As a lighted costume designer, I get a lot of questions from people who want to know how to make their own EL wire costumes. I don't have time to help everyone individually, so I thought I'd consolidate my advice into one instructable. Hopefully this will help you understand the steps involved in this labor-intensive process, and get you started with your own lighted clothing projects.
Rather than describe how to make a single specific design, I am trying to make these instructions fairly general so you can create your own EL wire layout for almost any type of clothing, although many of my example photos refer to lighted coats. Also, since EL wire is very fragile in situations where it is flexed repeatedly, a lot of these tips will focus on methods for improving durability and getting the longest possible life out of the garment.
UPDATE: I never intended this to be a tutorial for copying other people's work, but it seems that some clarification might be useful. It's great to be inspired, but I'd like to encourage this community to take things a step further and use these techniques to create their own original designs.
Rather than describe how to make a single specific design, I am trying to make these instructions fairly general so you can create your own EL wire layout for almost any type of clothing, although many of my example photos refer to lighted coats. Also, since EL wire is very fragile in situations where it is flexed repeatedly, a lot of these tips will focus on methods for improving durability and getting the longest possible life out of the garment.
UPDATE: I never intended this to be a tutorial for copying other people's work, but it seems that some clarification might be useful. It's great to be inspired, but I'd like to encourage this community to take things a step further and use these techniques to create their own original designs.
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Signing UpStep 1: List of materials
piece of clothing to light up (see guidelines in that step)
sewing supplies:
needle, clear thread, scissors
EL wire (can be a single color or a mix of colors)
EL wire driver/inverter matched to the total length of glowing wire used in the design
battery holder and switch (if not included with driver)
If you are soldering:
soldering iron
solder
wire strippers
wire cutters
heat-shrink tubing, heat gun
optional:
glue, pins, clamps
sewing supplies:
needle, clear thread, scissors
EL wire (can be a single color or a mix of colors)
EL wire driver/inverter matched to the total length of glowing wire used in the design
battery holder and switch (if not included with driver)
If you are soldering:
soldering iron
solder
wire strippers
wire cutters
heat-shrink tubing, heat gun
optional:
glue, pins, clamps
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You have to go a little slowly until you get the hang of it. I use a foot for my singer which is designed for "Piping" so it has a thin side (for the el-wire) and a wide side to hold the material down. I have done dozens of garments this way, and it is really great!
Let me add my $0.05 worth:
Most vendors sell a small elwire inverter that drives up to 30 ft. of wire. It has a 9 volt battery inside its enclosure. In my opinion, this is by far the best inverter for costumes.
Unless you enjoy doing it, I recommend you have the vendor solder your elwire for you. I believe it costs like $2.50 or $5 per wire. Two vendors who do this are www.coolight.com and www.coolneon.com They provide good telephone customer support.
This instructable mentions wire management and battery pockets AFTER attaching the wire. I recommend STARTING with finding a home for the inverter & battery, and laying out your elwire from there. At this point I cut some yarn the length of the elwire, and lay out some drafts to figure out my design. I keep the yarn in place with masking tape - thats the blue stuff for painting.
This instructable shows a whip stitch is used to attach elwire to clothing. In my experience, a blanket stitch ties elwire tighter to the garment. That is more secure and makes the elwire less vulnerable. What I'm saying is loop back around each stitch to really tie down. This demonstrates a blanket stitch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXkSE2TTF4s Also, for a light weight garment, invisible thread is strong enough.
It can be hard to tie down elwire's slippery end. If you secure it by its heat shrink or vinyl cap, it may pop out. Also, you may not want to poke a hole in the garment for the elwire end. I have solved this by glueing on a jewelry "finding". I get these from the Toho Shoji bead store in New York City's Garment District. Its a bit tricky because you have to avoid an electrical "short" with the metal finding. Super glue is strong enough in a few minutes, but not waterproof. E6000 is best but has to dry overnight. Hot glue, fabric glue and epoxy don't adhere well enough to elwire's vinyl jacket. They may work on a solid object, but not a flexing costume, or keep the wire in a finding.
i want to create some costumes but do i need some sort of battery or charger or can you wash the cloth please answer fast
please send links thx.
9.8 Feet for 5 bucks (60cent shipping) assorted colors, best deal I've seen around yet---------------------------> http://stores.ebay.com/xiao2huan/_i.html?_nkw=el+wire&submit=Search&_sid=242004751
That doesn't sound right.
Reffering to the unposibility of downloading the file (I assume)
This tutorial is great and I plan to do a lot with it, but i was wondering how it would fare as a pattern on the front of a corset. I just wonder how that would work, with the boning and the not as stiff bits
Any help would be much appreciated :)
Another option is to put really long lead wires on multiple pieces of EL, and run all of these pairs to the driver, and then splice them together there.
Thanks in advance for being super swell
rob
Super tutorial! : D
I have a slight follow up from Sylar's question:
If you intersperse sections of EL and standard conductive wire, will that effect the type of driver you need to use?
E.g.- If I am running a total of 8 feet of EL wire (in 1 feet pieces), with 10 feet of standard conductive wire connecting those EL pieces- would I need to use a driver for 18 feet, or would one for 8 feet do?
Basically- does the driver required depend only on the length of EL wire, or is it dependent on the entire length of the system (EL and non-EL wire)?
Again, fantastic tutorial! Many thanks again : )