Tron Legacy Costume

[colonelmasako]

I ordered 4 reels of 5 meters which is slightly over 65 feet, though my estimated usage is around 53 feet split between three battery packs. The packs are 12v already, so no worry about that. These are the packs I have which is why I said I needed 9v connectors, so apologies if it caused confusion. I'm currently using 22 gauge copper speaker wire to connect everything since I have it lying around and I was able to get a little over 4 hours of brightness on my el wire before I started to go dim with regular, non LiIon batteries and that's with probably 80+ feet of wire.

This is my first foray into electrical anything, so I kind of get what you're saying about the foot/mA thing, but I know I will have more than 8 feet strung together, especially now that I can't have a separate connection like I have for each section now. Hell, the cape alone will have more than that. I can't say for certain what lengths will connect to which battery pack since I've yet to start the swap, but based off what little I've said, what gauge wire would you recommend?

Wow that is a LOT of LED strip....lets see. First off, I would DEFINITELY not use those 8AA battery cages, simply because the guage of wire on the 9V connections is too thin for that much current. That was exactly what I used when I found out this truth and my battery pack started getting too hot for comfort. Check these out instead... New Portable 12V 9800mAh Li-ion Super Rechargeable Battery Pack | eBay


You say you will be wiring up 53feet, holy crap....so that is 5.3A continuous current, meaning split between 3 12V sources you will need around 1.76A per battery pack. The trick here is how are you splitting up the battery packs? If you run them all in parallel then you divide up the current evenly, with the same voltage, which is what I recommend. But you still need your wire from that battery array to your strip to handle 5.3A. According to this chart (American Wire Gauge table and AWG Electrical Current Load Limits with skin depth frequencies), you need 14AWG wire at the minimum. That is pretty thick stuff. If you try running 5.3A through 22AWG wire, well it will work for about a minute before the insulation starts melting off

I would recommend not doing continuous lengths of strip. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but if you can segment all the different light sections, it reduces your needs greatly on wire thickness. In that instance, your connection from the battery forward would still need to be 14AWG, but then you can split up that connection using a wiring harness you build to drive your body panels, cape, and others separate. If you can get your sections to no more than 8 feet each, then you can do 22AWG.

Plan this out, measure exactly how much you need, and try to divy up the current with segmented light sections. If you need help figuring out how to pull power off that lithium ion battery I linked, I can show you how I approached it, it works pretty well I think.

 

[ModernDayMarc]

Check these out instead... New Portable 12V 9800mAh Li-ion Super Rechargeable Battery Pack | eBay

Check these out per your recomendation.
Only question is: how do you hook these up to the pos and neg wires running from the led strips?

 

[colonelmasako]

Check these out per your recomendation.
Only question is: how do you hook these up to the pos and neg wires running from the led strips?

Excellent question, took me a while to figure out the best solution. I ended up using these: Size M Panel-mount Coaxial DC Power Jack - RadioShack.com

Now that example may not be the exact size you need. I literally bought the battery, brought it into radio shack, and rummaged through their connectors till I found one that fits. Those batteries have two plugs, one specifically for charger (a "female" plug), and one for the battery output (the "male" plug). The connector I linked will work. See that picture? The center peg would be your (+) connection, and the tab next to it would be your (-). Its pretty easy to mount one of these connectors in a plastic box, loop your cable around and voila. I can post pictures (if I took them when I built it).

This connector is rated for a maximum current rating, I forget what it is, but if your current use is greater than 3A, I would double check this, should be on the package of the connector. My advice: use thick wire to solder to this connector, then thin wire to each of your strips, as I said in my other post, its really hard to hook up 14AWG to those strips, but if you keep your lengths shorter than 8 feet, then sections using 22AWG will work. But your connection to the battery must be thick enough for your total current use, so be careful.

 

[tim]

I saw your post awhile back regarding this Wire Glue. You are making me want to redo my entire Quorra costume with this glue to get rid of all my copper connections which are causing blackout spots when looking at my suit in person or with close up photography, I still hate them though. Wish I would have discovered this Wire Glue earlier. Actually, there is ALOT of other wishes when trying to light my Quorra suit I wish I knew about last year. Like discovering the amazing LuminousFilm.com product I used to light my final suit. That stuff is amazing! I think would work well with the Wire Glue you are using.

Well, in my mind your Quorra costume is still the reference standard, second only to the one that graced Olivia Wilde herself.

I think a version using the LuminousFilm EL tape and hidden connectors would be killer.

 

[ModernDayMarc]

Excellent question, took me a while to figure out the best solution. I ended up using these: Size M Panel-mount Coaxial DC Power Jack - RadioShack.com

I can post pictures (if I took them when I built it).

This connector is rated for a maximum current rating, I forget what it is, but if your current use is greater than 3A, I would double check this, should be on the package of the connector. My advice: use thick wire to solder to this connector, then thin wire to each of your strips, as I said in my other post, its really hard to hook up 14AWG to those strips, but if you keep your lengths shorter than 8 feet, then sections using 22AWG will work. But your connection to the battery must be thick enough for your total current use, so be careful.

Yes, if you have pics, or can take them, please post them!
Also, months back I asked about using el wire quick connectors
with led strips, and you said you did that with your set up.
I'm curious as to how to physically do that, how the wires fit in, etc
Have pics of that by chance?

 

[ModernDayMarc]

Also Colonel,

With the heating up battery pack issue: what wires would need to be replaced to allow for enough current to pass through them? Would it be the wires coming off the battery pack?

 

[Icey]

Wow that is a LOT of LED strip....lets see. First off, I would DEFINITELY not use those 8AA battery cages, simply because the guage of wire on the 9V connections is too thin for that much current. That was exactly what I used when I found out this truth and my battery pack started getting too hot for comfort. Check these out instead... New Portable 12V 9800mAh Li-ion Super Rechargeable Battery Pack | eBay


You say you will be wiring up 53feet, holy crap....so that is 5.3A continuous current, meaning split between 3 12V sources you will need around 1.76A per battery pack. The trick here is how are you splitting up the battery packs? If you run them all in parallel then you divide up the current evenly, with the same voltage, which is what I recommend. But you still need your wire from that battery array to your strip to handle 5.3A. According to this chart (American Wire Gauge table and AWG Electrical Current Load Limits with skin depth frequencies), you need 14AWG wire at the minimum. That is pretty thick stuff. If you try running 5.3A through 22AWG wire, well it will work for about a minute before the insulation starts melting off

I would recommend not doing continuous lengths of strip. Sometimes this is unavoidable, but if you can segment all the different light sections, it reduces your needs greatly on wire thickness. In that instance, your connection from the battery forward would still need to be 14AWG, but then you can split up that connection using a wiring harness you build to drive your body panels, cape, and others separate. If you can get your sections to no more than 8 feet each, then you can do 22AWG.

Plan this out, measure exactly how much you need, and try to divy up the current with segmented light sections. If you need help figuring out how to pull power off that lithium ion battery I linked, I can show you how I approached it, it works pretty well I think.

Damn, it seems this is more involved than I thought it would be. Nothing I can't handle, but it looks like I'll be using the el wire one more time since there's no way I'll get all of this done in time for the convention I'm going to in two weeks.

That being said, I went and measured out approximately how long each segment of lighting would be and the only one over 8 feet long is the cape:
Cape front - 5.5
Front - 5.5
Arm - 5.5 x2
Cape underneath - 14.5
Collar - 1.5
Pant leg - 7 x2

So with the exception of the cape underside, the 22g would be sufficient. When you say wiring harness, you mean converging all of the segment wires into one so that it can be plugged into the battery correct? I'm having a bit of difficulty visualizing this and google is failing me.

After reading what you said about not using the 8AA battery packs, which is where the three came from, the rechargeable pack sounds like a better way to go. (I'm assuming this is the same as the one you posted.) With that method, would one pack be sufficient to power everything or would I need more?

 

[colonelmasako]

Damn, it seems this is more involved than I thought it would be. Nothing I can't handle, but it looks like I'll be using the el wire one more time since there's no way I'll get all of this done in time for the convention I'm going to in two weeks.

That being said, I went and measured out approximately how long each segment of lighting would be and the only one over 8 feet long is the cape:
Cape front - 5.5
Front - 5.5
Arm - 5.5 x2
Cape underneath - 14.5
Collar - 1.5
Pant leg - 7 x2

So with the exception of the cape underside, the 22g would be sufficient. When you say wiring harness, you mean converging all of the segment wires into one so that it can be plugged into the battery correct? I'm having a bit of difficulty visualizing this and google is failing me.

After reading what you said about not using the 8AA battery packs, which is where the three came from, the rechargeable pack sounds like a better way to go. (I'm assuming this is the same as the one you posted.) With that method, would one pack be sufficient to power everything or would I need more?

Your interpretation of my description of the wiring harness is accurate, well done, glad I was able to convey that. As for that battery pack, it would work for you about 1.28 hours. I would go with a higher capacity one, depending on how long you wan it to last

 

[colonelmasako]

Yes, if you have pics, or can take them, please post them!
Also, months back I asked about using el wire quick connectors
with led strips, and you said you did that with your set up.
I'm curious as to how to physically do that, how the wires fit in, etc
Have pics of that by chance?

Also Colonel,

With the heating up battery pack issue: what wires would need to be replaced to allow for enough current to pass through them? Would it be the wires coming off the battery pack?

Hmm, well now I guess I'll have to create some pictures on that process, the EL connectors, sorry I forgot if I said I'd show how to do that. Its a bit tricky, but not too bad. And I don't have pics of the connector from radio shack, but check out my last post on that, the picture on the radio shack website should help.

As for the heating up thing: it would be the wires coming off the battery pack. But unless you want to solder directly to the terminals, that is really hard. I wouldn't do this, you'd be better off with something with higher capacity and thicker wires already part of it

I'll post those pics when I can.

 

[ModernDayMarc]

Hmm, well now I guess I'll have to create some pictures on that process, the EL connectors, sorry I forgot if I said I'd show how to do that. Its a bit tricky, but not too bad. And I don't have pics of the connector from radio shack, but check out my last post on that, the picture on the radio shack website should help.

As for the heating up thing: it would be the wires coming off the battery pack. But unless you want to solder directly to the terminals, that is really hard. I wouldn't do this, you'd be better off with something with higher capacity and thicker wires already part of it

I'll post those pics when I can.

Alright Colonel, thank you. Pictures would be most awesome!
Btw, as we speak, I've been running my led reel off my 8aa battery cage for 2 hours now, and no heat at all in the batteries!! Literally, none. Nor the wires.
Strange?

 

[colonelmasako]

Alright Colonel, thank you. Pictures would be most awesome!
Btw, as we speak, I've been running my led reel off my 8aa battery cage for 2 hours now, and no heat at all in the batteries!! Literally, none. Nor the wires.
Strange?

Maybe not strange, but certainly interesting. How much LED strip, what kind of AAs? Cause if its working for you, then I'm baffled why it didn't work for me....if this works for you, go for it I guess.

 

[ModernDayMarc]

Maybe not strange, but certainly interesting. How much LED strip, what kind of AAs? Cause if its working for you, then I'm baffled why it didn't work for me....if this works for you, go for it I guess.

I actually ran them straight last night for 3 and a half hours, no heat.
They started to get a little dim by the end of the night, but these batteries
already had some use on them.

I have a 5 meter real, and I was using the standard copper top Duracell AA batteries.

 

[colonelmasako]

I actually ran them straight last night for 3 and a half hours, no heat.
They started to get a little dim by the end of the night, but these batteries
already had some use on them.

I have a 5 meter real, and I was using the standard copper top Duracell AA batteries.

5 meters with 22AWG wire for 3 hours, no problems....the only explanation is you are using a different type of LED strip than I did. By my calculations, at most for this to work, you are drawing around 5mA per foot, instead of 100mA like mine did. If you know how to, could you use a multimeter to measure the actual current draw? Otherwise you have broken the laws of physics (or somehow your wire acted like a super conductor :confused). But regardless, if you can run it 3.5 hours with no trouble at all, by all means go with what works, sounds great to me.

 

[ModernDayMarc]

5 meters with 22AWG wire for 3 hours, no problems....the only explanation is you are using a different type of LED strip than I did. By my calculations, at most for this to work, you are drawing around 5mA per foot, instead of 100mA like mine did. If you know how to, could you use a multimeter to measure the actual current draw? Otherwise you have broken the laws of physics (or somehow your wire acted like a super conductor :confused). But regardless, if you can run it 3.5 hours with no trouble at all, by all means go with what works, sounds great to me.

I would love to measure for you, but don't have a multimeter :unsure
Only thing different I noticed about my leds is they are not waterproof,
and there's way more of them per inch than most; 600 per 5M, vs 300 per.
Maybe that's why??? Don't know, don't know.

Back to the el wire quick connectors issue:
The two wires that run off them can just be stripped and soldered
to the pos and neg wires running off an led strip, yes?

 

[colonelmasako]

Yes, that is correct. The trick, without pictures, is soldering those wires to the "pins" that go into the plastic EL wire connectors, and crimping them down to snap into them (without pushing too hard, otherwise the two connectors won't connect correctly). It takes practice. A pair of helping hands (those wire grabbers at Radio Shack) are essential for the process.

 

[Annisse]

Well, in my mind your Quorra costume is still the reference standard, second only to the one that graced Olivia Wilde herself.

I think a version using the LuminousFilm EL tape and hidden connectors would be killer.

Well, thank you!! Appreciate it!! but having to redo the lighting just to be rid of the tiny copper connectors on the angles is not really on my To-Do or rather, want to deal with, list for this year LOL! I literally spent an entire year working on all my Tron costumes all together. I think I will be satisfied with that I got for now I have so many other new projects I am working on, but, I really am curious about that Glue Wire and if it will work with the LF so, maybe one of these days I will just buy some and give it a try to at least try and cover up the copper connectors somehow with it. I do have a idea about making that work on my suit.

 

[Canobi]

I saw your post awhile back regarding this Wire Glue. You are making me want to redo my entire Quorra costume with this glue to get rid of all my copper connections which are causing blackout spots when looking at my suit in person or with close up photography, I still hate them though. Wish I would have discovered this Wire Glue earlier. Actually, there is ALOT of other wishes when trying to light my Quorra suit I wish I knew about last year. Like discovering the amazing LuminousFilm.com product I used to light my final suit. That stuff is amazing! I think would work well with the Wire Glue you are using.

Hi Annisse

Glad to have suggested something useful for once.

It's best to give it a good stir and shake up before you use it. It tends to seperate a bit if stored for prolonged periods and the important carbon additive collects on the bottom of the container. Just be careful with it and don't mix it too vigouresly as it can get quite messy for the unwary. Have some paper towels on hand just in case. I use a toothpick to apply mine as you only need a drop to cover the wire and contact point but any thin pointy thing will do. Hope the upgrade goes well for you :thumbsup

 

[ModernDayMarc]

Yes, that is correct. The trick, without pictures, is soldering those wires to the "pins" that go into the plastic EL wire connectors, and crimping them down to snap into them (without pushing too hard, otherwise the two connectors won't connect correctly). It takes practice. A pair of helping hands (those wire grabbers at Radio Shack) are essential for the process.

What if there's already wire running out of the plastic connectors?
Couldn't you just connect to THAT wire?

 

[colonelmasako]

What if there's already wire running out of the plastic connectors?
Couldn't you just connect to THAT wire?

You certainly can, you can purchase them mounted like that. For my application I had to customize stuff, but if you want to go that route, no trouble there.

 

[tim]

Well, thank you!!

You're welcome! You deserve it!

...but, I really am curious about that Glue Wire and if it will work with the LF so, maybe one of these days I will just buy some and give it a try to at least try and cover up the copper connectors somehow with it.

That is how it starts...