Electroluminescent Bicycle
After moving to Saskatoon, Saskatchewan I discovered that, July and August aside, there's not much sun in this town. In the fall, the sun rises well after I get to work, and bicycling in the dark isn't the safest activity. I decided to increase my visibility A LOT.
Components for this project:
Alternatively I could have used a 3.7V battery, and a 3V inverter, but after playing around with both options I appreciated just how much brighter the EL wire is at 12V. And with the amount of EL wire that I planned to use, it seemed like the better alternative. The 3V options would do just fine for smaller projects.
1. Soldering EL wire together.
The strands of EL wire that I purchased were 3m in length. I wanted to have a few longer strands to reach further down the bike, so I had to solder a number of these together. The process takes quite a bit of patience. I made a short video about it, and there is an awesome Adafruit tutorial on it too.
Components for this project:
- EL Wire of different colours. Purchased from Sparkfun.
- EL Sequencer: micro-controller & board for controlling up to 8 lines of EL wire. Purchased from Sparkfun.
- EL Inverter: used to convert DC power to the AC that EL wire runs off of. Purchased from Sparkfun.
- Battery: to power the contraption!
- DC Barrel Jack Plug: to connect the battery's terminals to the inverter. Purchased from Sparkfun.
Alternatively I could have used a 3.7V battery, and a 3V inverter, but after playing around with both options I appreciated just how much brighter the EL wire is at 12V. And with the amount of EL wire that I planned to use, it seemed like the better alternative. The 3V options would do just fine for smaller projects.
1. Soldering EL wire together.
The strands of EL wire that I purchased were 3m in length. I wanted to have a few longer strands to reach further down the bike, so I had to solder a number of these together. The process takes quite a bit of patience. I made a short video about it, and there is an awesome Adafruit tutorial on it too.
2. Connecting the components.
The sequencer performs a number of functions. It draws DC current from the battery, directs it into the inverter to get AC current and uses that to power the EL wires (or panels) that are connected to the 8 outputs. The sequencer has it's own microcontroller on board and you can program the 8 outputs to flash/dance however you wish.
The graphics below, borrowed from a bildr blog, show how to connect the electronics. Regardless of whether you're using an external power source or not, a separate battery is needed to power the board.
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At this point we can plug in the EL wires and make sure that they work. The sequencer comes pre-programmed with some simple flashy program - enough to test that everything's connected properly.
3. Programming the sequencer.
Of course we want something fancier than flashing lights, so lets program the sequencer to our liking!
An FTDI cable is needed for this. I originally purchased a cheap cable from e-bay, but it did not work. So make sure to purchase a 5V FTDI cable, as 3.3V will not allow you to program the board.
I'm going to stick to some simple programming to begin with - to test the physical configuration on the bike. Future expansions could include user-control, or interfacing the sequencer with an accelerometer (so braking would engage redish colours, while speeding up the bike would get the lights to blink faster.
4. Attach it to the bike!
Now the hard part - how to securely attach all of the electronics and wire to my bicycle.