BladeZone's Off World Forums

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/9260/



have you ever use it?? is it good? especially in the dark?? people says it is.




it seems indeed..

i think is too much light from the base and less from the top

I like mine fine...actually I liked mine so much I got my picture taken with it and a couple of friends from my home town...

http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/travelpower/9260/action/

I actually won a $100 gift certificate with that picture.

Kind of looks like a lightsaber running an umbrella through, heh.

That would be a lot of fun.

that's probably because of the bottom side light's being reflecting on the guy's shirt, while the top side isn't. i don't think neon light would differ side to side. just a guess

aren't neon lighted they're LED umbrella the neon is only to reminds to blade runner umbrella that were powered by battery slot and neon lighting

this works incredibly with only one AA battery!

oops, sorry, i'm not into props at all

Well basically it's kind of what it is. You have an acrylic rod that was molded with strands of optical fibers, and what's at the base is a white or red Luxeon LED. It's a lot like the fan-made lightsabres except the rod of choice is usually polycarbonate because it stands up to more beatage than acrylic. Acrylic tends to shatter when it gets that treatment. I don't know of anyone using optical fibers to amplify the light, it's usually a polished metal thing at the tip reflecting the light back down like a mirror. The Master Replicas licensed lightsabres had a string of LEDs down the center of a polycarbonate tube. The LED strings tend to break under even gentle beatdowns. Pretty for show or kata, not good for stunts.

However, the really serious people doing fanfilms and whatnot tend to use even tougher materials for sabre blades like carbon fiber, aluminum and rattan, and do like Lucasfilm did and rotoscope the blades in during post-production.

Actually Once Bitten over at Propsummit did a NEON umbrella. Real neon. Retrofitted into an existing umbrella. I was skeptical and thought he was going to too much trouble for what it was worth, but dammit if his umbrella doesn't look best of all, even in daylight. I actually rotoscoped in some glow in my picture with the WB Video replica replicants at Comic-Con. The glow isn't as noticeable under house lights.

Here's Once Bitten's play-by-play on his neon umbrella project:
http://propsummit.com/viewtopic.php?t=563&start=0

The umbrella's used for the film were in fact flourescent tubes and not neon.

Both Once Bitten and I know that. He chose neon because of the brightness factor, and because modern neon can be powered by batteries or 12VDC current like that which comes off a computer power supply or a car. The fluorescent rig on the actual BR umbrellas required 120VAC, belt packs, cables and wranglers minding the cables so that nobody would trip over them.

Neon just needs more batteries and has a shorter runtime than a luxeon LED.

$19.95 here:
http://www.myvirtualzone.com/detail.aspx?ID=14445

ok i know its crazy to upping again this post btw i want to buy this umbrella i decided. so where can i get one? the think geek version now is made by button batteries it sucks.. i was sure about a version with AA battery there are many on ebay but most are from china and i belief that the duties would be too expensive..