GALAXY, part 8

[The GALAXY Project is a light-art installation that I’m working on for the next burn. Phase I is essentially a spiral labyrinth consisting of hundreds of glowing rings made of EL.]

In the burner community, there is probably a higher percentage of tech geeks than in the general population, so I’m not overly worried about how to make GALAXY happen technology-speaking-wise. Any time I’ve described the project, those with tech/electrical backgrounds immediately jump in with both feet to imagine how I’m going to wire and power 200 rings of electroluminescent [EL] wire. I nod enthusiastically as if I understand what they’re talking about, then add their name to the list in the WASTE BOOK.

I called out to coolneon.com to talk to a human there for advice about some questions I had. The office phone rolled over to Ben’s cellphone; like most of us, he was sheltering at home, taking care of the kids and trying to run his business anyway. He seemed grateful to have someone to talk to.

I had imagined that I would need to use their thickest EL, the 5.0mm “Hella Phat,” in order for the rings to be rigid enough to float with only two points of support, but Ben said that the 2.6mm “High Bright” would do the trick. (It’s 10¢/foot cheaper, so I’d save a whole $20 on the project.)

He told me the rings could all be wired and run from a single power source rather than the individual battery packs, so that’s good news for my tech geeks. He did suggest wiring them in parallel, which makes sense but is going to be even more labor intensive in execution and installation.

He suggested aluminum garden wire for the stands, having used it for projects in the past. And finally, he agreed that hot glue would be a perfect way to connect the ends of the EL into a ring without blacking out the connection.

My next steps will be to order about 20 feet of the 2.6mm EL and make prototypes of the three different ring sizes; and to devise a way to make the stands.