Can EL Wire be dimmed?
The same people who sell EL wire also sell inexpensive 12VDC drivers. You can drive them with any RC4 dimmer of any age or series, no problem at all. The drivers often make a lot of buzzing noise, and generally do not dim smoothly, but some are better than others for both noise and dimming response.
How bright is EL Wire?
At 3 meters, its not as bright, it appears about the same as ‘classic’ EL. Each meter of high brightness EL draws about 10-15mA at the high voltage, which means about 1.5 Watt/meter (at 100VAC).
Why does EL Wire need an inverter?
Cool to the touch and very low power consumption! It is not as bright as LEDs or Neon but provides a very nice eye-catching light and illumination. EL Wire requires an inverter to light up. The inverter’s function is to convert the low DC voltage into higher AC voltage necessary for EL Wire operation.
Does EL Wire burn out?
Although EL WIRE never burns out, it will become dimmer over time.
How many hours does EL wire last?
Battery Packs are the most common way to power EL wire because they tend to be less expensive than plug-in units and the batteries generally last a long time. For instance, 2 AA batteries can power an 8-foot strand of EL Wire for about 8-10 hours.
What kind of drivers do you need for EL wire?
Using EL Wire. Drivers. To power EL, an AC source is required. It is not possible to light up EL with DC such as batteries or a wall-wart adapter! The output of the inverter must be a sine-wave with no DC component. It is not unusual to have an inverter run from batteries, such as this ‘pocket’ AA driver.
Can a EL wire be pwm’ed or dimmed?
EL wire is capacitive, and cannot be PWM’ed or easily dimmed (unless you can adjust the voltage/frequency of the inverter) The more wire you connect to an inverter, the more ‘loaded’ it is and the dimmer it will be
What should the voltage of an EL wire be?
The voltage should be between 50-120V AC RMS (150V-360V peak-to-peak). Higher voltages result in a brighter display (but lower overall wire-life). The AC frequency can run from 60Hz to 2000Hz, higher frequency results in a brighter display (but lower overall wire-life). Most inverters run at around 100VAC and 2KHz.
Is the EL wire a diode or resistive light?
EL wire is not a resistive light (like an incandescent bulb) and it is not a diode light (like an LED), it acts more like a capacitor! The stiff inner wire is one ‘plate’ of the capacitor, the corona wire is the other ‘plate’ and the phosphor coating being the insulator/dielectric ( for more details on capacitors, see Wikipedia ).