Author Archives: ch00f

Revisiting the EL Panel and the True Meaning of RMS

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So, I’ve got a little time before I need to start packing, and I thought it would be well used investigating a theory I had about the EL panel.  It turns out that my theory was wrong, but that might be a good thing.

So as you might recall, I specifically decided to use a 120V square wave to drive my EL panel instead of a 120V sine wave assuming that it wouldn’t make a difference.  Well, there is a very important distinction to be made between these two types of waveforms, and I decided to investigate exactly if and how that disctinction affected my circuit.

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Introducing ch00ftech Industries Forum

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I got this idea a few weeks ago that it might be nice to make my website a little more interactive especially considering how cluttered and confusing the comments section of some posts can be.

That’s why I fired up PHPBB and made myself a forum!  Right now, the forum has two categories: “Post Discusson” for discussing particular posts on the blog and “General Discussion” for everything else EE related.

I’ll do my best to keep up with questions, but if I can’t, I’m sure there will be some other users out there who can help out.

This is all in the experimental stage right now, so a lot is subject to change, but if you’d like to give it a shot, click the link at the top menu bar and create an account.  I’m very open to suggestions, so feel free to shoot me an email if you have anything you’d like to see done differently.

 

Update:

Due to lack of interest (and incessant bot spamming) I’ve decided to take down ch00ftech forums.  Maybe I’ll try it again when I have more visitors.

Reader Mail

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I get emails every once in a while from enterprising engineers who need some help getting their personal projects off the ground.  I love giving this kind of advice, and I always do my best to reply.

After doing this for a while, I figured that while I’m spending all of this time writing these replies, I might as well post them publicly so everyone else can make good use of them.

You can see a compilation of these emails by clicking the “Reader Mail” button on the top menu bar.  I won’t be publishing every email I get (any more requests for a Chris Jericho jacket will not make the cut), and none of these posts will make it to my twitter or main feed (don’t want to crowd up the chanel).

So if you’d like to see what it’s all about, click the link!

EL wire circuits advice

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Hey Choof,

my name’s luke and I want to make some clothes lit with EL wire that 
have separate sections that respond to different frequencies coming in 
from a mic. I need some advice about how to go about it.
I’m trying to do it without spending too much and there are cheap led 
boards that almost do what i need but they output dc when i need ac, do 
i need to attach inverters to every output? do inverters even work on 
variable input? Is this even the right aproach?
I came across your page a couple of times trying to find a solution so i 
figured id ask. I work for an events staging company working with high 
end lighting, sound and vision equipment, I don’t know that much about 
electronics but i pick up on it fairly easily.
also my friend is really into your jacket with the underglow. I’ll 
probably try to make one of them too.

Cheers Luke

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No, I won’t make you a Chris Jericho jacket, but here’s how I would if I wanted to

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I’ve done a few commissioned pieces for artists and musicians on this blog, but I would like to make it clear that my primary objective is to provide educational content for my viewers and to also catalog my work for my own future reference.

Basically, I’d be happy to make something for you as long as it is sufficiently challenging, new, and interesting.  The DJ Jacket and ongoing EL Panel shirt projects are examples of this.

If it would make an interesting blog post, I’m all about it.  Unfortunately, I’ve gotten numerous requests for something that I don’t think would make a very interesting project/blog post, so I’m addressing it briefly here to help those who would like to make it for themselves.

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Details on the Radial Display

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So, last night I posted a video cataloging my creation of a radial spinning disk display (that’s what I’m calling it anyway). It’s not really a new concept or anything, and wasn’t particularly hard to make. That’s why it was the perfect candidate for the video which I think turned out rather well.

I was so excited about finishing the video, that I decided to post it before I had a proper writeup.  That’s what this post is for.

Because you can find details on how a radial spinning disk display (or “hard drive clock“) works all over the place, I thought I’d make this sort of a “meta” post and try to catalog not only the project but all of the design decisions (right and wrong) that I made along the way.  If you’ve been bored stiff by my super technical posts recently, this should be a welcome departure.  I made sure to include tons of photos.

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Super Rapid Prototyping a Radial Hard Disk Display Proof of Concept

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So, a friend and I were discussing hard drive clocks Tuesday afternoon, and I somehow got it in my head that I had to build something similar that evening.

I had enough supplies lying around to pull it off, and confident that I could, I decided to do a fun little video.  Ironically, it took longer for me to edit this video than to make the display. Details on the project here.