EL Wire

[kylebellamy]

Have any of you dealt with this stuff before? I've seen a few sites on the web that sell it and was wondering what the limitations are.

For those who don't know, it's an actual wire with phosphoescent coating that glows when powered.

 

[Willz]

I have an EL cable in my computer, its long, i think its a phosphoescent line that glows, i dont know exatly what it is, i have not noticed any limitations, just plug it into power supply via molex connector and away you go.

 

[Matt555]

yeah it does sound like good stuff...is it bright and as flexible as they say?

 

[Willz]

oh, there not that bright, you cant hardly see the light from them in the day

 

[Matt555]

i suppose its good for outlining things, not good for giving off light then

 

[kylebellamy]

The sites that I saw mainly used them for raves but I thought it looked pretty interesting anyway.

 

[Matt555]

yeah it would look good as an edging for something, like a monitor but unless you've got a case window with no lights then i dont think it would be as effective inside a computer, a bright LED fan or cathode tube would probably overpower it and you might not be able to see it properly

 

[Big B]

Yeah, it's not very bright. You want bright, get LED's. I have noticed that if the inverter allows for more than one strand of EL wire, plugging in a second one tends to turn down the brightness. It can be made to work fairly effectively in certain circumstances (like outlining), but for real highlighting, you'll want a cathode or LED's.

 

[Matt555]

yeah there'd be no point intisde my case as i just want light and you cant see details through the tuny holes, also if i were outlining something i'd want the lines to be perfectally straight, can you get them straight or is it always slightly wonky?