18 replies to this topic

[BennyG]

Hi All,

Recently my interest in nerfs has been relit as everyone in my office has them and we engage in nerf skirmishes on a daily basis. Most of us have modded our guns if only to remove the air restrictors.
I was thinking of making some stefans to try out in my modded maverick rev-6 (rem air restrictors, 4 pennies behind spring, total barrel removal). I was thinking it would be cool to find a way to make light up darts and wondered if anyone has used an led and battery for weight in a stefan and to make it light up?

BennyG

[CaptainSlug]

That's far too much weight to load a dart with.

[Langley]

Look up LED 'throwies'. Most of the 3v batteries used in throwies are about the size of a quarter, but you might have luck with one or more hearing aid batteries. If anything does work, it probably will be too heavy to fire out of a mav.

Or you could just get yourself a firefly.

[nerkum]

The Lithium CR1025 battery is one of the smallest 3v batteries. It is a little bit heavier then a washer and when you add in the LED it does make it a tad heavy. Using a low power blaster probably won't hurt anyone, but the target cannot see the dart light, it is good for tracers. I have already done this, and cost is about 50 cents per dart to do this mod not counting foam. Plus the connection to the battery usually breaks when it hits.

[Lucian]

It's possible for sure, but the thing is, assuming you can find a watch battery cheep and small enough to use, by the end of your war, the battery is dead.

Edited by Lucian, 03 September 2012 - 01:43 PM.

[mysterio]

It's possible for sure, but the thing is, assuming you can find a watch battery cheep and small enough to use, by the end of your war, the is battery dead.

A nice solution for this is to use the internals of a light-up buzz bee missile. I'm actually placing them inside a dart as I type.

[Demon Lord]

For a micro sized dart, the weight will probably be too much for even a high powered blaster. However a mega sized dart or a mongo dart (and the blasters capable of firing them) that might be a better weight for those larger darts.

[Phree Agent]

There is always Glow in the Dark hot glue as an option? I don't know if that suits your needs, but they light up....in a way.

[Draconis]

Have any of you guys bothered weighing these components? There is not that much mass. Also, Only Blue and White LEDs require that much voltage. You can get red, yellow, and green to run off of 1.55V hearing aid batteries. Even thought they do call for 1.7v, 2.1v, and 2.1v, respectively.

[mysterio]

Reporting back with results, it kinda worked. I used a crappy mega dart from Air Zone, the kind that has a plastic straw inside. Worked well, light lit up and everything, until I bumped the gun, a UMB, pushing the dart in too far, and then when I tried to fire it out, the foam exploded. I'll have to try this again sometime. No ranges because it broke before I could get any.

[teamturbo95]

That's far too much weight to load a dart with.

I realize that it would be way to much weight for a dart. With that being said it confuses me how Nerf used their glowing dart for the firefly.

[b1g13en]

I realize that it would be way to much weight for a dart. With that being said it confuses me how Nerf used their glowing dart for the firefly.

The firefly darts uses a sticker that wraps around the dart

[teamturbo95]

The firefly darts uses a sticker that wraps around the dart

So its basically the dart itself rather than a light, right?

[Darksircam]

What the Firefly darts are: Normal suction dart with thinner-than-normal foam, all-white in appearance. The suction head has glow-in-the-dark colouring in it.
There is a sticker, akin to a Post-it, that wraps around the dart. This is also glow-in-the-dark.

So basically, it's not gonna light up by itself. The Firefly "supercharges" the glow element right before firing with a flash.

[teamturbo95]

What the Firefly darts are: Normal suction dart with thinner-than-normal foam, all-white in appearance. The suction head has glow-in-the-dark colouring in it.
There is a sticker, akin to a Post-it, that wraps around the dart. This is also glow-in-the-dark.

So basically, it's not gonna light up by itself. The Firefly "supercharges" the glow element right before firing with a flash.

Thanks, it really makes perfect sense now. Although it would be nice to create stefans just like this, I think that may be impossible due to the fact that stefans do not use suction cups.

[b1g13en]

Well you can use white foam darts and black lights.

[shardbearer]

Or any darts, a disposable camera flash, and glow in the dark tape.

[FoamSniper]

You might also consider small capacitors as an alternative to normal batteries. They'd be lighter and you'd have to charge them up before use. And I have no idea if you would be able to find any that could be used for this purpose, but I know that's what is used in the dragonfly ornithopter walmart was selling a few years ago so that it would be light enough to fly.

[Stark]

I have a couple of darts that glow arc-reactor blue and they're about as heavy as normal slugs. They're essentially identical to slugs except I replaced the washer with a very flat watch battery, then positioned the LED behind it so I could just put a felt tip on it like a normal slug. I have the positive side facing rear with the anode attached to it, and the cathode going up and attaching to the front of the dart, the negative side of the battery. This allows me to simply use the felt tip to hold the cathode in place when in use and I can take it off so it doesn't glow when not in use. They cost about $5 to $7 per dart because of the battery, they're silly, serve no purpose, and are freakin awesome.