NEW PRODUCTS – Blue, Green & Red Electroluminescent (EL) Tape Strip – 60 cm « Adafruit Industries – Makers, hackers, artists, designers and engineers!

September 9, 2011 AT 7:58 pm

NEW PRODUCTS – Blue, Green & Red Electroluminescent (EL) Tape Strip – 60 cm

EL tape is the big sister to EL wire – it has the same glow effect but with a flat, wide shape instead of a round shape. The glowing part of the tape is 1 cm wide (the plastic coating is about 1.5cm wide). The other side has an adhesive on it so you can stick the tape onto something. Its covered in what seems to be PVC, the tape is thus weather-proof – but note that the connectors are NOT waterproof, just a bit of heatshrink. This isn’t something we would suggest leaving outdoors for extended periods.

Because EL tape has more surface area than wire, it requires a more powerful inverter for the same length. This tape is about 4 times more capacitive (per length) than our high-brightness EL wire and 8 times more capacitive than ‘standard’ EL wire. For that reason, we are shipping the EL tape in 60cm lengths – the maximum amount for the 2xAA pocket inverter we carry. Plug it in and it will light up nicely! The full strip draws 200mA from the 2xAA batteries (so 2000mAh batteries will last ~10 hours if on ‘constant’ mode)

This particular strip comes with two EL connectors, one on each end! This means you can cut the strip in half and use both sides. However, do not connect two inverters to the same strip! If you dont need the second connector, just cut it off.