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Electroluminescent wire, coolneon, firewire...EL-WIRE, gift of the blinky gods!
Photo by Amy Snyder (from www.coolneon.com)
EL wire is flexible wire lighting product, a copper wire is coated in phosphorus, thin hair wires spun around and a coloured plastic coating applied. When an electrical current is run through the wire it produces a true 360 degree radiant glow. The wire is powered by simple battery driven power packs, the wire is cool to the touch and can be incorporated into art projects, costumes and saftey features with ease.
This year at Nowhere Dougal Dutch will be holding an El-Wire workshop in the 2006/BurrowProject, it will cover the basics of choosing the right grade of wire, power pack, how to assemble and finally attach to your project. If you are interested in signing up for a workshop sessio or would like some advice with your el-wire project, contact (
Dougaldutch(at)hotmail.com)
Some good burner suppliers are:
USA
http://www.coolightwest.com ( good service, selection of invertors and wire. Connection service)
http://www.coolneon.com (great service, selection of sequencers and offers bulk discount on wire)
EUROPE
http://www.surelight.com (more limited in selection of invertors/ sequencers, but good starter kits and discount for burners/ euroburners)
You can buy a starter kit to get yourself going from any of the above suppliers (there are plenty more out there but I cannot recommend them), but ultimately the most satisfying route is to do the whole thing yourself, some pointers below:
1) Decide on what type of elwire you would like and how much, there are many types and depending upon what you choose, this will influence your choice of invertor. You have to select what thickness of wire you would like 1.3mm anglewire, 2.3mm standard, 3.2mm medium, 2.5mm or 5mm high bright wire, 2.3mm tail wire for easy attachment and double core wire. The the colour you would like, you can even get 4 colours on 1 wire although I haven't tried that out yet so don't know what it is like.
2) After you have chosen your type and colour of wire you need to choose an invertor, this is what powers the wire and should be chosen carefully. If you are making a portable design or costume then you will need a battery powered invertor, balance weight and size against the length of wire they can power. Depending upon the effect you want to create you may also have to consider extra features like varying blink rates, strobing, sound sensitive flashing, etc. For really interesting patterns you will need a sequencer which can have the invertor built in. One invertor can power more than one strand of elwire but the total length of the elwire must not exceed the maximum length specified for that invertor
3) Connecting the two, there are plenty of instructions out there on how to solder the wire and invertor (e.g. http://www.coolneon.com/soldering.html or http://www.elwirecheap.com/elwirsolin.html) but if you are unsure there are suppliers that will provide both with connectors for a small charge. If you have a clear idea of your design and you are not planning on doing much work with elwire in the future this is the easiest way. I definitely advise soldering little connector, this means you can swap out damaged wire or change invertors without having to take the whole thing apart.
It is fun, creative and highly recommended to increase your visibility at night
May the blinky gods shine down on you