Forums > Technical Discussion > EL wire staff

Posted: 20th Apr 2005
its amazin' this topic has not come up earlier

yes i have used el wire to make a staff, and it was not as nice as you would think

the wire is a pain, its easily broken, and if you break the fibres in teh middle of the wire, you lose all the current after the break, and the wire goes off.

the batter packs are not to helpfull either

the wire is not long enought to make a large area staff,

i used ush switches to turn the staff on, and these broke, and caused me more problems,

i wire had to be protected and i could not find a sexy cover that did not make it look silly and amature

and the light from teh wire is not killer, namly you wont get much light from it!

Step (el-nombrie)

Posted: 20th Apr 2005
what about using a few lights and setting it in silicone inside a polycarbonate tube?

it might help with impact breakage and help diffuese the light at the same time?

Love is the law.

Posted: 20th Apr 2005
it would, but the wire is a pain to work with, the small thin wire does not give off a huge amount of light

and its hard to get a nice smooth set of lines with more that a single colour wire

i used marine tube to cover the staff esy alternative

it looked ok, but just cheep

Step (el-nombrie)

Posted: 21st Apr 2005

Written by:

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Has anyone built a glow staff using EL wire yet?

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I’ve seen prototypes, but imo they are not as good as the fibre optic prototypes, which are absloutely amazing.

If we as members of the human race practice meditation, we can transcend our fear, despair, and forgetfulness. Meditation is not an escape. It is the courage to look at reality with mindfulness and concentration. Thich Nhat Hanh

Posted: 21st Apr 2005
I've looked into using both the wire and the sheet.

When I told the driver people how much sheet I wanted to drive, they shat their pants.

The EL wire is a good "position indicator", so it's fine for showing where something is, but it doesn't really kick out as many lumens as one might like. It's not too bad, though if you get the superbright stuff, and it's quite dark.

The invertors I can find tend to be too large for my designs, so I'd have to make one, which is on my list of projects, but slightly below getting some 1w rgb leds on the go.

well worth playing with for the perfect linear diffusion aspect, though.

monkeys ate my brain

Posted: 14th Jun 2007
hmmm i've been playing with the idea of an elwire staff myself, disheartened to hear that it didn't work very well for others...


i thought i have a fairly decent plan, i just need to cruise the home depot and see what pipe/fittings are available that i could use for this.

i'm planning on a base staff of probably 3/4" pipe, material TBD, and somehow at the ends, connect 4-6" length of pipe with about 1" inner diameter. (I got el-wire with the smallest battery pack available and plan in putting it in there, with foam around it for cushioning.) then, the wire wraps around with clear electrical tape. different color for each end (also for even weight hehe) and i HOPE to make it sectional so that i can break it down to 2 pieces for flying to burning man with it....

so i need to explore materials, joints, reducers, and just see what is possible with minimal tool work. (i have a handy step father, however he likes to take over projects and won't let me do anything myself if i get him involved!)

aka hunnybear in burning man circles
avatar: hunnybear - nj - 06/16/07 (c) abjectphoto

Posted: 29th Jun 2007
I have made 5 el wire staffs, with pretty good success. This is what I did, Please keep in mind that theses were made for performance so that are fairly durable but you would not want to throw them round every day and they did need a little extra taping every now and then.

This is what I used for each staff:
2: triple a battery cases with in built transformers
Tyre inertube
Black electrical tape
Clear tape
Elwire

1. I soldered half the amount of el wire to each transformer
2. taped the transformer about 3 cm from the end of the staff.
3. Made and attached a soft end to the staff using the inertube, the tasselly ends would curl over a little to cover the battery pack.
4. Spiral the elwire down the staff until it reached the hand grip.
5. Tape in various places with clear packing tape,
6. wrap the hand grip on.

I found this method to work quite well I had a good covering of el wire because of the spirals and because there was a battery pack on each end the weight/balance was not really affected.
Also I used green/ blue and pink el wire they all seemed to come out quite brightly in the dark.

I have been thinking recently that it could look cool to have a clear staff with a couple of threads of elwire squiggling around inside with the transformers on each end.

Also now you can get El wire that is stronger and is designed for out side use I would also recommend buying your own lengths along with the transformers and soldering it your self, that way you can use what ever length you like.

I {Heart} hand me downs and spinning in the snow.<br /><br />

Posted: 29th Jun 2007
aqua is the brightest followed by white, yellow and green, the red and pink I found quite dark

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.

Posted: 1st Jul 2007
That is funny out of the green and the pink i found the pink to be a lot brighter. I can imagin that the red would be darker though.
Red in glow toys is often less bright beacuse red is a lower wave lengeth or somethin.

I got my el wire from cool neon so maybe it is diffrent?

I {Heart} hand me downs and spinning in the snow.<br /><br />

Posted: 2nd Jul 2007
even when i double the voltage of my EL wire elements, it's still not a luminosity i'm comfortable to perform with. the performance scenario that i'd expect to use them in would involve event lighting, which would drown out EL elements.

Still, by being flexible, EL elements do offer a tantalising potential for glow costuming - albeit a little tacky.

b

Laugh Often, Smile Much, Post lolcats Always

Posted: 2nd Jul 2007
linky

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.

Posted: 2nd Jul 2007
And they gave up and started using LEDs

link

You aren't thinking or really existing unless you're willing to risk even your own sanity in the judgment of your existence.

Green peppers, lime pickle and whole-grain mustard = best sandwich filling.

Posted: 2nd Jul 2007
Yeah above said I much prefer my led hoop to my el wire hoop, but the el wire was good when there was no other substitute.

I think the saving grace for our staffs was that they elwire was coiled quite closely together maybe 1 cm max between spirals

I {Heart} hand me downs and spinning in the snow.<br /><br />

Posted: 3rd Jul 2007
link ?

you just lost the game!!!!!! !!!!!

knowledge is power, power corupts, study hard, become evil.

Posted: 3rd Jul 2007
I have a 3 peice staff from there nice and cheap but bear in mind you will have to pay import VAT if you are in the UK if you buy from there good customer service though they sorted me out with a free replacement LED set when mine broke.

A couple of balls short of a full cascade... or maybe a few cards short of a deck... we'll see how this all fans out.