Thinking of using EL wire for phasers. . .

MillenniumFalsehood · Post by **MillenniumFalsehood** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 4:32 pm

Would this work? I'd like to simulate a phaser attack by stretching EL wire from the Federation ship to the attacker and I think EL Wire would work, provided I put some kind of paint or other detail to make it more "3-D".

Antenociti · Post by **Antenociti** » Wed Aug 23, 2006 6:46 pm

Maybe consider side-glow fibre optic instead? - EL wire is pretty thick.

MillenniumFalsehood · Post by **MillenniumFalsehood** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 1:51 pm

Maybe. I thought it might have a brighter glow so that the color spills onto the model brightly.

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Thu Aug 24, 2006 1:57 pm

Depending on your color it may or may not show up in a fully light room. The big wonderfest display room does not qualify as well light.

I think I might have some pcis somewhere of an experiment with a mech and el wire. You will need away to keep it tight. A clamp in the source and one in the receptor, to keep stress off the electrical connections and keep the wire straight.

MillenniumFalsehood · Post by **MillenniumFalsehood** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 3:49 pm

Perhaps I could brush clear resin over it? Or CA glue. Would that interfere with the EL operation?

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 4:10 pm

The outter housing of the EL wire is clear vynil. CA will sitk to it, but it clouds and becomes prominant visually when the EL is powered. I have some EL wire that has CA all over it from when we tried to glue it into the threads of the station neck. The paint pealed off and made a mess. So if you're talking about gluing it in place in the model, that will probably work, as long as it hasn't been primed or you sand it ruff.

Also check for color transmission, if the area you are gluing it to is some color other than black or white it may reflect into the color of the el wire around the exit point (if you are using white el wire).

MillenniumFalsehood · Post by **MillenniumFalsehood** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:30 pm

I was actually talking about brushing CA over it to harden it. The wire will be stretched across a gap between two ships(A Constitution-class saucer and a Klingon D-7 battlecruiser) and I was going to use the CA to harden the wire so it wouldn't sag over time.

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Fri Aug 25, 2006 10:07 pm

It will craze on the vynil but that may help the pahsor effect. It is however not reversable, maybe try it on a short piece. I got the inverter with a piece of el wire attached to it. It was the same cost as buying an inverter alone, so I got a few each with different colors el I hadn't gotten yet. I have several lengths of el I got for the station neck so I have plenty of the main colors. Klingon Green, TNG Blue, White, and red.

http://www.kc6sye.com/techmages_10_7_05.html

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Mon Aug 28, 2006 3:16 pm

Look what just showed up, LEd flexiable strip:

http://www.electronicproducts.com/ShowP ... t2006.html

wonder how long it will take to reach the non large quanty buyers (us).

MillenniumFalsehood · Post by **MillenniumFalsehood** » Thu Aug 31, 2006 9:02 pm

Now that would be useful for things like saucer section windows on Federation ships.

Grumpy Popeye · Post by **Grumpy Popeye** » Fri Oct 27, 2006 12:14 pm

You could use a miniature LED as your phaser turret, with the F.O. strand coming out if it (Hole drilled in LED to mount the strand in.) That way, you will get colour spill over onto the hull (discharge flash?) and a lot more light going down the strand. That's my two cents...lemme know if I've got change coming!

MillenniumFalsehood · Post by **MillenniumFalsehood** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 2:53 pm

Don't side-lit FOs loose light as the length increases? And I thought EL wire would be brighter.

Sparky · Post by **Sparky** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 3:17 pm

The side light FO will not work with a standard LED if that's what your asking. They state clearly on their website that you need a high wattage halogen bulb to fill the side light fiber with enough light. I think even in the poor light of a convention room the fiber optic/LED combo will not be very visible. Even EL wire will be difficult to see/notice. Most of the colors are 'bright' on their own (unpowered).

Maybe if you had a bundle of fibers all broken at differen lengths you'd see a 'beam' as light spilled from various ends of the fiber. It'd look more like the War of the Worlds martian spark beams (I'm thinking of the original movie).