So what the Dickens happened? I report on exciting new technology deployment possibilities and then...not a dicky-bird for months.
Well, it all started in a very promising manner, with the acquisition of a few yards of Electroluminescent Wire (EL Wire in the vernacular) and a sequencer circuit to make them illuminate in patterns.
The first problem was that the EL Wire terminated in one sort of plug and the sequencer expected a different one. This was a trivial operation.
The second was that I had four two yard strands and I needed eight one yard strands, thus I was forced to become adept at terminating EL Wire (and acquire a few bits and bobs that are not part of the casual electrician's toolkit).
This involves cutting away some of the plastic cladding from the metal core wires, teasing out the two hair-fine "corona wires" without breaking them, winding copper tape around the plastic cladding at the cut-off point, soldering the corona wires to the tape, scraping off the phosphor coat on the protruding center wire and soldering the plug wires to the center wire and the tape. I only had to re-do two of them.
Then I discovered there was a design flaw in the sequencer. It could be worked around, but there was an upgraded circuit so I obtained one of them instead. Then I had to solder in so-called "headers" so the sequencer could be reprogrammed using my portable Babbage machine.
The new board could take 12 volts, which would be convenient for a number of reasons but required a new inverter, which had the wrong plugs and so on and so forth.
Eventually everything was sitting on the bench with the right plugs on the right wires. I connected up the various pieces and was rewarded with some rather strange flickerings that then settled down to the sequence I expected. It was a good start and I was just about to disconnect everything and retire to the living room for some reprogramming of the sequencer when there was a fizz and a puff of smoke and that was that for the sequencer.
It turned out one of the wire tracks on the circuit board had melted.
So, I retired in disgust from the laboratory and haven't gone back inside.
