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There are several places online,
as well as retail stores to purchase ELWire from. I've bought AA-powered
inverters from AutoZone (they sell EL-ELWire for auto-trim). I've seen
ELWire at Wal-Mart (again, in the auto section). Not only should you not buy
*anything* from Wal-Mart, but you shouldn't buy ELWire from an automotive
place (unless you *have* to). The reason is that they charge you way too
much. Oh, I've seen a decent display at Circuit City too... it's way too
expensive though.
Sites:
http://www.epemag.wimborne.co.uk/solderfaq.htm
http://www.neonstring.com
http://www.coolight.com
(used by me)
http://www.coolneon.com
(used by me)
http://livewireneon.com
(used by Mutatyor?)
Tooling around on the internet I found a site that sells surplus gear.
http://www.allelectronics.com Page 4 of their "miscellaneous"
section has 3 different ELWire kits for sale. 20 dollars each gets you just
under 5 feet of wire and an AA-inverter.
But better yet... and this is where I've bought my ELWire in the past. Cool
Neon sells stuff for decent prices and they are burner friendly (the first
picture on their main page is a picture from burning man). They have kits
very similar to the ones at All Electronics but for 5 dollars less!!
Of course, there are many many more places on the internet where you can buy
ELWire , and several others are burner friendly, and/or offer burner
discounts. Feel free to shop around.. or if you're lazy just buy it from
Cool Neon.
Things to think of when you are buying ELWire ...
What are you trying to do?
How long does your light need to be?
Can several small pieces work instead of one long piece?
How portable does it need to be?
Do you need several colors?
Etc...
You could put ELWire in the spokes of your bike. You'll need to tape an
inverter to the hub or something. That inverter can't power anything else
obviously. For that reason, I only use elwire on the bike frame so I can use
one inverter to power it all.
Can you use a 12v battery or do you need to have the inverter fit in your
pocket?
This year on my bike, I had many feet of wire and different colors (I
think). I used a 12v inverter hooked up to a small sealed lead-acid battery.
On my old bike, I only had 3 feet of wire so I hooked it up to a
AA-inverter.
AA-inverters use two AA batteries and create the voltage and frequencies to
power your ELWire .
They also have 9v inverters, 12v, and 110v AC inverters (plug them into your
house outlet)
Okay.. now you're confused enough.. just what do you need to buy???
There are two basic things that you *NEED* to get your ELWire project of
the ground.
1. ELWIRE
2. INVERTER
Never pay more than 2.00/foot for ELWire . You should be able to get this
much cheaper than that. I'd recommend the 3.2mm size. It handles fairly well
and doesn't break real easy. It's about the same price as 2.3 and 5.0mm
sizes. Please note that it's just the external size of the wire. The insides
are all the same. It's not easier to solder the 5.0 than the 2.3mm. Just buy
the 3.2 and you'll be happy.. the color is your choice...
Get the inverters that suit your needs. If you want to use it to power a hat
or something else to wear, you'll probably want a AA or 9V inverter. Those
are the smallest and you put the battery inside the case so it's a nice
little package. Unfortunately, these power the shortest amount of wire. They
power upwards of 5-8 feet of wire (plenty for a hat).
If you are lighting up a bike, art-car, tent, etc... you'll probably want
more ELWire , so you'll need larger inverters. This is where the 12V
inverters come in. In 2K2, I went overkill on my tent-marking ELWire
inverters. I had three 12V inverters running off a regular car battery. The
inverters had light sensors so they turned on automatically at dusk and
turned off at dawn. (real handy so you know your tent is lit up even if you
are too "busy" to remember). I was probably only powering about 6 feet of
ELWire total with them though. I could have used one single inverter.
(overkill) The entire week of usage didn't even dent the charge on the
battery.
If you need to light up several hundred feet of ELWire (buy it by the roll
and it will be under $1.00 a foot) then you'll want to have several
inverters and a big hefty car battery. Consider using several batteries and
dividing the ELWire into several units or sub-systems. If one part dies,
your entire project isn't dark...
Other things that could be useful are a soldering iron, solder, small vise,
wire cutters/strippers, clear shrink tubing (1/8" expanded, shrinks to
1/16").
I'm going to TRY to bring some small pencil-type soldering irons. The small
vise isn't needed, but could be handy to use as a 3rd hand. I'll try to
bring some extra wire cutters/strippers too. A sharp x-acto knife or razor
blade is useful too.
Also, one thing that I do that is a lot of extra work, but saves a bunch of
money. I used ELWire to mark my shade structure guy-wires, and this is how.
I took several feet of Elwire and cut it into short (6 inch) bits. I
staggered the 6inch bits with 1-2 foot pieces of 24awg speaker wire. 24awg
speaker wire (bought at Home Depot, or elsewhere) is super cheap. Like 15
cents a foot. So... on my guy wire was 6 inches of elwire, 1-2 feet of
speaker wire, 6 inches of elwire, 1-2 feet of speaker wire (etc...)
With this, my 10 foot guy wires could be lit with only 2 feet of ELWire !!
That got rid of 8 feet of elwire.. and at 1.50 a foot ($12 per guy wire, 4
guy wires). Of course, each one of those speaker wire to ELwire connections
is a possible point of failure.... and on the playa... heh.
SO there you have it. questions, questions, questions???????
thanks
- Chromatest J. Pantsmaker
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