This is a Flex Module that drives 4 EL 'lamps' by i2c control. It supports audio modulation. For sale on Tindie.
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MAX14521E based Mini EL driver will support up to 300Vpp and a combined load of 40+nF (with 3v3-5V input) which is more than enough to power several meters of EL wire. This Flex Module generates high voltage and care must be taken to insulate all outputs. Output castellations are spaced so that the circuit itself is safe, but do not drive output through a breadboard.
Any software related will be released under BSD or MIT license. SAAS or cloud based software will be AGPL.
I reran the EL chasing with the addition of a coil of EL tape as well. The EL tape is much brighter and hides much of the chasing EL.
Found a bug in the design with the wrong resistor creating a current restriction. I also increased the capacitance a little too. In general, this should improve larger EL lengths.
I have tweaked the example program to get a good demo from the Sparkfun chasing EL wire. The Arduino driver can set any parameter and the board seems really easy to configure. The only possible thing left is to read the register values back, but that isn't critical to the function. I have posted the software and made some of the board for sale on Tindie.
I am redoing the layout as the spacing to follow IPC-2221B better near components. Otherwise, I'll be working on software for this board and finishing testing with the current design.
Hi Chris,
I was wondering about a peculiarity in the Arduino library code. I noticed that there are four addresses for the lamp wires, but you only ever access the first three in the methods within the C++ script. I tried to alter the methods to include the 4th register, but a signal was never driven. Is it impossible to drive a 4th EL lamp with I2C despite there being a register address for it?
Best, Chad
Hi, are you referring to the example sketch included with the library?
It loops through channels 1-3 to drive a specific 3 light EL wire (https://www.sparkfun.com/search/results?term=el+chasing)
to create the chasing effect in software. The EL channels are
addressed 1-4, so change the loop limit from 4 to 5 to activate the 4th
channel if you are driving independent lights.
Hey, I found the off by one bug testing it tonight with all channels. It is updated on github. Thanks!
Chris Hamilton
Arcu
inventive.prototypes
Ben Krasnow
Chris, thanks for the update. It appears to have fixed the problem!