[Noisebridge-discuss] Connecting 128 EL-Wires to an Arduino

[Gregg Tavares]

On Wed, Jul 21, 2010 at 9:35 AM, Josh Myer <josh at joshisanerd.com> wrote:

> The question is how long you want to run this stuff.  EL wire tends to be
> very low-power, so you just need some nice solid inverters and handful of
> serious batteries (or one motorcycle battery, depending on how your'e using
> this).
>
> There's also the fact that EL Wire is ~1.50$/foot.  If you've got a yard on
> each of your 128 ports, that's $1,000 in wire alone.
>

It's about 1.5 feet to a few inches per.  Any suggestion for a good place to
by? Coolwire


>  If it's less than that... that's a lot of terminating.
>

Thanks! Yea, I'm not looking forward to the terminating. I'm even more sad
that EL-WIRE wears out :-(


>
> What's your final application look like?
>

It's a costume, fullbody, head to toe, finger tip to finger tip. I'm still
working out the exact arrangements of the el-wires.



>  I did some board design work for a client recently in the same vein, but
> for a lot fewer strands.
> --
> /jbm
>
> On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 12:28 AM, Gregg Tavares <nbridge at greggman.com>wrote:
>
>> Hello Noisebrige,
>>
>> My name is Gregg Tavares. I'm new to the list. I hope can contribute more
>> than I take.
>>
>> I'm mostly a software engineer, not hardware so I'm looking for advice.
>>
>> I'm planning to build a el-wire display with 128 individually addressable
>> el-wires.  (yea, I know it's a ton of work)
>>
>> My current plan is an Arduino connected to 8 MCP23018 16-bit I/O expander
>> chips<http://www.microchip.com/wwwproducts/Devices.aspx?dDocName=en537375>connected in series with
>> 2 of these El Escudo boards
>> <http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=9259>on
>> each of those along with these ifw-3294 power inverters<http://www.coolight.com/product-p/ifw-3294.htm>
>>
>> It seems fairly straight forward. I'll take it a step at a time. If can
>> get 1 MCP23018 working with 2 El Escudo boards and 16 el-wires then it
>> should be pretty easy to chain in more of that combination to expand the
>> number of wires.
>>
>> The question I was hoping to ask is is there a better way? Should be
>> looking at different solutions? One big power inverter to power all the
>> el-wires? Some chip I'm unaware of that handle's more outputs?
>>
>> I'm grateful for any insight or advice you might have.
>>
>> thank you
>>
>> -gregg tavares
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list
>> Noisebridge-discuss at lists.noisebridge.net
>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> Josh Myer 650.248.3796
> josh at joshisanerd.com
>
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