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Step 9Additional Notes
THIS CAN HAPPEN:
Often when soldering EL wire projects, I find that when I have it all soldered up and try to turn it on, it won't light up. What happens is that sometimes when EL wire is cut, the little hair thin wires inside can cross over to the center wire, creating a little tiny short circuit. So you just have to snip off the very tip of the EL wire. This happens about 20% of the time, so it is not uncommon. I used to immediately suspect my solder connection, snip off my freshly soldered connection, and redo it, before I figured out what was going on.
PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED
Initially, the plan was to tape the image to the back of a piece of clear acrylic, use the drawing as the guide for gluing the wire, and later remove the printout and paint the back of the clear acrylic black. I have done several projects like that in the past. For some reason, the clear piece I had wasn't working. Maybe it was some other kind of plastic, and not really acrylic. Here are the details from the back of the black acrylic, which actually worked:
Plexiglass MC Acrylic Sheet
Compositional Information:
Methyl methacrylate (80-62-6)
Ethyl acrylate (140-88-5)
Poly (ethyl acrylate/methyl methacrylate) (9010-88-2)
I don't know what any of that means, but this piece actually worked.
Attached are some pictures of other projects I have made using the method outlined in this Instructable.
Often when soldering EL wire projects, I find that when I have it all soldered up and try to turn it on, it won't light up. What happens is that sometimes when EL wire is cut, the little hair thin wires inside can cross over to the center wire, creating a little tiny short circuit. So you just have to snip off the very tip of the EL wire. This happens about 20% of the time, so it is not uncommon. I used to immediately suspect my solder connection, snip off my freshly soldered connection, and redo it, before I figured out what was going on.
PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED
Initially, the plan was to tape the image to the back of a piece of clear acrylic, use the drawing as the guide for gluing the wire, and later remove the printout and paint the back of the clear acrylic black. I have done several projects like that in the past. For some reason, the clear piece I had wasn't working. Maybe it was some other kind of plastic, and not really acrylic. Here are the details from the back of the black acrylic, which actually worked:
Plexiglass MC Acrylic Sheet
Compositional Information:
Methyl methacrylate (80-62-6)
Ethyl acrylate (140-88-5)
Poly (ethyl acrylate/methyl methacrylate) (9010-88-2)
I don't know what any of that means, but this piece actually worked.
Attached are some pictures of other projects I have made using the method outlined in this Instructable.
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Mar 22, 2009. 9:15 AM
jeff-o
says:
jeff-o
says:
Maybe that clear piece was polycarbonate, which doesn't glue as easily as acrylic.
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