How to Make a Color Changing EL Wire Hour Glass!

by steven123

30K8817

Intro: How to Make a Color Changing EL Wire Hour Glass!

On this instructible you will learn how to make an color changing hour glass out of EL wire.

STEP 1: Puting Together the Structure of the Hour Glass, and Parts List.

8 L brackets
One high toarc motar
9 volt batters
Black non glossy spray paint. 
Half inch screws
Three foot PVC piping that is at least two inches thick
2 one foot wood rounds
11 feet of blue, green, yellow, orange, and red EL Wire
gel super glue
one seqencer

Alright, first you are going to have to find a three foot tube of sor, I used a card board tube that I had just siting around but you could use a piece of PVC piping instead, second paint the rounds, then attach four of the L brackects to the PVC pipe and the round, now do the same to the other side of the pipe.




STEP 2: Adding the Motor.

Now drill a hole in the center of the round the size of the motor. Next stick some super glue in the hole and place motor in side and let dry. Also what I did is that I hooked up a switch and 9 volt battery.

Note: DO NOT DO WHAT YOU SEE IN THE PICTURES IT WAS A FAILED IDEA SO I COMPENSATED

STEP 3: Adding the Five Colors of EL Wire

Now comes the last and final part of building the EL Wire color changing hour glass. Once you have the five colors of EL wire which are Blue, Green, Yellow,  Orange, Red, then attach them starting on the side of the wood round, then attach to the middle of the PVC pipe then attach the EL Wire around the bottom wood round. When attaching the EL Wire I used super glue in gel form. Last attach the EL wire to a seqencer and light it up. 
 Note: It took anywhere from 10-11 feet total of EL Wire.

STEP 4: Pictures and Video of EL Wire Color Changing Hour Glass in Action!

17 Comments

Stormed Wolf 13 years ago

the still pictures are a little misleading, as the shutter speed is to slow to actually capture the el wire, just the light 'trail' it leaves behind. i was a little disappointed when i saw the video, but none-the-less, cool project.

steven123 13 years ago

well thats was kind of what I wanted to happen.

DamnItsHot 13 years ago

What the heck is a "sor"? I figured out that "motar" = motor and that "toarc" = torque and that a piece of PVC at least 2" thick meant at least 2" diameter but I just don't get this part of the riddle.

nivsrom 13 years ago

I think he means 'sorts', as in "find a three foot tube of sorts" (either cardboard or PVC).

SubFusion 13 years ago

Many years ago playing around EL wires, my friends found out that cheap one time cameras with flash can be used as power suply for EL wires. The curcuit that charges the capacitor for the flash, is high voltage. Beware of long time damage to EL wire because of over voltage. Most photo shops will give you used cameras for free. :)

steven123 13 years ago

wow, cool.Thanks for the info.

typenamehere_____ 13 years ago

Very nice, but if you can edit, "motor" is spelled as so. Still, very creative stuff.

Gonazar 13 years ago

You know it would awesome if you could put sections of EL in rings on the inside and program it so they turn on and off, making it show time too.

fungus amungus 13 years ago

This is cool, but it would be even more impressive if you embedded the video into the intro.

To do that, post the video on youtube or another site. Then edit the intro step and click on the little filmstrip icon. Paste the embed code and it'll go in.

BeanGolem 13 years ago

Lol. You must just copy/paste this comment now, huh?

fungus amungus 13 years ago

Actually, no. It's faster for me to type it up than find it, copy it, and paste it.

steven123 13 years ago

Thanks I was wondering how I do that.

zholy 13 years ago

When I see this, I'm just glad I didn't buy the EL wire :) ... I had the same - kind of similar - idea :) ... I just wanted to ad one side to a motor and a weight on the other side. Then hang the motor on the roof ... and with different speed create a different patterns. Your instructable is very close to this ... nice job.