HELP! Question about EL Wire...

Keelan562 · Sep 29, 2014

Hey everyone!

I have a quick question about EL wire that I'm hoping some of you may be able to shed some light on. This being my first experience using EL wire I got a basic starter kit, and everything is working fine, but I have one gripe about it; The wire is supposed to be orange. Now, the wire casing/sleeve is certainly orange, but the phosphor part of the wire looks to be glowing a pale blue. Is this due to the fact that the phosphor is actually white and shines through clean and is considered "normal", or should I look into getting a new wire? It reads fairly okay through a camera, but to the naked eye it just looks off and is a tad annoying.

Advice, anyone?

vidman · Sep 30, 2014

the inner wire(phosphorus) should be white like your scanner (it uses el wire too) , I would think that maybe you are underdriving the inverter since el uses a/c, being underdriven will make the wire look blue. That's about all my knowledge of el wire/

Keelan562 · Sep 30, 2014

Gotcha. I'll look into that, see if there's something I can do with the units I have. Thanks!

skint · Sep 30, 2014

Normally you should have another florescent dye layer inside the wire to help colour the light output, sounds like this is missing on yours. Best bet is to tint the outer of the wire, orange dye or marker pens? Overdriving the wire will cause it to fail earlier but will give you more brightness, this is how the "tron dance" guys get the brightness on thier costumes.

ataris121 · Oct 1, 2014

scanners use a cold cathode which is similar but solid. I have yet to see any el wire with a "doped" core, and all the stuff i have used relies on a colored jacket. Its annoying, especially with colors like "UV" purple and reds. I know its not much help but just lettin you know you arent alone in your stuff or frustration

Keelan562 · Oct 1, 2014

skint said:
Normally you should have another florescent dye layer inside the wire to help colour the light output, sounds like this is missing on yours. Best bet is to tint the outer of the wire, orange dye or marker pens? Overdriving the wire will cause it to fail earlier but will give you more brightness, this is how the "tron dance" guys get the brightness on thier costumes.

Yeah, going over the wire with another layer of orange is what I was thinking I may have to do, so I'm glad my thinking wasn't too far off.

- - - Updated - - -

ataris121 said:
... just lettin you know you arent alone in your stuff or frustration

Much appreciated, buddy.

:thumbsup

Crimson490 · Oct 1, 2014

Sounds like the colored jacket is kinda weak if you are still seeing the center of the wire (the phosphor) look blue. I use coolneon's high bright wire and it's really bright and the colors are pretty good. I use their "red" wire, but it looks like a nice deep orange.

Keelan562 · Oct 2, 2014

Crimson490 said:
Sounds like the colored jacket is kinda weak if you are still seeing the center of the wire (the phosphor) look blue. I use coolneon's high bright wire and it's really bright and the colors are pretty good. I use their "red" wire, but it looks like a nice deep orange.

NICE!

I'm gonna try going over the current wires with another layer of color and see if that'll work okay. If not (or in addition to working on additional units for the project down the line) I'll be sure to look into coolneon. Thanks for the tip!

HELP! Question about EL Wire...

Keelan562

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vidman

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Keelan562

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skint

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ataris121

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Keelan562

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Crimson490

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Keelan562

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