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EL Tape - Blue (1m)
Who doesn't love the soft glow of electroluminescence? This EL tape is a flexible plastic ribbon which contains a phosphor layer and lights up with a neon-like glow when the proper voltage is applied. It's a lot like the ever-popular EL wire except, well, it's a ribbon.
These can be driven with any of the EL inverters and sequencers that we carry and come in a variety of bright colors (check below for other colors). This particular ribbon is 1 meter long, 15mm wide and illuminates blue. It is attached to a 20cm cable which is terminated with a JST PH connector.
- 1m long, 15mm wide
EL Tape - Blue (1m) Product Help and Resources
Getting Started with Electroluminescent (EL) Wire
July 13, 2018
This guide will help you get started with electroluminescent (EL) wire, tape, panel, chasing wire, and bendable wire to let your project glow!
EL Sequencer/Escudo Dos Hookup Guide
December 3, 2015
A basic guide to getting started with the SparkFun EL Sequencer and Escudo Dos to control electroluminescence (EL) wire, panels, and strips.
Core Skill: Electrical Prototyping
If it requires power, you need to know how much, what all the pins do, and how to hook it up. You may need to reference datasheets, schematics, and know the ins and outs of electronics.
Skill Level: Rookie - You may be required to know a bit more about the component, such as orientation, or how to hook it up, in addition to power requirements. You will need to understand polarized components.
See all skill levels
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Customer Reviews
3 out of 5
Based on 1 ratings:
Too much plug and play
This tape is intended to only be plugged in. If you want to cut it and use it separately is almost impossible to do so. The brightness is like one of those old PDA. Don't expect LED type of brightness.
Here's my small review of using the El Tape this holloween.
PROS: Overall the tape looks great, its very bright relative to el wire and you can cut the ends to any distance you like (or shape). When you cut the tape, make sure you cover up the exposed annode and cathode ends of the exposed tape, otherwise you will get shocked by touching it. :) I had the el tape running down the outer seam of my pants and sewed it with 8lb fishing line so I had flexibility without the el tape falling off....try to avoid using hot glue to secure it, it will not stick if you flex the tape. Its a lot wider than el wire so it really stands out in comparison.
CONS: Just like mentioned in the comments below...the soldered joints are relatively weak...mainly because it is thin tape, so it's kind of expected. I would recommend using hot glue on the joint or something of that sort to strengthen it. Re-soldering the joints did not work for me because they are wrapped in laminated sheets and it just caused them to melt and eventually had to trash that el tape.
OVERALL: If you use the El Tape be very careful in handling it. you dont want to flex it too much since it will weaken the solder joints, and the laminate can become bubbly. I would place it somewhere where it will not be moved/touched too much. From walking around all night in the bars with them on my pants at the end of the night one of the el tapes ended up going out due to a delicate solder joint on the EL Tape.
Here is a few videos of me messing with them. I did one dark shot to see how it looked on my camera (galaxy s3 phone) and one using my gopro2 riding my motorcycle with my costume on. I used the escuedo2 with an arduino pro, and just set a few random loops to blink/fade etc...
-Andrew
GoPro2 video (outside): http://youtu.be/qqAihPfNaxw?hd=1
Camera Phone Video (Inside): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geS6kJ2F7Yc&feature=relmfu
Does the EL tape have the same characteristics as EL wire where you can cut into several smaller segments? If so, is it easy to solder connectors to the cut segment?
You can cut it, but attaching new leads isn't all that easy. I just tried it and I can tell you that soldering is probably impossible because the whole thing is made from laminated plastic sheets. If you can peel back the outside layers of the thing and make a connection to the thick silver trace on the back and the skinny one in the front, you can light it up. You may try conductive epoxy or copper tape then seal it up with shrink tube. Looks like they way they did it was with little pieces of specialized flex-PCB.
I'm tempted to put this on my car..
What is the tension to turn it on?
I don't know the minimum voltage, but our inverters run between 100 and 150VAC.
How bright (relatively) is this?
The solder joints at the tape are extremely weak! I ordered 9, 3 of which broke immediately because the tape is a meter long and has a tendency to twist (unavoidable). I would recommend putting some hot glue or epoxy to relieve stress at this joint. Poor build quality :/
Just had the same thing happen to me. Be very careful! It's next to impossible to repair. Thinking about giving up on el tape altogether.