How to work EL strip

I recently decorated my bike with EL strip. I had to thrash around in the dark a bit - and ask for help on tribe.net - because I couldn't find complete instructions at the manufacturer sites for how to work the stuff. It turns out it's not hard; all you need is a soldering iron, scissors, scotch tape, and wire. I'm no EL expert and I'd welcome any suggestions concerning this guide; please email them to jpmodisette at gmail dot com.

What is EL strip?

EL strip (or "tape", or "flatlite") is a light source that works on the same principle as the more familiar EL wire; the difference is that the lit area is ribbon-shaped. You can buy EL strip in arbitrary lengths and widths. As of this writing in August 2007, 1"-wide strip is around $5 per foot.

EL strip may or may not come with connectors attached. Some dealers will cut it into shapes and attach connectors, but that costs extra, and it's easy to do it yourself. I recommend just buying raw strip.

Cutting it

Use scissors. Cutting directly across the strip perpendicular to the long edges is always safe. If you want to cut other shapes out of it, try to keep them roughly symmetrical about the center of the strip - there's a special line down the middle that must be included in the entire lit area. You can easily see this line when the strip is lit up, so it might be a good idea to light the strip first and then mark off the area you want to cut.

WARNING: When you cut the strip, the newly cut edge will be electrically live if the strip is powered up! Remember to tape over it before you apply power!

Drivers

The EL strip manufacturer should have the specs for driving the strip. However, generally any driver that works on EL wire should also work on EL strip. The $10 Fish driver from coolneon.com will light 36 square inches of strip brightly, or 72 square inches quite visibly.

WARNING: Don't ever power up your driver until you have connected the EL strip to it! Powering up a disconnected driver can damage it!

Soldering leads to it

You will need to attach two leads. These are equivalent; either lead can attach to either lead of the driver.

First, peel back the clear plastic covering of the strip from a half-inch of the black side at one end. There's no need to be gentle. Under that, you'll see two parallel strips of flat copper covered in dark gummy material. You may not be able to see the copper at first, just the black stuff. Scrape the gummy material off of the copper and solder one lead to the end of each copper strip. Then, tape everything back up.