I would like to put EL strip on my bike, but I find that any significant length of strip at the site I'm looking at (a supplier in Louisiana, can't find the name, but I think there's only one) claims not to be powerable by batteries, it's all stuff that plugs into the wall. The only battery-powered inverter they have claims to power at most 12 sq in. So, I have a couple of questions:
Anybody know of what would happen if I just attach more EL strip, say 24 or 36 sq in? Too dim, fires, apocELypse?
And, what I am doing may in itself be pretty silly: I want polka-dots, so I am spiralling EL strip and masking off everything that doesn't look like a polka-dot. This seems incredibly wasteful to me as most of the strip doesn't do anything even though I'm powering it. Does anybody have a better idea for how to achieve this?
Thanks for any wisdom you might have, also, Hi - I'm a complete EL newbie, but it looks potentially like terrific fun.
Anybody know of what would happen if I just attach more EL strip, say 24 or 36 sq in? Too dim, fires, apocELypse?
And, what I am doing may in itself be pretty silly: I want polka-dots, so I am spiralling EL strip and masking off everything that doesn't look like a polka-dot. This seems incredibly wasteful to me as most of the strip doesn't do anything even though I'm powering it. Does anybody have a better idea for how to achieve this?
Thanks for any wisdom you might have, also, Hi - I'm a complete EL newbie, but it looks potentially like terrific fun.
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Los Angeles
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Re: Powering EL strip
Fri, July 27, 2007 - 8:58 PMYou might want to check out coolneon.com and see what can be done with wire rather than the sheet or strip stuff. I've got maybe 30ft of the stuff on my bike and I'm running it all with 4: AA batteries, which probably give me half a dozen evenings of romping about..
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Re: Powering EL strip
Sat, July 28, 2007 - 9:40 AMGet a larger inverter, one made to run a good length of wire. You should be fine running from batteries. -
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Re: Powering EL strip
Sat, July 28, 2007 - 1:27 PMSpeaking from experience I find that the Fish driver with a 9V can drive about 36 square inches at a reasonable intensity. If you used AAs you'd probably squeeze a little more out of it. -
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Re: Powering EL strip
Sat, July 28, 2007 - 7:14 PMThanks! I will try that, I don't need to drive more than 36 I think. I'll post photos if it works out. -
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Re: Powering EL strip
Sun, July 29, 2007 - 11:39 AMTo answer your other question, the only way I can think of to stretch your wastefulness would be to use an experimenter's sheet & cut it into squares then chain the squares together. Typical EL panels & strips have a single bus bar that provides power to the whole sheet/strip; if you cut across it the whole sheet is dead. But if you get an experimenter's sheet it has bus bars throughout the sheet & contacts all along the edges, so you can cut it into arbitrary shapes & still make each piece glow.
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Re: Powering EL strip
Wed, August 8, 2007 - 9:53 AMThat worked fine. Right now I'm running a 72"x1" segment off of a single Fish driver; it's not super bright but it's ok. I will probably cut it into two 36"x1" segments and give each its own driver.
If any of you try this at home, these relatively cheap strips ($24 for 72"x1" blue) from electroluminescence-inc.com have a weird three-pin male plug; electroluminescence-inc recommends one of their wall-powered drivers, but they don't have anything battery-powered for these plugs. I just cut the plug off and soldered the two wires that connected the strip to the plug directly to the two wires coming out of the Fish driver. (The helpful folks at the company told me that were I to build a plug adapter instead, I should just connect to the outer pins and ignore the middle pin.) -
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Re: Powering EL strip
Wed, August 8, 2007 - 1:31 PMNever mind, it sold out or anyway it's not in their online store any more.
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Re: Powering EL strip
Thu, August 9, 2007 - 3:42 PMAre you running your fish setup with a 9V? If you get an 8-piece AA adapter you can boost your power to 12V (1.5V*8) & make it significantly brighter & longer lasting. -
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Re: Powering EL strip
Thu, August 9, 2007 - 4:01 PMYeah, right now I'm using the 9V adapter that came with it. I will give 12V a shot. Thanks! -
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Re: Powering EL strip
Thu, August 9, 2007 - 5:50 PMWhen you're right on the margin like that, every little bit helps. Also, I'd be wary of cutting your strip at all unless it says it's OK to cut it. Panels are not like wire, they have a single wire embedded in them (called a bus bar) that provides power to the whole panel. If you cut the panel across that bus bar you will kill the whole strip. Different types of panels put them in different places, so unless you know where the bus bar is it's best to leave the strip whole. -
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Re: Powering EL strip
Thu, August 9, 2007 - 7:50 PMThis strip seems to have two strips of copper running down the length. Anyhow; I cut it and soldered leads to the cut-off bit and it turned out ok. I wrote it up here: www.outgribe.com/jason/el_strip.html , but if different sorts of strip aren't built like mine, then I'm going to have to add some more warnings before I make the link (more) public. -
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This is the maximum depth. Additional responses will not be threaded.
Re: Powering EL strip
Fri, August 10, 2007 - 6:36 AMI'm not an expert at the design of EL panels & strips but I can tell you I killed one panel by cutting the bus bar, which then led to the discovery of same. From what I understand different makers put them in different places, sometimes down the middle & sometimes along the edge. I've since switched to using experimenter's panels which are designed to be cut up, they have bus bars all throughout the panel so you can't cut them all. The ones I got are 8 1/2 * 11" & have pairs of contacts (alternating front & back) all around the edges. As long as you connect up a front & a back contact area to your power supply these panels don't seem to care how you cut them up.
I'd advise caution in cutting up "regular" panels & strips, the wrong cut can kill the whole thing dead. We just have to figure out which cuts are OK with which types of panels & how to tell which is which.
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