Electroluminescent wire: something you would buy from Parallax?
Ken Gracey
Posts: 7,401
Dear Customers,
Among the various exciting things we found from Chinese manufacturers last week in Dongguan is electroluminescent wire. So, I decided to bring some back, err, about 500 feet and 120 tubes worth along with the power converters to drive this stuff. I can provide the specifications in detail in a bit, but the power supplies take 12VDC and I have not measured the output but it's a low-current, high-voltage AC. Each foot-long tube seems to draw about 300 mA at 12V. And this stuff is bright, too. I took a few photos to show you what it's all about and I'd like to know if you want to buy this from Parallax. We would have two different offerrings.
EL Roll Wire: Red or Blue
This wire would be $2.00/foot. Power converters would run about $3-4. Power converters drive about 30 feet of EL wire.
EL Roll Tubes: Red, White, Blue, Green and Purple
About a foot long and $2.00 each. Power converters would run about $3-4 each. Each power converter drives two EL tubes.
In the past I've found the connections and power issues to be quite a hassle, but this time we've got the pieces in a tidy fashion. Please reply here and let me know your thoughts about this idea.
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
Post Edited (Ken Gracey (Parallax)) : 10/23/2009 7:26:32 PM GMT
Among the various exciting things we found from Chinese manufacturers last week in Dongguan is electroluminescent wire. So, I decided to bring some back, err, about 500 feet and 120 tubes worth along with the power converters to drive this stuff. I can provide the specifications in detail in a bit, but the power supplies take 12VDC and I have not measured the output but it's a low-current, high-voltage AC. Each foot-long tube seems to draw about 300 mA at 12V. And this stuff is bright, too. I took a few photos to show you what it's all about and I'd like to know if you want to buy this from Parallax. We would have two different offerrings.
EL Roll Wire: Red or Blue
This wire would be $2.00/foot. Power converters would run about $3-4. Power converters drive about 30 feet of EL wire.
EL Roll Tubes: Red, White, Blue, Green and Purple
About a foot long and $2.00 each. Power converters would run about $3-4 each. Each power converter drives two EL tubes.
In the past I've found the connections and power issues to be quite a hassle, but this time we've got the pieces in a tidy fashion. Please reply here and let me know your thoughts about this idea.
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
Post Edited (Ken Gracey (Parallax)) : 10/23/2009 7:26:32 PM GMT
800 x 600 - 60K
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Comments
Looks really neat on my robot!
Yes please - can you make sure the UK disti's get some too!
Interesting the new "direction" that Parallax seem to be taking these days - in that you've never really bothered with the "components" side of the market (breakout boards, sensor boards, leds's) etc as much as people like SparkFun, Polo, etc, do (and do very well). Is there an element of re-inventing the wheel here? Or is there just room in the market? No offense meant here - just an observation - and we all love Parallax!
James
PS - your robot does look cool too.
Yes, we're taking steps to sell more bits and pieces that our customers like to buy. We've got our own office in China and Hong Kong so it's quite easy to do this.
We also sell to SparkFun, by the way. They even have some products I'd like to resell through Parallax.
- Ken
This looks very cool — especially the wire! What's the wire diameter and minimum bend radius? If this takes off, will you be getting other wire colors?
Thanks,
-Phil
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Diameter of the roll wire is about 0.1" or so - it can be bent to a radius of about an inch or so, though I've seen it tied in knots.
Sure, we could carry a variety of colors and styles.
- Ken
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Is it water proof along its length? How are the ends terminated?
(might be interested for the outside pond)
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<FONT>Steve
What's the best thing to do in a lightning storm? "take a one iron out the bag and hold it straight up above your head, even God cant hit a one iron!"
Lee Travino after the second time being hit by lightning!
The wire is sealed within a silicone-type of tube, so it is waterproof. You terminate the ends on your own, so you could dip it in epoxy and put heat shrink tubing over it.
Would work well in a pond.
Have not tried to PWM it, but that's on the list of things to do.
Ken Gracey
I even figured out a new way to terminate the wire to make it less delicate at the ends.
This wire CANNOT be continually bent back and forth, it will break because the Phosphorous around the center core wire is brittle like chalk.
You can damage this wire if you pinch it, crush it, put too much pressure on it, pull it, leave it out in the sun.
It can run from 120v AC 60hz right from the wall. Not even a single resistor is needed.
This elwire has a resistance because the electricity must jump through a layer of phosphorous.
But running it at 60hz will not render the color properly.
The recommended rate is 2khz to make it bright as can be.
It can be pwm'ed I do it with my glow suit. (with DC driver)
(pwm + ac = waveform shaping, not easy)
These videos all have a Parallax SX chip controlling the suit, programmed in SXB
www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ9bSEdDCsg
www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sPNKbzzGjY
www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TLU40nFtjQ
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9Dl4xQpfuM
I have 3 colors. Each one is powered by a 12vDC inverter that puts out 2khz of 120v AC.
In the videos I am wearing over 200 feet of wire, which pulls very small amounts of current, approx 500ma.
I have gone over 24+ hours from a 12v, 2400mah battery. (lit the entire time)
I also made a custom control box, along with a button in each hand that allows me to do different things.
(like make the el wire light up at the push of a button, or make a sequence start)
AND IT *WAS* PARALLAX SX POWERED. *The propeller chip opens up other avenues of possibilities.
The wire can be cut to any length.
THIS WIRE WILL DIE. If you use it lots, you will see the lifespan is limited to under a year.
As it dies patches of dark appear, and eventually entire gaps of the wire will not work.
If you damage your wire, you can cut it at the point of break, cut out the damaged part, and solder the two ends back together.
Working with this wire is not that easy, but it can be done.
I suggest getting a pliers, and a candle.
Hold one end of the wire over the candle flame, but make the flame heat up the wire 1 inch in from the end.
Then when the outside jacket of the wire starts to BURN, quickly, take your pliers and gently pull off the burning plastic from the wire, so you end up stripping the wire's plastic from 1 inch of internal wire.
You will see 2 different sizes of internal wires. One is big, and is the center core wire coated in phosphorus.
The other is fine like a human hair, and there are TWO of them.
Pull the two fine wires away from the center core, and fold them directly onto the plastic jacket.
(you need to get the two fine wires as far away from the center core.
then scrape away the phosphorus from the center core to about 1/4-1/2 an inch, exposing the wire so you can solder to it.
Solder a wire to the center core, making sure to NOT bridge between the center core and fine wires, you shouldn't even be close to them, you folded them back out of the way.
Now take another wire and solder it to the two fine wires that are far away from your core wire.
after you solder the fine wires, leave a bit of slack between where the fine wires come out of the plastic and where you position the second soldered wire.
Now light it up and see if you wired it properly. Wiggle it a bit to see if you have shorts.
You need to position both wires so they don't touch, also the two fine wires and the core should not touch.
Then HOT GLUE the entire thing making sure the core wire never touches the two fine wires.
Thats it.
If you use a wire strippers for this ELWIRE, you will wreck more wire than necessary, ELWIRE was NOT MADE to be pulled in any way...
A wire strippers will pull the outer jacket, which pulls the inner jacket, which then pulls on the fine hair wires, which requires very little pulling to break.
Heating up the jacket of the wire to melting point allow the removal of the jacket without harming the fine wires or the phosphorus surrounding the inner core.
ArT in MoTiOn
Post Edited (Clock Loop) : 10/24/2009 10:01:57 AM GMT
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electroluminescent_wire
The inventors of said material.
www.lytec-asia.com/LyTecAsia/products.html
They offer many different KINDS of elwire.
One of the specific kinds is wire made for water.
It says that the plastic used in the outer coating is different, which suggests that normal wire is not so good for water applications.
Post Edited (Clock Loop) : 10/24/2009 5:54:56 AM GMT
It would seem that an audio transformer with a high turns ratio, driven on the low impedance side by a MOSFET driver from the Prop, would work here. This one maybe:
Any thoughts on that?
-Phil
Heh, your comment saved me from giving bad advice, edit done.
Actually yes, attached is a bit more info from LyTec.
If you look into the datasheet, the one for general (thats the 2.3 mm size wire) you will find the elec requirements.
That audio chip says 1.2A so 1A / 30turns = 30ma available for elwire.
Datasheet for general wire says that at 120V @ 2000hz, 3 feet of wire consumes 8.61mA.
8.61mA x 30turns = 260ma @ 3.3v too much for a prop to carry alone for even 3 feet, nvm.
The current draw varies with HZ and voltage, and length.
Thats what I did. I just pulsed a pre-made el-wire driver that accepted 12v dc. The difference between that and your method, is the driver had an internal set frequency of 2000hz. So I could just pulse the thing with pwm, and it took care of the correct frequency.
Your method would allow more precise control over the wire.
But your required to shape your waveform or something.
Keep the frequency at 2khz, and possibly apply standard AC dimming techniques, notches, Xth pulse removal, etc.
I have no idea how the elwire would react to say 10khz or 20khz.
It seems the way to dim this is not change frequency but shape the waveform.
One thing I learned when designing motor control devices is if you make everything up to the motor capable of some seriously high pulse rates then you can just shape a 2khz pulse by using pulses so fast that your "motor" only sees the resulting shaped waveform.
Perhaps an H-bridge would be a better way to precisely control this wire.
Use the transformers inductance to shape the wave.
The way you show forces both on both off.
If you can control each leg of the transformer independently you can play with different combos of wave shaping harmonics. Get a scope on that ac wave form and play. (when its hooked up to a elwire of coarse)
Hmm, the human notices flashes at around 500fps. (at most and from bright to dark) So perhaps playing with cutting out every X pulse or something might work.
Post Edited (Clock Loop) : 10/24/2009 10:09:23 AM GMT
I wouldn't sell this stuff if I were Parallax.
There's already a lot of competition, including eBay.
The El Wire has a terrible life span. My experience is a half life of about 6 months. That means it will be half as bright in 6 months or less.
The power supplies are some of the worst Smile to come from China that I've seen.
I went through several of them until I finally found some that wouldn't burn up.
$2.00 a foot is pretty high. You can buy it now starting at $1.00, depending upon size.
Just my 2 cents.
Kenny
BTW, limited service life is just a fact of life with any EL products. I wonder, though, if there are drive strategies that can extend the half-life without diminishing overall performance.
-Phil
Today my son and I broke a bunch of these to see what they're all about. The EL tubes are plastic with a thin glass tube inside. Takes a bit of effort to break them - the plastic holder seems to do a pretty good job keeping the glass straight. We also powered up the input voltage to 16V with no problem. The light is bright at 12V, and a bit brighter at 14V. By the time we donned our safety glasses we were pretty happy with the results and didn't increase the voltage any further. I've had fires on my desk before, and as a lifetime novice I keep the fire extinguisher handy.
Just to clarify, the EL round tubes have no wiring issues - this is already done for us. All we have to do is connect 12VDC to that little blue brick power converter. I've stripped the EL wire shielding, too, and it's not that big of a deal either.
I'd prefer to sell just the EL round tubes - these are really bright and super easy to interface. Much more impressive than the EL wire, but not made to go around corners.
Regarding testing, we test everything we get from China, including simple USB cables. These would have to be tested as well, one at a time by our professional engineers in China. We don't have floor staff test these because if "it lights, it passes" whereas our engineers understand the quality we're looking for in brightness, color, connections, heat shrinking, etc. It takes a couple of guys a day to do a thousand or more based on the over-the-counter testing we did when we bought this stuff.
Ken Gracey
Post Edited (Ken Gracey (Parallax)) : 10/25/2009 3:57:22 AM GMT
Cool!
I'd love to shop for parts bargains in Hong Kong.
I will go to work for you guys if you send me to the Hong Kong office
I was born to shop for bargains!
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I can see all sorts of robot usage for the wire where it needs to be bent around an object. I presume the wire is insulated sufficently.
As long as people realise there is a life expectency, then i see no problems. Go for it Ken.
Ken: What length is a roll and how much does it weigh?
Clockloop - from what I understand from your description above, the two thin wires are one circuit and the heavier centre wire is the other. And at the other end I presume they have to be isolated?? so just seal them??
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@Cluso99: the two rolls pictures are 50 meters each. The cost I paid was about $100 each if I remember. The current draw of this material is much lower than the straight tubes. PM me your shipping address and I'll send you some wire and power supplies tomorrow so you can try this stuff for yourself. A whole roll of wire weighs a kilo or so, but I'll cut some off for you. Heck, you could line your whole boom with the EL wire and it will only draw about 100-200 mA. But I think the real excitement is with these straight tubes- wow! They're really bright!
Ken Gracey
Post Edited (Ken Gracey (Parallax)) : 10/25/2009 8:05:09 PM GMT
Echoing Phil's note, Parallax's support and appropriate selection of products usually outweighs decisions based on price alone (within reason of course).
And since I'm seconding options, if it were up to me, I'd station Holly M. to be your lead oversea's buyer - she's a proven bargain hunter and would get us all some great deals! [noparse]:)[/noparse]
cheers
- Howard
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Thank you for the offer. We don't buy these products in Hong Kong, but in Dongguan and Shenzhen. We have an office staff who speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, Hakka, English, Spanish and German. We used to fumble around trying to make deals for stuff like these tubes but now we've got it under control. We spend more time tripping on ourselves in the Parallax office, fumbling around, than we do helping keep them in order. Here's a photo from last week showing a few of our company from left to right Raymond Xiao, Patrick Ho, Mac Ma and myself. We have a total of three engineers, an accountant, office manager and a director. Our office is administrative yet the manufacturing is a partner (we share the two-level building and work together).
The SEG component market in Shenzhen is really amazing. I bet I could drop any of our customers off for a visit and they'd buy a thousand dollars worth of components whether or not they needed them. Some of that stuff is just plain hard to refuse, especially if it is made in China (lower cost). But the imported products are expensive due to the 17% tariff. Japanese tools, Tek scopes, etc. from the outside are very popular but also quite costly. It can also be difficult to find some things we take for granted, like 1/4 watt resistors with leads that fit nicely in breadboards (theirs are quite loose; we buy resistors in Taiwan as a result). We are HIGHLY selective when choosing components in China. If it is anything less than what we WANT to use, from the USA, then it doesn't qualify. We either ship them over or source from Taiwan.
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.
I read they have glass, which suggests that its actually a different product than the elwire I talk about.
I would imagine that its probably phosphorous also, but a thicker layer, which would make sense why its in glass, a think layer of phosphorus, would be in a crystal, grown around the center conductor. Which would make it not bendable.
The future of this el material is Bright! I want to see a phosphorus material that is gummy-worm like in nature.
This would solve the problems of high intensity phosphorus in a bendable wire form.
If it can be made into a plastic type material, its possible that it could be washed, and used like cloth, and even last longer like LED's do.
Stuff like this makes me wish I had a semiconductor lab.
@Cluso99: -
"the two thin wires are one circuit and the heavier centre wire is the other"
-correct
"And at the other end I presume they have to be isolated?? so just seal them??"
- you got it, cut the other end with a sharp cutters, try to not crush the wire while your cutting it.
That will mush the fine wire and the core wire to short.
When the wire shorts, the entire length up to the driver goes dark. (this is when you need to find the short and repair it)
Once you cut the other end cleanly, you can just use some glue to seal it. I use a hot glue gun.
You can also terminate both ends to allow you to wire one el color to another so they can both operate from a single driver.
This would be useful if you had long lengths of it.
The limits to maximum length would be the power of your driver and the current carrying capability of the two small hair wires.
@Ken Gracey
Honestly, I love the elWIRE, also material like it is nice. EL CLOTH would be ideal.
The lifespan of elwire can be improved greatly by just turning everything down...
lower HZ, lower voltage = less intensity, but much longer lifespans.
Also think about running elwire on FLASH only.. if your only brightly lit 1/2 the time. = 2X the lifespan
Also the degradation of this phosphorus material. The elwire phosphorus is actually a makeup of a few different atoms, one of them being a metal.
Attached is specific info on el-wire, it talks about IMITATION wire, and also shows you the US patent for the wire.
Post Edited (Clock Loop) : 10/26/2009 1:45:49 AM GMT
I'd give a lot to be able to speak Chinese!
-We girls are just the best at shopping and haggling over prices
@Ken Gracey
That is sure tempting, the idea of going to China with you guys in Jan.
I'm going to think about it... I'm leaving my job to spend a year concentrating on learning
as much as possible about electronics. I could do a lot more if I could design equipment
as well as program. My dream is to operate a small internet business along the line of
www.ladyada.net/make/index.html
Of course she has a masters in electrical engineering from MIT so my offerings will
be at a more primitive level...but I do get fun ideas for new gizmos
How long will you guys stay in China? Do you think I could swing it on $5k ?
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"Where am I? Where am I going? Why am I in a handbasket?"
When we place a big order we'll be asking a bunch of questions and hopefully wind up with some real tech data.
Ken Gracey
I wonder if the el-sheet can be used like LEDS can be buttons.
I would imagine so, the falloff rate of the material should change when exposed to light, i.e. Photoelectric effect.
I also wonder if the el-sheet can be used as a button, or a panel like star trek.
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Post Edited (Clock Loop) : 10/26/2009 2:40:13 AM GMT