[sdiy] EL wire = opto compressor?

[jays at aracnet.com]

Inverter noise!

I've done work with EL wire. The inverters tend to be very noisy. I'd be worried about them bleading though into the audio domain. Also the sensor would need to be slow enough or you'd have to add a filter to get rid of the AC from EL wire.

There are two ways to control he bightness of the EL wire one is voltage level and the other is modulation frequency. Voltages range from about 60V to 120V AC at a rate of ~200 hz to ~8 kHz. You can find the spec for EL wire out there and it will give you all the details.

Jay S.


Dave Magnuson wrote:

> Hi list,
> 
> I have a broken Playstation 2 controller here (Pelican Afterglow) that has a 
> good sized piece of EL wire in it.  I disassembled the controller and found 
> that the high voltage driver is on a tiny seperate circuit board.    Just 
> for fun, I connected this driver up to the output of an LFO... and it lights 
> up quite nicely.    I can get a nice variation in brightness when varying 
> the input voltage from 0v to 12v
> 
> So...  any reason not to try to make an opto compressor out of this thing? 
> I'm not expecting an LA3A, just a fun grungy mono compressor.   Anyone done 
> something like this?
> 
> I've never really messed with compression circuits before, but this is what 
> I'm thinking:   input signal splits into 2 paths... audio and CV.
> 
> CV source is full wave rectified and amplified to 0-12v range which drives 
> the EL wire.  I could then add a lag circuit for attack / release.
> 
> EL wire is mounted to a photoresistor in a light-proof box.   Photoresistor 
> is part of the feedback loop of an opamp amplifier, providing unity gain 
> with no light and some attenuation with the EL wire fully lit.
> 
> Is this how you would typically accomplish this?   I realize that this is an 
> overly simplified description, but I just wanted to see if I'm on the right 
> path.  Also... anything special to look for when buying a photoresistor? 
> There's a little 5 pack available at Radioshack that I was going to buy to 
> experiment with (to get an idea of resistance ranges when applying different 
> voltages to the EL wire's driver)
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Dave Magnuson