Solar Wire

This page will describe how to build a solar-powered sunset-activated 4' strand of glowing Cool Neon (aka electroluminescent wire, or EL wire) out of junk you have lying around.

To Advanced Tinkerers: The only content of merit for you, the advanced tinkerer, is that it's easy to attach a Cool Neon strand to a solar garden lamp. You can read these instructions if you want, but it's all pretty easy. Crack open the parts secure in the knowledge that it'll all just work fine.

To Other Tinkerers: If you build this, I'd love to hear from you. Or if you have any questions... poly@omino.com, must have "solar wire" in the subject line, or my spam filter will ignore it.

Ingredients

1. 3v Cool Neon handpack This is the little belt-clip variety that runs on two AA cells. You have these lying around because last year before Burning Man, during the mad credit-card-destroying purchase frenzy, in which everything seemed critically important and necessary to your future-playa-self, you binged and bought, like, 15 of them, to give to all your friends, and somehow only gave away, like, 4 of them. Other brands work too (I used a "cosmic spaghetti" pack) but by all means send your business to Cool Neon, 'cause he's a friend of mine. Product is called "Techno Strobe".
2. Solar Garden Lamp These have become all the rage for playa camp lighting markers. Surely you have one to spare for this fine project.
3. Ability To Solder If you don't know how to solder, ask your girlfriend to help. Also, borrow her soldering iron. You'll need to know a little bit about measuring voltages, knowing plus from minus, and so forth.
4. Miscellaneous Tools Screwdriver, wirecutters or scissors, one of those clippyclamps from radio shack to hold stuff while soldering, and such the like. A volt-ohm meter is very handy!
5. Your Imagination I took all these photos with a cheap Kodak MC3 camera and they are kind of blurry...

Warning!

This procedure worked for the particular solar lamps I got. I haven't looked inside others to see how similar they are. You may need to futz around and experiment to determine the equivalent steps. Again, check with your smarter girlfriend for guidance here.

Preparation

Once you know the routine, these take about 5 minutes. My first one took 20. Clear your mind for basic problem-solving, and use a clean well-lit workbench.

(Artist's rendering)

Read all the instructions once before you start. You know the drill.

On to Step One...