OT flexible neon EL wire

[darryl]

Looking at this on Banggood. Anybody ever used it? Apparently it's a wire coated with a phosphor, placed inside vinyl tubing, and excited with a special power supply. I'd assume it's a high frequency signal placed on the wire to cause the phosphor to glow, but that's a guess.

Might be useful to dress up mic stands, etc, but no interference can be tolerated with any of the gear.

[wombat2go]

Some details about it:
https://www.sparkfun.com/datasheets/...eon%20wire.pdf

[epicfail48]

Been around for a while, it's pretty cool stuff. I've seen people use it to make backlit keyboards, dash lighting for cars, Tron clothing, basically anything where you want a light but need it to be easily flexible

[darryl]

'keep far from tinder, causticity goods' I love reading chinglish.

I see it does have a return conductor, the wraps of wire around the outside of the phosphor, and much lower frequency of operation than I thought it would. Seems also that if the use requires shorter sections, then you would feed it the same voltage and frequency and it would simply draw less current.

Maybe I'll get some and experiment.

[kitno455]

It works well, but i find the high frequency squeal from the power supply to be annoying.

allan

[J Tiers]

With some types, the color varies a bit with frequency and maybe voltage. Look in ancient issues of popular electronics etc for references on that. I may even hae the article somewhere.

[rdfeil]

I have used EL panels for backlighting LCD displays on various projects with very good results. The power supply is a high frequency converter type. EL wire/panels act as capacitors and are driven with high frequency AC or pulsed DC. This leaves it open that there could be interfearance to audio and radio equipment. In my real world use in pro audio and radio projects I have not had any problems. You will need to give it a try and see if you get any issues. The current required to light a very large EL panel is very low and the most likely sourse for noise is the power wire between the supply and the active EL stuff. Use a shielded wire and ground the shield only at the power supply end. It most likely will be just fine.

[darryl]

Well, that's encouraging. I've just ordered some stuff from Bang- if I'm happy my next order will have some of this on it.

[J Tiers]

BTW not all use high frequency. I have had EL panels that were fine at 60Hz.

[Noitoen]

I've seen a sort of a neon sign that had a few different color wire slightly twisted and would change the color on the fly.

[darryl]

Twist them together for different colors- or wind them side by side on a mandrel for a barber pole effect. It will be fun playing with it.