EL Wire

[KenS]

We've discussed EL Wire before (although I can't seem to find any thread other than Don's Akihabara Station project thread, and I thought there was one), but Don's recent posting on his experience with EL sheet material finally got me motivated to try something I'd been thinking about for some time.  I'd wanted to get some white wire for use in platform lighting. Even if it doesn't produce a sufficient amount of light for the actual lighting, used as the visible lights along with some hidden LEDs it could have a good appearance.

 

So I bought the wire and inverter I'd planned to get (a 12V model from Adafruit.com), along with a strip of EL tape and some EL sheet material. And rather than clutter up Don's project thread with another off-topic digression, I decided to start a new topic.

 

So far I've just plugged the stuff in and played with it for a few minutes (it just arrived today).  I'm driving the inverter off a Kato power pack's track output, set to about 3/4 throttle (I need to get one of my 12V supplies wired up for this).

 

The photo below shows what these look like (in addition to white wire, tape and sheet, I also bought a blue sheet, which is really, really, blue).  The tape and sheet are definitely aqua tinged, perhaps not as much as they appear in this photo, but close.  The wire looks fairly "white" with a faint blue tinge.  I think it will actually look fairly good as a fluorescent fixture, although the light level is very dim.  I bought two of the wires, and I'm going to try suspending them under one of my station platforms to see how they look, but that's a project for another night.

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks Ken for taking the time to share (and for starting a new thread!)

 

I saw my first E/L sign at a model train show recently and it seemed decent enough but the room was quite bright. Their white had a blue hue which did look like  florescent  lighting and it seemed ideal for a sign but not for illumination.

 

Using hidden LEDs might do the trick.. 

 

Maybe masking strip LEDs, as mentioned in another thread, is the optimal solution for illumination and look..!

 

Cheers

Rick

[KenS]

The problem I have with strip LEDs is that the "cool white" ones are too blue, and the "warm white" ones don't look like fluorescents.  When I did my subway station, I ended up using a pair of strips, one each, which blended to a reasonable color.  But I'm not sure that would look good on a platform roof.  I expect I'll be doing some experimenting.

[Hobby Dreamer]

I expect I'll be doing some experimenting

 

Hi Ken!

 

Maybe printing a tint colour on transparencies might do the trick. One of the E/L companies advertised an ultra bright white (maybe just advertising bravado) wire. A light tint of green might work to get it the right colour...

 

Many N scale light companies make a flood lamp. This could be an illumination source and the wire may add the some fill...

 

I'll be experimenting with lighting in 2013 as this year's budget is gone!

 

Rick

[CaptOblivious]

Ken, outstanding to have you as a fellow traveller in these experiments! Looking forward to reading your observations. I need to acquire some EL wire myself. I have heard that the thinner wire is a bit brighter, as it gets its thinness from shedding the protective PVC sheath. I'm planning on getting some .9mm stuff, if I can find a good supplier. I see you got yours from Adafruit, and if I recall, their manufacturer is also one of the few that does the .9mm stuff, so our results should end up similar.

[KenS]

If you find a supplier for thin bright-white, let me know.  I haven't been able to turn up any.  The Adafruit stuff I got was 2.6mm "high brightness white" with an output of 115cd/m^2 (per their specs).  It is actually fairly bright to look at, but there's not enough square area to throw much light on other things. It uses a pink jacket to shift the color, so a thinner wire might not be able to reduce the blue tint as much.

 

At 2.6mm it's a bit oversize for a fluorescent tube in N (390mm or 15 inches!).  A 0.9mm wire (135mm scale, or 5 inches) would look much better as a supposed light tube.

 

Tinted transparencies: interesting idea.  I could make a "light box" that fit under the platform roof out of sight with a tinted lens to yellow the light.

 

I've been thinking that the "white" EL panel might work for the underside of my big urban station.  I need something there that covers a wide area, and looks more like the light from sodium or mercury-vapor bulbs used in outside lighting (meaning either very yellow or white with a strong blue/green tint).  The light fixture won't be easily viewed from outside, so simply gluing a few panels to the underside to the viaduct may give me a good mercury-vapor look.

 

I'll probably try the "light under the viaduct" thing fairly soon, but other experiments may have to wait until after the holidays.

 

BTW: an observation: the inverter I bought is supposed to be less noisy since it's enclosed in a box, but the buzz from it is still quite obvious.  I'll play to mount them well under the layout to reduce the noise, and I may look into some kind of enclosure to further baffle the sound.  Also, it turns out that the 12V supply I bought is only spec'd to run one 10x10 cm panel (I lit two of them, plus the strip of tape and the wire, but only for a short time; I didn't want to risk burning out the inverter).  So if I end up with a half-dozen panels under the viaduct, I'm going to need a half-dozen inverters (or a different one with more capacity). That could get loud.

 

The Adafruit stuff comes with 2.5mm locking (black) JST connectors, which work pretty well, but they're big and bulky, and that could be an issue in some installations.  Sparkfun is using a smaller (white) "JST PH" connector, which may be easier to conceal. Or I might just cut the connectors off and solder on longer lengths of wire.