SuperRed™ (Red), FlashGreen™ (Green), and TrueBlue™ (Blue).

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Disclaimer: Although the blade can withstand high impact. It's purpose is not be used to be swung around people, pets, or property. It can withstand choreographed fighting done by professional stunt people.  It is not designed to be a weapon. The HyperBlade™ system does not cut nor deflect laser beams or bullets.  It only simulates what you see in the movies. It should not be worn during any kind of physical activity including running, jumping, or walking down stairs.  Hyperdyne Labs accepts no liability in the misuse of its products.

FAQ done by Mark Cheng.
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