Electroluminescent Wire

Hi,

I wanted to know if anyone has ever used this before. I have a project that requires me to run EL Wire on minumum voltage (1-5V). The EL Wire that I have come across on the web requires 100-120VAC to run though.

Anyone know of any companies that make EL Wire using low voltage ? If not, anything lower than 120V ?

How about any ideas on how I can turn 5VDC into 120VAC using an IC ?

Thanx

I don't know aything about using an EL wire but if you are trying to step up a voltage from a low dc to a high dc you have two options.

1) Use a charge pump - this is a basically a capacitor-diode network, I think you can buy them on chips, they are certainly incorporated into a lot of IC's but I don't know if you will be able to find any that meet your specifications. They are only suitable for drawing low currents.

2) The second option is to use a switch mode power supply (SMPS) these can step the voltage up as well as down. You can buy tem as small modules that can be mounted on a pcb, but again I don't know if you will find any to step from such a low voltage to such a high voltage. you can also build them around an IC using this method you will certainly be able to build a circuit that can step the voltag up to your required voltage. The design work incolved in building these circuits is a little more involved, often you have to wind your own transformers. I am working on a SMPS that steps a 24V supply up to a 1.3kV supply so you can increase the voltage by quiet a lot. If you decide to build a SMPS and need more help just ask, I'm not an expert but know a little about it so I might be able to help you.

El wire is made by Lytec. This is their tech link:
**broken link removed**