Schlauch + El Wire Jacket

While wating for 205 meters more schlauch to arrive

• to see its performance
• see how it works with the loom
• determine how to make the straps
• to build the last 2x custom circular peg looms

I got the idea to play around with some El Wire.  You see, the original plan was to use blacklight LEDs to backlight tonic water (which highlighters soaked in overnight).  However it appears that literally NO ONE makes blacklight rope lights so I'd have to make my own blacklight LED vest (for my schlauch jacket).  However it appears that LEDs dont really do the blacklight spectrum very well (you can find some at 380 nm however they are very directional (20 degree view angle).

Thus I was hoping El Wire (intertwined with the schlauch) could provid the lighting necessary to see the air/water going through the tubes.  Next thing I know ... I've found a really cheap source of inverters/el wire/sequencers and am thinking about making some El Wire 'jackets' too. (that and my first bike in Berlin wannas to be playa-fied! )






The above video is from 20 meters of 3mm inner diameter schlauch (4mm outter diameter).  The El Wire was woven in every other loom (too much?  not enough?) At first we used the 4 meters of orange El Wire (2.2mm) but quickly went through that so we added another 4 meters of blue El too.

Its interesting to note how much more tall our structure is with using the thinner schlauch (the 20 meters of 3mm schlauch is nearly 60 cm tall while 4mm schlauch is only 25cm tall).

My first batch of EL WIRE I bought from "Thats Cool Wire".  Its a great website with great video tutorials on how to use the stuff.  However this time around, I'm going straight to the manufacturer (greater savings, when based in Europe and/or ordering large quantities).  Regardless, to give you a better idea of the EL WIRE I'm looking at:

Picture of Colors of El Wire
http://www.thatscoolwire.com/articleDetail.asp?articleID=21

Picture of Thickness of El Wire
http://www.thatscoolwire.com/articleDetail.asp?articleID=18

Names of Colors
http://www.thatscoolwire.com/store/item.asp?Category=168&SubCategoryID=106&GroupID=&SKU=S7-2%2E2-SPL-165