HowTo: Make Your Own Tron Costume With Electroluminescent Wire

Dec 10, 2010 02:00 PM

Want to make your own sexy (or not) Tron costume like designer Syuzi's?

All you need is a black body suit and some electroluminescent wire. The bodysuit is easy, but as for the electroluminescent wire, you'll need Adafruit for that:

"EL Wire, also known as Electroluminescent wire, is a stiff wire core coated with phosphor and then covered with a protective PVC sheath. When an AC signal is applied to it, it glows an aqua (blue green) color. Sometimes its covered with a colored plastic shell to make it appear another color. It looks a little like thin neon. Very bendable, it keeps its shape and you can curl it around your finger. Its an easy way to add some glow to a project, not as bright as LEDs but uses a lot less power!"

Click through for the full tutorial.

You Will Need:

  • Basic soldering skills & more technical know-how (with Adafruit guidance)
  • Wire strippers with a 20 AWG or 18 AWG slot
  • Wire cutters (these can be part of the wire strippers)
  • Soldering iron
  • Solder
  • Third hand tool
  • Copper tape
  • Heat shrink in 1/4" and 1/8" diameter, 1:2 or 1:3
  • Wire to solder the EL to
  • Heat shrinker, Heat gun, hair dryer, lighter, you can also just use the edge of your soldering iron
  • Utility knife, hobby knife (x-acto), box-cutter, razor blade, etc.

Note: You can buy most of these supplies an the Adafruit store: a starter pack for $20 OR if you want to skip the HowTo, you can buy the EL wire and invertor necessary for operation for a total of $13.50.

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