This is a project I made for special someone's desktop using EL wires and 3 animating movements to bring a nice retro feel, we love neon and here's a preview of what it'd look like!

Supplies

Arduino Mega or Uno
El Escudo Dos from Spark Fun
EL Wire
Push Button
Wires
Male and Female DC Connectors
Basic tools for cutting and striping
Heat shrink tube
Soldering Iron and Tools
Wires

Wood Plank
Table saw
Plane
Superglue
White glue
Some nails
Wood stain - Optional
Linseed Oil

Step 1: Preparing the Box

Had this 12mm thick plank of wood gathering dust, so thought of turning it into a enclosure for the project.

Planed the wood to 10mm and sawed to size from the blueprint.

I wanted the sides to be in red so applied wood stain to the 4 small parts alone.

A coat of Linseed oil to bring out the grains of the wood.

Made an Heart template using a piece of foam board. using that drew concentric hearts.

Using a micro drill made holes for routing the EL wires from inside the box.

Now time to prepare the EL wires.

Step 2: Preparing the EL Wire

First thing would be to measure the length of EL wire required.

Traced the hearts approximately and considering little extra for the wood width and soldering, the EL wire was cut.

Did the same for all heart sized.

Soldering EL wires can be tricky but this is the best part I love to do.

Carefully strip the EL wire's outer sheath there will be another sheath which needs to be removed carefully.

We'll have two silver wires and a phosphor coated core wire.

Twist the silver wires together and solder them with a wire.

Scrap off the phosphor coating and solder it to another wire.

Using masking tape placed the EL wires, and some superglue to hold them in position forever.

Step 3: Preparing the Electronics

The circuit is straight forward, EL Escudo Dos sits on top of Arduino Mega.

EL Escudo dos ports A,B,C,D,E is used and will be controlled by the Arduino pins 2,3,4,5,6 respectively.

One thing I hacked was the EL driver, the one that uses a battery. Instead of the battery I took apart the EL Driver and hooked it to the power supply from the EL escudo dos shield.

A push button soldered with jumper wires connects to the interrupt pin 18 on the Arduino Mega, this is used to toggle the modes or switch off the device.

Soldered the male and female DC connectors, this acts as an extension outside the box.