Full EL Wire Notes are Online

My full, prescription-strength Project Notes about the Weekend of EL Wire are now online.

The Blinky Take-Out Box

Alright, so here's what I came up with. It's USB-attached, but only for power. Next step, make it read the serial port and do what a Processing app tells it. Meanwhile, it's happy to loop randomly.



The loop() is very simple. It flips a coin to decide whether or not to glow red, then waits between 0 and 1000 milliseconds. It flips a coin to decide whether or not to glow yellow, and then waits between 0 and 2000 milliseconds. Finally it picks a random number between 1 and 8, and blinks the green lights that many times.

Twenty-Four Hours of EL Wire

Now that I've got enough parts, and soldered the right ones to each other, I've got an Arduino controlling a few short lengths of EL Wire. I'll make a separate page for the complete saga, but the short story is this: I started with sparkfun's EL Escudo, soldered on header pins, used a transformer from coolight.com, used EL wire from a starter kit, soldered JST connectors on the EL wire, attached to USB for power.

I keep zapping myself, reminding me that, "volts hurt, amps kill."  It's surprising when it gets you, but it hasn't done any permanent damage.  :)

Ninety-Nine Cent Laser

This cheap little keychain laser-pointer was marked down to ninety-nine cents, at Fry's. It's so cheap, the "gold" on the "metal" parts is flaking off from something that looks corrosive. Also, it "Exceeds FDA Standards" ... whatever that means. I bought two! Dunno what it's gonna be when it grows up, but I'll send one to my brother and see what he comes up with...