Question about electroluminescent (EL) sheets

[CodeMaster]

This is a question for anyone with either experience with EL sheets, or someone with an EE background.

I'm wondering if I can drill small holes through an EL sheet that I would then put small fiber optic strands through, and still have the EL sheet light up normally?

I'm wanting to have an effect where I would have a larger static back panel that contains various controls, displays, etc lit up by the EL sheet, along with various flashing/blinking/different color indicators which would be lit via the fiber optic strands.

Thanks in advance for any help/advice

 

[NecronautDrummer]

I remember seeing someone use it to light a completely scratch-built Millenium Falcon. He used it in the cockpit for lighting, and in the engine bay too. I 'm almost positive he was able to cut out the doorway from a single round piece applied to the back wall of the cockpit, and still have it work. Can you attach the electrical leads to various spots on this stuff? That might light up any dark spots, if there are any. Hope this helps a bit!

 

[schweinhund227]

you can pretty much cut it in any shape you want as long as you keep one Anode and One Cathode connector for your power supply and REMEMBER to Clean the Cut surfaces... So that the two electrical surfaces don't touch !!! The Cutting kind of Crushes both Anode and Cathode together and could lead to short circuits... inspect your Cuts and clean as necessary !

Just Google your question ... lots of different patterns and manufacturer as well !

Take care !

 

[CodeMaster]

Thanks for the replies.

I've ordered a couple of sheets that are larger than what I need. I'll cut a couple of smaller test peices and see if I can get the effect I'm looking for.

 

[Kryptosdaddy]

Where are you ordering these from?

 

[CodeMaster]

I ordered them fom Miller Engineering (http://www.microstru.com/). I ordered them last week and they arrived today, can't wait to do my quick experiment with the drill and then start working on the model

 

[Kryptosdaddy]

thanks for the link and good luck with yours!

 

[CodeMaster]

So through experiments, I found that I can indeed drill small holes within an EL panel to allow fiber optics to be placed, and have the EL sheet still work as expected.

One word of caution, I found as I was experimenting is that when you're cutting the panels, if you need to cut out "slots" to have the panel sit between two model parts, I needed to cut the slots such that they were not close to the electrical contact "strips". I didn't know this with my first attempt, and that panel wouldn't light up.

I'll edit this comment later today to add a picture that shows the "bad" panel cuts.

 

[CodeMaster]

I couldn't figure out how to edit my previous comment, so I'm posting a new one for this.

This is a photo of my "good" panel and my "bad" panel. The bad panel is the one on the right.

The area that I think is causing my issues with the bad panel is the center cutout. notice that the lower right corner of that cutout dips into the terminal contact area. I have a bit of an extended cut in that corner which I think is causing a short circuit. When I powered on the bad panel, there was no light produced, but instead a very electric sounding buzz.



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[Grendels]

Thank you for posting all of this, I have been following along....