Add a little audio-reactivity to your EL projects! Video on YouTube and Vimeo.
EL Wire 6V Sound Activated Pocket Inverter. A small, portable inverter for EL wire with an audio input! This inverter has a little microphone and will light the connected EL according to the surrounding audio volume. Makes for an easy reactive project.
This inverter requires 6V input (it works great with our 4xAA battery holder) and it can drive 2-3 meters (7 to 10 feet) of our high-brightness EL wire OR 1 meter (3 feet) of EL tape OR a 10cmx10cm piece of EL panel continuously for about 21 hours (off of 4xAAs).
There is a switch for selecting steady/sound/off modes – steady is always on. Comes with a single 2.5mm pitch female JST connectors, standard for all the EL wire and tape we carry. Theres also two power wires, youll need to connect these to a 6VDC power source.
You can plug any of our EL wire/tape into this inverter directly. To connect a raw piece EL wire to this, youll want a male connector wire
The EL inverter requires a load to stabilize itself. Do not run the inverter without at least 2 ft of EL wire attached! Otherwise the inverter can spike and damage itself
Like all inverters weve used, the 2000 Hz oscillation is slightly audible. To reduce the squeaking, we suggest opening up the case padding it with thick foam tape/weatherstripping. Squirting some hot glue around the capacitors may also help. We managed to get it silent this way.
Soldering to raw EL wire is a little tricky but luckily we wrote a detailed step-by-step tutorial! The tutorial also covers a lot of information about EL and how it works.
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