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Preparation |
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Burning Man 2002: Preparation
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| Have you found errors nontrivial or marginal, factual, analytical and illogical, arithmetical, temporal, or even typographical? Please let me know; drop me email. Thanks! |
Today is certainly electroluminescent (EL) wire day! I headed over the Bay Bridge to Funhouse Productions, where I bought a lot of EL wire, drivers, battery packs, and extra connectors. Then I headed home and soldered the EL wire to plug-and-play connectors, so I can move them around, drive them as a group, and generally have as much flexibility in arranging the EL wire. Since the soldering involves two hair-thin wires, I thought I'd post my notes here... no reason to waste any of that precious, pricey wire.
1. The hardest step is stripping about a half-inch of the vinyl coating from one end of the EL wire. Use wire strippers very carefully. This is one instance where my favorite tool, the razor blade, won't work well. Check to see that you haven't cut off the two very thin radial wires which wrap around the phosphor core. If you have, cut everything flush and start anew. Ouch!
2. Wrap about a half-inch of copper foil tape around the edge of the vinyl coating. Lay a strip of solder tin down onto the foil tape. Fold the radial wires back onto the foil tape, over the tin, and sweep the soldering iron across the tin. The wires should become one with the tin. Good job!
3. The center wire has a white coating. This is the EL phosphor. Scrape off about a quarter-inch - my razor blade worked wonders here - and tin the center wire.
4. Before you do anything else, slip an appropriate length of heat-shrink tubing over the wire. You'll want to protect the whole assembly when done.
5. Now we'll concentrate on the pigtail leads coming from the connector. Cut one side of the pigtail so that it's shorter than the other side by an amount which matches the distance from the tinned center wire to the copper foil tape. This way the solder joints are offset and won't touch, and you won't need to wrap electrical tape between things as insulation. Neat, eh?
6. Strip and tin a quarter-inch of each of the pigtail leads. Solder the shorter end to the center wire. Then solder the longer pigtail end to the copper foil tape.
7. Test your work by attaching the EL wire to the driver and applying electrical power (usually about 12 VDC) to the driver. Don't juice up the driver without a load (the EL wire) already attached. If the EL wire lights up, tidy up. Otherwise you'll have to eyeball your work to see what went wrong (assuming the driver is functional and there really is juice coming from your battery pack or AC transformer).
7. Finish up by sliding the heat-shrink tubing over the solder joints and heat. Enjoy!
With the delightful assistance (and worried looks) of my 
