El Wire And Drivers/inverters

[Rain]

I find the idea of EL wire very interesting (like these http://www.ebay.co.u...=item6b219fbdf8 ) but I have not had any previous experience before so I would like to learn more about them.

1. I quite do not understand is if you do need to have a driver/inverter to go along with these wires or you can just tap them to 12v loom?
   

[Stoney871]

They need a driver unit that converts the power supply to the right ampage/voltage.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/12V-Car-Driver-Inverter-5-15-meters-EL-Glow-Neon-Wire-Car-Lighter-Attment-/160902395572?pt=UK_BOI_Electrical_Components_Supplies_ET&hash=item257687b6b4

[GJC]

I find the idea of EL wire very interesting (like these http://www.ebay.co.u...=item6b219fbdf8 ) but I have not had any previous experience before so I would like to learn more about them.

1. I quite do not understand is if you do need to have a driver/inverter to go along with these wires or you can just tap them to 12v loom?
   

Elaborating on Stoney's comment EL wire typically needs 100V/ 1000 Hz AC to glow, so you need something that can change the 12V DC of the car to 100 V ac to get the light to glow at all.

[Stoney871]

The seller on eBay does all the inverters needed to run the EL wire kits for various applications.

[tunne1rat]

12v inverters have different output capabilities depending on how much wire you need to drive.

The micro inverters that I used can drive up to 5m of EL wire so for the roof lining I cut the EL wire into 2x1.5m lengths and hid the inverter behind the A pillar trim. From the inverter the EL wire was run from the front to the back of the car, then normal speaker wire was soldered to the cut EL wire end. The speaker wire was fed under the roof lining (by removing the tailgate seal) across to the other side whereby the 2nd length of EL wire was soldered on and run from the rear to the front of the car. An EL wire end cap was used to terminate the run (as you do not want to touch EL wire bare end when it is switched on - it's not pleasant)!

This method allowed me to drive both sides from one inverter over a length which could effectively be longer than the inverter is designed for by not using EL wire where it was not needed.

[GJC]

Something to think about is the positioning of the invertor box. EL invertors tend to have a high pitched whine when in use. You may or may not notice it at all over the road / engine/ stereo noise but if you do you need to think where to piut the invertor, hiding it somewhere and using speakerwide to get the voltage to where you need it is a great suggestion.

[Stoney871]

Top tip there sir.

[Rain]

Hi

The micro inverters

By micro inverter did you happen to mean this particular model http://www.ebay.co.u...=item2323df2cad

Thanks for all the info. By speaker wire, what type of wire do you guys actually mean. Can someone drop me a eBay link so I can get better understanding. Currently I have bought quite few meters of this type of power wire http://www.ebay.co.u...984.m1497.l2648

[tunne1rat]

Any speaker or bell wire will be ok. Something like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SPEAKER-CABLE-100m-RED-BLACK-HOOK-UP-TWIN-WIRE-CABLE-/370464237973?pt=UK_Computing_Sound_Vision_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item564163a995