How to make EL-wire blink?

EL-wire uses very low power and has become popular for wearable computing projects, e.g. heartbeat jacket http://www.sparkfun.com/tutorials/130 or speed jacket http://makeprojects.com/Project/Speed-Vest/1344/1

Making an LED blink is easy. But how about EL-wire? This short tutorial shows you how to achieve what you see in the following video:

As EL-wire requires AC power input, you can’t control it directly via an Arduino. Therefore you need an inverter and a TRIAC (thrysistor). Here’s the full list of what parts you’ll need:

• Arduino
• EL-wire (e.g. http://littlebirdelectronics.com/products/el-wire-pink-3m)
• EL-inverter (I used a 3V inverter from Littlebirdelectronics http://littlebirdelectronics.com/products/el-inverter-3v)
• A TRIAC (http://littlebirdelectronics.com/products/triac)
• 330 Ohm resistor

1) Connect the output wires of the inverter with the EL wire. If your EL-wire doesn’t come with connectors, ladyada provides a nice tutorial how to solder EL wire to an inverter. Ladyada’s tutorial also comes in handy if you want to cut your EL-wire to a custom length.

2) The input wires of the inverter (usually red/black if not labeled otherwise) need to be connected to ground and power (3V). As you want to manually switch on/off the EL-wire via an Arduino, you need to put a TRIAC in between the power supply and the positive / red wire of the inverter (see circuit below).

 

The black wire is directly connected to ground. Whenever you set PIN 13 high, the TRIAC closes the circuit, i.e. makes the EL-wire glow.

3) Upload the blink example to your Arduino:

/*
  Blink
  Turns on an LED on for one second, then off for one second, repeatedly.
  This example code is in the public domain.
 */
void setup() {                
  // initialize the digital pin as an output.
  // Pin 13 has an LED connected on most Arduino boards:
  pinMode(13, OUTPUT);     
}
void loop() {
  digitalWrite(13, HIGH);   // set the LED on
  delay(1000);              // wait for a second
  digitalWrite(13, LOW);    // set the LED off
  delay(1000);              // wait for a second
}

You should see the EL-wire going on and off.

From here you can expand your code and make your EL-wire go on and off according to your project needs, e.g. make it respond to particular sensor-values attached to your Arduino. Also, EL-wire is quite flexible, so you can easily form custom shapes, such as here: