El wire?

zmoz

Enlightened
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Feb 28, 2003
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Oregon
I plan on buying some el wire like this to put around the gauges in my truck. Can anyone tell me how long this stuff is suppost to last? How much power does it draw?
 

James S

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Aug 27, 2002
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on an island surrounded by reality
Depends on how hard you drive it. According to the last FAQ entry I saw they say this:

"The illuminated half-life of electroluminescent cable is in excess of 6000 hours or 250 days, if lit continuously.  At this time it will become ~40% less bright. It never actually burns out, but does become dimmer over a very long period of time."

This is from: http://www.beingseen.com/faq.html#7
 

zmoz

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Feb 28, 2003
Messages
605
Location
Oregon
I guess it should last longer than my truck then. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif Does anybody know how much power it draws?
 

Canuke

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Aug 31, 2002
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Stuck in California again
minimal power. AFAIK it's the only artificial light source that is near 100% efficient (minus the losses of the high-voltage inverter). It requires 100-200 volts or so of AC, but draws almost no current (it acts as a capacitive rather than a resistive load).

Funny thing is that if you wanted to drive EL wire with audio frequencies (different frequencies give different brightness and color) and decided to use a regular stereo, you'd have to get a huge amp to get the voltages you need (because amps are designed to drive low resistance loads) but the wire would only use microwatts of power.

You can run it off line voltage, but the low frequency means you'll get a dull glow.
 
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