[Jonathan Thomson] was ruminating on EL wire displays and decided that most he has seen are boring, static fixtures or installations that simply flash EL wire on and off at a fixed rate. He thought that EL wire has far more potential than that, and set off to build something more exciting. Using a graphic equalizer T-shirt, with which we’re sure you are familiar, he put together a slick, sound-reactive EL wire display.

He started off by removing the EL panel and inverter from the aforementioned T-shirt, separating the display into two pieces. He set aside the panel and focused on wiring up the inverter’s ribbon cable to a set of EL wire strands he picked up for the project. Once he had everything hooked up, he put a design together on a cardboard box, which he intended to use for wrapping Christmas presents. With the holiday behind him, [Jonathan] broke down his original display and constructed another to offer up some fun birthday wishes.

While the EL inverter was originally built to display sounds detected by an onboard mic, [Jonathan] added a 3.5” stereo jack to his so that he can feed audio directly into the display using an MP3 player.

Continue reading to see the EL display in action, and be sure to check out his writeup if you are looking to spice up your gift giving this year.

[Ch00f] has decided to ring in the new year with some el wire Kanye glasses. Technically the term for the glasses is either “shutter shades” or “slatted sunglasses”, invented around the 80s by [Alain Mikli] and originally given the nickname “Venetian Sunglasses”. Kanye West evidently got his own retro redesign by the original creator and the rest is history. That is enough Wikipedia for now. [Ch00f] has augmented the original design with six multicolor tracks of EL wire mounted to the shutters of the glasses. The EL wire is fed back through several discrete wires around the wearers ear and to two control boxes. As the video shows, the glasses function as a crude V/U meter based on the audio received by the driver circuit.

Instead of the typical microcontroller [Ch00f] (who has some kind of deep seated issues agaist the Arduino) decided to go full blown analog with the entire design. The audio signal is fed through various Op Amp circuits first amplifying the weak microphone signal then filtering with a low pass filter to focus on the bass frequencies. The filtered bass is then sent to an envelope detector to turn the audio wave into a DC voltage signal. Keeping with the Op Amp design [Ch00f] then uses a resistor ladder and six comparator circuits (with TRIACs on their outputs) to tune the trigger voltage levels of the EL bars. The TRIACs get to deal with the 100 or so volts for the EL strips so that [Ch00f] doesn’t have to party with six EL power supplies in his pocket. For those of you counting at home, that is a total of 13 Op Amps.

The results are fantastic, check the video below to see the glasses in action. Reportedly the circuit does freak out and lock all of the TRIACs in an on state, but a covert flip of the power switch fixes the issue for now. [Ch00f] admits that the project was rather rushed due to the impending new year’s eve party, but now that that is all over with we just need to get [Ch00f] to roll out a stereo version. If you need more [ch00f] we have covered a few of his projects before such as his Icebreaker POV toy hack and a ghetto accelerometer using a reflection sensor.

Thanks for the tips [Daniel] and [Sanchoooo], also via [reddit]. Happy new year!

[LucidMovement] was looking for some crystal-based artwork and just couldn’t seem to find anything that fit the bill, so he decided to build something himself.

The inspiration for his desk lamp came from something we’re all familiar with, a DNA double-helix. To grow the crystals he built a helix-shaped growing substrate out of nichrome and EL wires, submerging them in a warm alum solution. Once he had a nice set of crystals, he mounted it in an acrylic tube, filling the air space with clear silicone to seal off the display. He then mounted the silicone-filled tube on top of a rotating acrylic stand that he had cut for the project. The stand is made from several sheets of acrylic and contains both the gearing for movement as well as RGB LEDs to light the display from the bottom.

The lamp looks great when sitting idle, but when he powers it on it really shines (no pun intended). [LucidMovement] put a ton of work into the lamp, and offers up all sorts of tips, tricks, and considerations for anyone looking to build their own. Be sure to check out his writeup for plenty more details, and stick around to see a short video of the lamp in action.

The folks down at LVL1, the Louisville hackerspace, are throwing a Halloween party. To showcase his building skills, LVL1 member [JAC_101] put together a Halloween diorama featuring the inner workings of Doctor Frankenstein’s laboratory.

There’s a bunch of really neat pieces that make this build great. First up is the LVL1 plasma sign. This sign is four circuits pumping a high voltage charge through Xenon flash tubes. Instead of a bright flash, a very Halloweeny Xenon plasma shoots though the tubes. The sign is constructed from four disposable camera flash circuits.

A few flickering-LED torches light Dr. Franenstein’s lair while the monster is a McDonalds happy meal toy wrapped in surgical tape and painted with UV reactive paint.

In the interests of repurposing existing materials, a plasma disc belt buckle was taken from [Seven of Nine]‘s regeneration chamber LVL1′s rave supply cabinet and provides a suitable ‘mad scientist’ aesthetic. A bit of EL wire was thrown in for good measure along with some black lights to activate the UV paint.

While Frankenstein’s lab is missing a hilariously oversize knife switch on the wall, [JAC_101] still pulled off a great build.

[Mykle Hansen] is an avid cyclist, and safety is a big concern for him. He says that bicyclists often receive a lot of honks and grief from passing motorists because they perceive them as moving far slower than they really are. According to [Mykle], this misjudgment can result in “right hook” collisions, which kill several bicyclists each year. To increase his nighttime visibility and to give drivers a better idea of how fast he’s traveling, he constructed a bicycling vest that displays his current speed in large 7-inch tall numbers.

He uses an off-the-shelf speedometer to get his current speed, feeding that data to an Arduino tucked inside his vest. The Arduino then lights the appropriate EL wire digits to relay his speed to motorists behind him.

It seems to work pretty well if the video below is any indication, and there’s no denying that it will catch a driver’s attention at night. If you’re thinking of making one for yourself, check out his Make:Projects page for a complete look at how it was put together.

All EL wire drivers use a resonator circuit to supply power to the EL wire. It’s an efficient system, but [Paul] noticed that there was some color change when powering different lengths of wire off of the same driver. He realized that this is because of the changing frequency of the resonator circuit, so the only reasonable thing for [Paul] to do was to build a color fading EL wire driver.

The circuit used to drive the wire is very simple. [Paul] used a Teensy board to switch two transistors and produce AC current. This is sent through a step-up transformer which powers the EL wire. It was necessary to use aqua or ‘Tron blue’ EL wire for this build because of the clear wire jacket. Many colors of EL wire have a fluorescent jacket – much like a fluorescent light bulb – that changes the color produced inside the wire to something different. [Paul] says the color change is subtle, but unique.

Of course the build is nothing without a video of the color changing EL wire. Check it out after the break.

[Paul] wrote in to share a project he recently helped assemble, a huge rolling light sculpture with a ton of computer-controlled EL wire circuits. The sculpture recently featured as a float at the Starlight Parade held in Portland, Oregon.

Working alongside the folks from Hand Eye Supply, [Paul] helped design and build all 114 of the float’s electronic circuits. Almost 1000 feet of EL wire was used to light the massive float, all of which was controlled by 15 Sparkfun sequencer boards. The boards ran custom firmware he created in order to communicate with the lighting software that was chosen to run the show.

In the end, the float came out quite nicely, but it was not without its problems during the construction phase. [Paul] ran into tons of issues when using Sparkfun’s EL wire sequencers, and has put together a detailed list of corrections he made to the boards in order to get them working properly.

If you are interested in learning more about the project, you can check out this behind-the-scenes look at the float’s construction.

Get your graphite and hike a wheel, [Aron Hoekstra] writes in to completely embarrass us with some excellent pinewood derby cars.    In the pursuit of that extra something [Aron] consulted with his sons who came up with some cool ideas for cars, one Tron themed and the other basically a Wiimote with wheels! The official Pinewood derby rules say nothing about electronics, so as long as nothing helps the block-o-wood travel down the track faster, anything goes. This means you are free to load up whatever cool lights you want, but will have to earn your robotics merit badge some other way.

[Aron] Starts the builds by carving out the shape of the cars, each feature a hollowed out cavity underneath to accommodate the batteries and electronics. For the Tron Light Runner car, one continuous EL strip weaves in and out of the derby car’s body, and a single AAA battery runs the driver. [Aron] notes that it took around five feet of EL wire to cover the little car, which is two more than the driver is rated for. Fortunately the extra little bit of additional wire had little effect on its brightness.

The Wiimote car has detailed 3d buttons, a breadboard with a linear regulator,  and PIC 16F628 driving  blue LEDs.  For the majority of the time the PIC simply runs a chase routine for the four LEDs, but [Aron] went through the trouble to program in the Wiimote’s start-up sequence!

Shown above the [Hokestra]‘s work is my older brother’s pinewood derby car (top left) and my… potato rocket… thing… (top right)  from many many years ago. I now seriously regret not considering LEDs! Although I think all that existed then was red,  green and IR.

Check out videos of the [Hoekstra] bros’ cars after the jump!

Instructables user [samsmith17] wanted to cover his bike with EL wire for this year’s Burning Man, but he didn’t want to mess with the hassle of using batteries as a power source. Instead, he decided that his EL wire bike would be powered solely by the rider. In the interest of keeping things green, the entire build is made up of re-purposed parts, aside from the EL wire itself.

If you are not familiar, EL wire only lights up when AC current is supplied, so he decided to use a stepper motor to generate the current required. The stepper motor was mounted against his bike’s wheel, and wired backwards through the AC transformer portion of an old cell phone charger in order to step up to the required voltage. A rheostat was also added to the circuit in order to help prevent an over voltage condition, which could potentially damage or destroy the EL wire.

The end result is pretty cool to watch, and costs very little to boot. It would be nice to see someone expand on his project, adding additional wire colors and perhaps a few capacitors to keep the wire from going dark immediately after the wheels stop turning.

Continue reading to see a quick video of the completed project.

We hope you’ve already got parts on hand for your holiday projects because shipping might be a little slow at this time of year. But if you’ve got a bag and some unused EL wire here’s a one-day project you should try. Make yourself a Tron-inspired shoulder bag, or backpack.

On the right, [PT] is doing fantastic job of modeling with his electroluminescent offering. This is another Adafruit offering that holds your hand each step of the way from designing, to sewing, to wiring it up. This will go great with that glowing unitard he’s been working on.

[Alan Yates] has also done a spectacular job with his Tron backpack seen on the left. He picked up his EL wire on clearance at a place called “big-W” after Christmas last year. They were selling 3 meter segments (each with their own inverter) for just $3. We’re happy he got a deal and even more pleased that he found a use for it.

[Thanks Drone]

For Halloween [Paul] wanted to build a Jacob’s Ladder without the peril that working with high voltage might bring. He was inspired by a sequencer board for electroluminescent wire and decided to build a Jacob’s Ladder simulator using the glowing material. What he ended up with is quite convincing. Eight segments of EL wire have been mounted between two diverging towers. When a PIR sensor detects motion in the room, an Arduino switches on the simulation, playing a recording of the classic sizzling voltage sound while using the sequencer board to flicker the wires from bottom to top. See for yourself in the video after the break. We give [Paul] bonus points for constructing the base out of Lego.

But if you’re not one for being cautions, there’s always this real Jacob’s Ladder build. Or maybe you just want to make something glow with the EL wire.

[via Make]

As you can see, [Phillip Torrone] has a nice start on his Tron costume for the movie premiere. Electroluminescent wire is what makes these costumes glow and if you’ve never worked with the stuff before you’re in for a treat. Adafruit posted a tutorial explaining how to work with EL wire. The process isn’t hard, but they’ve got a few nice tips, like using copper tape as a platform for soldering the corona wires. There is also a discussion of the math involved with properly powering your setup.

In this case, Adafruit is using ready-made power inverter units. If you’ve interested in hacking together your own inverter take a look at the background information from [Jeri Ellsworth].

[derektroywest] has posted a detailed step by step breakdown of making a Daft Punk costume. They’ve done a great job, the overall look is very convincing. They include links to where to get each part as well as information on how they pulled it off. The helmets were inspired by the timelapse Daft Punk helmet build. As you can see in the video, they don’t have the entire visor made into a display, but the effect is quite nice, especially because it is multi color.

[Sleepydog] just sent in this cool video of a patch cable he made with a built in EL wire. He’s using a Power over Ethernet router to control which ports have power. He states that this would allow easy identification of specific cables in the mess. While the proof of concept seems completely functional, and the idea is nice, we have to wonder if the cost to put in all the extra hardware would be worth it. Each cable would have to have its own inverter, not only driving up cost, but possibly adding interference. That does not mean we don’t want this desperately, we do. But we want it just because it looks cool. He needs to choreograph this to some music now and make his entire server room into a fancy display.

When we saw this giant home vacuum tube, we thought it would go perfectly along side the giant LED lamp . Constructed from spare computer parts, a glass display dome and some EL wire, it is fairly convincing looking. If only he had shaped some characters with the EL wire, we could do a giant nixie tube project.