Accent LED Pads & Sequences

What Are Accent LEDs?

Accent LEDs are smaller lights in the hilt that work independently from the main blade. They can light a crystal chamber, illuminate a switch, show battery level, pulse, mirror blade channels, react to sound, or run blinking patterns.

The Crystal Focus X supports up to 9 accent LED outputs for hilt lighting features such as crystal chambers, AV switches, chassis LEDs, and battery indicators. Not all of those outputs are true PWM outputs, so some can fade smoothly while others are digital-only.

Where Are the LED Pads on the CFX?

Two Types of Accent LEDs

PWM Accents (Single-Color LEDs)

These are the 9 discrete LED outputs on the CFX board, labeled ACCENT1 through ACCENT8, plus GPIO4. They work with individual LEDs such as crystal chamber LEDs, illuminated AV switches, and chassis lighting.

Not all 9 outputs have the same capabilities:

PWM outputs, which are accents 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9, can produce smooth brightness control. That makes them ideal for pulsing, fading, audio-reactive flicker, blade color mirroring, and crystal color pulsing.

Digital-only outputs, which are accents 1, 3, and 4, can only switch fully ON or fully OFF. You can still assign PWM-style behaviors such as self-pulsing or audio flicker to them, but they will blink between ON and OFF instead of fading smoothly.

SD Card Layout

/extra/ACCENTS/
├── 0-Default/
│   └── leds.txt
├── 1-Breathing/
│   └── leds.txt
├── 2-RainbowChase/
│   └── leds.txt
└── ...

Each subfolder uses a numbered naming style similar to font folders. The number is the style index you reference from config.txt.

Selecting a Style in config.txt

[profile=0]
style_accents=0

Different blade profiles can use different accent styles, so switching blade profiles can also change the hilt lighting behavior.

The leds.txt File

The leds.txt file defines how the 9 accent outputs behave. It has two main parts: global settings at the top, and one or more state sections below.

Accent Attributes

The accents= line is the most important setting. Each character controls one accent output from left to right, meaning accent 1 through accent 9.

accents=aappp12Oa

Polarity

Polarity tells the firmware how each accent LED is physically wired, so the LED behaves correctly without you having to change your sequences or rewire the hardware.

polarity=NNNNNNNNN

Common cathode, which is the normal N setting, means the LED shares ground and the accent output drives it in the usual way.

Common anode, which uses R, means the LED shares its positive supply instead. That flips the logic.

When you set an accent to R, the firmware flips the behavior for you. Digital ON and OFF states are inverted, and PWM brightness is mirrored as well, so the effect still looks correct on the LED.

Why this is useful: Different LED modules, illuminated switches, and custom hilt installs do not all use the same wiring convention. Polarity lets you adapt in software, so sequences, pulsing, audio flicker, and PLI still behave normally even when the physical wiring is inverted.

Pulse Parameters

These can appear at the top of the file or inside a section. They control self-pulsing and crystal-pulsing accent behaviors.

Sections

Sequence Blocks

A <forever> block loops indefinitely:

[LEDS]
<forever>
delay=200
state=100000000
state=010000000
state=001000000
state=000100000
</forever>

A <repeat=N> block plays a set number of times, then moves on:

[POWERON]
<repeat=3>
delay=50
state=111111111
state=000000000
</repeat>
stop

State Lines

Each state= line defines the ON and OFF values for all 9 accent outputs, from left to right.

state=101000010

Important: Only accents using regular, morphing, or random behavior actually follow the state= sequence. Accents assigned to PLI, mirroring, pulsing, or other special behaviors ignore the state pattern and run their own logic.

Delay Lines

delay= sets how long the following states are held in milliseconds. If no delay is set, the default is 100 ms.

delay=200
state=110000000
state=001100000
delay=500
state=000011000

Complete leds.txt Example

// Crystal chamber mirrors blade color, PLI bargraph, pulsing switch, chase blinkies
accents=123ppp~aa
polarity=NNNNNNNNN

accpulsed=60
accpulsel=2000

[IDLE]
<forever>
delay=800
state=000000010
state=000000001
</forever>

[LEDS]
<forever>
delay=150
state=000000010
state=000000001
</forever>

[POWERON]
<repeat=4>
delay=40
state=000000011
state=000000000
</repeat>
stop

[POWEROFF]
<repeat=3>
delay=100
state=000000010
state=000000001
state=000000000
</repeat>
stop

[LOCKUP]
<forever>
delay=60
state=000000011
state=000000000
</forever>

PLI

The PLI system turns one or more accent LEDs into a battery level bargraph. Assign the p attribute to consecutive accents.

accents=aapppppaa

When the battery drops below 10%, the last lit LED blinks as a warning.

How Sections Switch

If [FOREVER] is defined, it overrides all other sections and plays constantly regardless of saber state.

Themed Accent Files

When a theme is active, the firmware looks for accent files inside the theme folder first. If it does not find them there, it falls back to the global accent path.

//extra/ACCENTS/0-Default/leds.txt

Configuration Summary

Quick Reference

PWM Accent Attributes

leds.txt Syntax

Limits

Crystal Focus X firmware guide · Accent LED Pads & Sequences