here's my tumblr post about it: http://ihasa3dprinter.tumblr.com/po...ed-el-wire-to-the-cables-and-my-printer-looks
I imagine its like fibre optic, its not actually glowing white hot. is it? I'm guessing EL= Electro-Luminescent, something like that?
indeed electroclmrnrcnt it is, it's actually glowing though, the way el wire works is by exciting a phosphor thats around copper wire, there are 2 other wire wrapping around the outside of it, when AC is applied the phosphor gets excited and glows(in my case purple)
Not dangerous at all. Look at all the EL projects on AdaFruit as wearables. It's not a high power thing...
Henry, the question is "Why?", with more wiring and weight for the poor old axis motors to shove and pull around. My BigBox is pretty enough as it is!
the wire itself weighs about 4 grams and it doesn't seem to slow down my printer or decrease quality so why not?
I didn't say I wanted it myself, although it does look cool (not sure who is walking in my basement shop to see it though) I was just responding to @Tom De Bie 's concern that it was dangerous
I've read the comments here, but still am concerned about mixing AC within a DC setup. What if the wire breaks after the uncountable movements the printhead makes in its lifetime? The BB could get fried and at worst you could. Still don't trust it and as I daid before... not a mod for me
It's no more dangerous than any of the other electronics running in our printers... Just because it's 12v DC, doesn't make it safe. Many of us are running printers without proper grounding or fuses, only one temp sensors and leaving 24+ hour prints running with no supervision. This is really only the tip of the iceberg for 'unsafe' practices with 3D printers. I like the mod, If anything it may help add stiffness to the wiring, giving a better radius at bends. I support mine with some stiff wire so that it can't place too much pressure at tight bends.
absolutely agree, 3d printers are dangerous(reaching hundreds of degrees for long periods of time with very few sensors and toeing the wires together did add stiffness, I mainly did this for looks
Wonder what frequency it needs and voltage. Could it be used to power the heating elements? PWM should trigger it but might just be flickering.
Next someone will be putting hydraulics underneath the printer and make it hop up and down... why not just put a big fin on the back and say it helps make the BigBox print faster!? You people watch too much Fast and the Furious
I don't watch it lol, just had el wire laying around and decided to make it look cooler sadly the more power it consumes the less it glows, so i think ill just keep it separate
