TOPIC: SF Quad Cree Mixing Combinations & Colour Gallery

Afadir has a mint saber; perhaps he could shine the light on a wall for us?
Kouri wrote:
Thanks for the insight Kouri. I might consider doing this with my yellow LED (which we now know is A/A/A/G) instead of going the 6w/6w/12w route.

Jaden Korr wrote:
I agree! Need to know before I pull the trigger on ordering one.

Thanks! I was looking at the blues trying to figure out which ones used which emitters, and the OP of this thread made it completely clear.

I'm trying to figure out which combination works best with a photon blade. I see info saying those excite best with a 495nm wavelength. Cree's spec sheet says royal blue is 450-465nm while regular blue is 465-485nm. So going by that, the all-regular-blue method should look brighter...

... but I'm not sure which produces a better color. Any ideas there?

I'm trying to work out what options would work best to get three colors depending on which blade is installed -- blue (standard blade), green (photon blade), and purple-ish (red day blade, probably purple core with red outside, significantly less bright).

Also not sure which would interact best with the red day blade for the most and purple-est light output.

Last I checked, Blue (SF Light Blue) offers the brightest Photon blade, but I prefer Royal Blue (SF Deep Blue) as it produces a whiter core, while Blue LEDs make a slightly bluer core.

Any Blue (Light, Medium, or Deep) will work fine in a Blue day blade, though Light will likely be brightest.

Neither will light up a Red day blade at all. No purple core. Little-to-no illumination period.

Photon blades are an odd exception. They color-shift blue light up to green and let everything else pass through unaffected. They're basically clear with an odd effect on blue, so the color appears to average up to a lime green.

Every other non-photon day blade BLOCKS light that doesn't match its color.

Red allows Red.

Purple allows Red + Blue

Green allows Green.

Blue allows Blue.

I've not tested the new SF Orange and Yellow, but I imagine they'd allow varying amounts of light from Red, RedOrange, Amber, Lime, and Green LEDs.

For Orange, I'd recommend Cree RedOrange or Cree Amber. (SF only offers an Amber)

For Yellow, I'd recommend Cree PC Amber or Luxeon Lime (SF only offers Amber).

Kouri wrote: Awesome. I'm more interested in the tint than in the total brightness, so that's very helpful. The remote phosphor thing is cool, but mostly I just like that it gives me the option of a few colors without using a RGB emitter+driver and it doesn't look like white in a bright room. Should be able to get blue, green, and something vaguely purple-ish by changing blades.
Kouri wrote: Ah. That was what I had expected at first, until a Vader's Vault guy posted test results for every VV RGB emitter shade with every non-enhanced day blade. Blue LED plus red blade turned out dim enough to be a night-only color, but still interesting:

My first thought was to try a purple day blade, but with a blue emitter it seems to come out much more blue, more like indigo. Definitely brighter though, since that tint allows blue to shine through. Perhaps it's a better option after all:


This would all be much easier with a spectral graph of each day blade.

In any case, I'm pretty scattered as I try to figure out a coherent plan for a saber, but the list in the OP is very helpful.

Pulled my thinwall red day blade from my crossguard and popped it onto my B/rB/W Graflex for giggles.

Dim core was~ magenta. Edge was red. Overall, the blade was a dim magenta-pink. Hollowed out tip was surprisingly blue. White FoC lit up a... light red? (not pink).

I imagine even less light would get through the SF thick wall day blade.

If you want to use lots of day blades, I'd say to just get a white LED. Makes a neat yellow in photon green blades.

Coincidental to your giggles, did something similar last night with an RGA setup through a VV TW Red DB. Results? Sherbety powder bomb.

Jaden Korr wrote:
Well I finally got a response from This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. rather than Etsy.

Kouri wrote: True. And if I got an empty heat sink pill and optic, I'm practically swimming in spare high-power white LEDs to put in it. And a bunch of spare optics.

I could even perhaps do a wide-spectrum triple XP-G2 or XP-L HI to give it more vivid colors with different blades. One 2700-3000K emitter, one ~4500K, one 6500-8000K, depending on what I can find. Still not as vivid as a matched-color emitter and blade, but more versatile by swapping blades and potentially brighter than a RGB setup. Anyone tried a wide-spectrum white with day blades?

Or maybe SF's quad XB-D white would be fine. Probably easier, at least.

Or perhaps go even easier and do a SF Hero edition. It looks pretty close to what I'd end up making anyway. (Spark2R2 / SparkColor2R2 w/ half red and half blue emitters, add a photon blade to get green in addition to the native red/blue/purple)

OvrcAHst wrote: Hah, nice way of putting it.

On the topic of color mixing, I'm half tempted to go through the day blade + RGB emitter test video, pull screenshots of every combination, and post them as a reference. It'd probably be a bit rude though, since it's not my video and it'd be a form of freebooting even if linked back to the original.

ToyKeeper wrote: Some experimenting if you will. Hero Monarch 6WRed/6WMediumBlue/12WPurple illuminated through a VV Standard Dual Diffused and a VV Photon. These were done about 40minutes ago at 2pm Saturday afternoon with curtains drawn. The resulting colour(s) are probably best measured via the slight reflective surface of the BedPost.
Interesting effects using the Photon. 6WRed produces a deeper Red, 6WMb produces a rich acid Green and 12WPurple produces a surprisingly great Lime Green likened to radiation or Gamma. Illumination through both blade types (to my perception) resulted with zero coring effects where the colours were full and evenly lit.
Funnily enough ToyKeeper, the effects of Mb and Purple through a Photon reminded me of the Green in your Avatar and Signature. IMO, ideal complimentary colour's.

OvrcAHst wrote:

Thanks for this!!!

Has it been confirmed that mint green is GGBB? I have both a cyan and mint green module from SF, and neither of them have resistors of any sort that would alter the color between them.

I think it is a typo for G/G/G/B.

Khang wrote: Jaden Korr wrote: My error. I misread Brady329s screenshot of SFCS' reply. Correcting it now. Yes according to SF, Mint Green=G/G/G/B.

Just got a Blood Orange 12+ led and it looks like there now using RoRoRoRo. I was planning mixing the red/amber on a Spark 2. I tested it, and all 4 die were the same color.

fuzzjunk wrote:
Thanks for the update.

fuzzjunk wrote: Thank you. Initial Post updated.