3DVelocity would like to thank Glowire.com and especially Janet for their help and courtesy in providing this kit for review.

Introduction :

Windows, blowholes, neons, custom paint jobs, the case mod craze has really started to bite in a big way. It's been going on with cars for decades but now the PC is finally powerful enough to demand the same kind of macho pride, and what better way to get yourself noticed than to mod the hell out of your boring beige box.

Glowire.com are perhaps one of the best known suppliers of the subject for today's review, Electroluminescent Wire, also known as Electroluminescent cable, Electroluminescent rope, EL cable and of course, Glowire.

Glowire.com offer a range of kits for a variety of uses ranging from making signs to decorating you RC plane. Among the many kits available are several designed specifically for the case mod enthusiast, and the one we're looking at today is their kit #2 which is supplied with the driver (inverter), two five foot lengths of EL cable in colours of your choice and full fitting instructions. Other kits in the range also come with variable light control, power switches and more cables, but for the purpose of this review we chose kit #2 as it offered the best compromise between price and features.

 

How does it work? :

The principles of EL cable or not new, in fact you've probably seen electroluminescence at work in digital watches for some time now. The cable itself comprises a flexible copper core around which a layer of Phosphorus material is deposited. The phosphor is then wound with two very fine (39 gauge) transmitter wires before the whole lot is sealed in a waterproof plastic sheath. It is the sheath that gives Glowire its colour, so obviously a clear sheath gives the brightest output. A clear sheath gives a pale blue glow and is usually listed as Aqua or White.

One of the great things about Glowire is the fact that you can splice together a variety of colours, or insert standard twin core speaker cable over long runs where no light is needed. To do this you simply need 22 gauge stereo wire, a soldering iron and a couple of heat shrinks. You can probably make do with insulating tape rather than the heat shrinks, it's just not as neat a job.
After stripping about half an inch of the outer sheath, being careful not to damage the transmitter wires, you then need to wind the two transmitter wires together and prime the end with a little solder. Next you need to scrape about a quarter inch of phosphor from the end of the Copper core and make sure it's clean. Again prime with a little solder. Then all that's needed is to solder the transmitter wires to one of the two cores of your speaker wire and solder the copper core to the other. Insulate fully with the heat shrinks or insulating tape and you're all finished. Although the driver is matched to the length of Glowire you're using, you can add as many lengths of standard cable as you like without needing to calculate if a new driver is needed, it's only when the total length of the EL cable changes that you'll need to consider your driver requirements.

 

 

The driver itself is small and compact and comes supplied with an adhesive foam pad ready for mounting. In the case of kit#2, there are two connectors onto which your Glowire snaps, and a standard Molex connector for connection to your PC's power supply. The purpose of the driver is to take an input voltage, typically 9 or 12 volts DC and convert it to an AC output of around 120 volts. The higher the frequency of this output voltage the brighter the wire will glow, but you will also shorten its lifespan. Although EL wire doesn't actually fail completely, it does fade in intensity over time. As a guide, wire driven at 60Hz has an effective life of about 7 years, while at 400Hz you're looking at around 2000 hours.

On the end of the driver unit is a small three way switch which offers the options of turning the supply off, having it lit constantly or having it flash at a rate of about two strobes per second. An interesting point to note is that if you can live with the flashing you can get the effect of the Glowire while at the same time doubling its lifespan as it's only lit for half of the time.

 

 

 

 

 

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