RallyEX

After some lengthy research and a little expiramentation, I've decided to compile this for all those who had/have indiglo guages and were wondering how they work, and also for those of you with bad transformers, how I am working on replacements for all of you.

INDIGLO AND ELECTROLUMINESCENT MATERIAL
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Indiglo material is actually very simple. The whole idea of indiglo is that you convert electricity directly into light. In a light bulb, electricity is converted into heat, then into light, which in and of itself is very inefficient.

However, if you can pass electricity directly through molecules and they light up, bingo you have efficiency.

Neon lights were the first breakthrough in this, passing electricity directly through a gas, then the gas illuminates. Clever, but it still required a lot of amperage to illuminate an entire tube of gas.

Indiglo material isn't TOO bright, but it is bright enough. EL Sheets, or the ElectroLuminescent material used in indiglo watches/nightlights/guages etc. is a man made material that takes electicity and converts it directly into light WITHOUT CREATING HEAT and requiring VERY LITTLE amperage/current.

BINGO! Heat is not required to produce light, thus almost completely eliminating the possiblyity of fire.

POWERING ELECTROLUMINESCENT MATERIAL
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After some expiramenting, Indiglo material seems to require a source of High Voltage and Alternating Current. This is basically house electricity. 120 volts at 60 hertz (cycles per second) creates an aqua or teal color in the material. By altering the cycles per second and the voltage, you can achieve different colors. The voltage doesn't seem to matter much, but the cycles per second seem to change the color shade that the material emits.

For Example: I bought some indiglo night lights at wal mart, cracked them open. Also I tore apart an Indiglo transformer for car guages. After growing some nuts I wired up the Indiglo nightlight to my car's indiglo guage transformer and BOOM, it WORKED!!!

So I rigged up my guages, plugged them into the 120VAC wall outlet and they lit up there as well! Bingo! I have some answers for you.

CONCLUSIONS: Indiglo requires at least 100 volts of alternating current to function, but the current/amperage flow need only bee 100 milliamps of current or less.

MAKING YOUR OWN INDIGLO TRANSFORMERS AND STUFF
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What you need is a 1:10 and/or a 1:20 transformer from radio shack to get your Car's DC up to 120 Volts from 12, but as for making it into Alternating Current, that is a whole different story. I guess what I need to do is purchase some different transistors that would swich at 60 times per second, 80, 100, 200, and even up into the thousands of times per second to figure out what frequencies make what colors. I guess now it is time for some more expiramentation.

I have also found that the 'Neon Wire' that is made by street glow and other companies come with transformers. These ElectroLuminescent strings seem to be made from the same material, and require the same transformer. I'll be looking into this more in the next few days or so.

MY FIRST PROJECT (DIY on this is coming soon...)
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One of the biggest problems I don't like about my car is there is no light indicating where the cup holders are. I am going to make some indiglo-lit cupholders where the indiglo material is in the bottom of the cupholder underneath of a clear, waterproof barrier. I purchased some small, clear coasters of different sizes from wal mart and various places. I'm going to dis-assemble some more indiglo night lights for houses, and adhere it to the bottom of the cup holder (while drilling holes/running wire for power, of course), and then place the clear beverage coaster on top of it. There you have it, INDIGLO CUP HOLDERS!!

This will provide a soothing, not-too-bright light to which I will be able to see where I'm putting my damn mountain dew at night!!!



THANKS for your time and for reading this thread.

RallyEX A.K.A. The Mad Scientist

Duckor

wow, i never knew how those nifty things worked. thanks for the info and research
thats a good idea, i bet that stuff would work in so many more places better than lights.

question tho, are you going to cut the bottom of the cup holder and just replace it with the clear coaster? how would that go on if this is the way your doing it?

Spider883

iTrader: (2)

hey thanks for this nifty info on indiglo. now we all will understand the world of indigle.

Jon

very informative RallyEX, now I'm a little less stupid than before

Wanger

iTrader: (4)

i have to argue with that one, i'm done taking all of my physics courses here at UW and there is no way that it doesn't create heat, that breaks the rule of thermodynamics.

the1sthotboy

whenever you get done with those indiglo cup holder's
-I wanna pair ..!!..let me know whats up with a price when u get done...
dont worry about the loose wires .. just tell me where + & - go & i'll go from there!!

CrankinCivic

iTrader: (1)

you do realize that somethings are nto worth explaining or wasting time tryin to figure it out ? it works , why mess with it ???

mwwhonda

iTrader: (3)

i belive that indiglo DOES create heat, but it is SOOOOO minimal, that it cant be detected

PeArlHoNdA

Mountain Dew RULEZ!!

PeArLhOnDa

Oishi

thats really interesting....i've never seen the car transformer that powers up neon lights...in you're understanding..would the output be somewhat of a sine wave or would it be a modified sine wave that is really a square wave...i have some access to "custom made" transformers and i'm willing to try that...i'll help with the diy too

RallyEX

Wanger: I guess you could say that it does break the laws of thermodynamics, I will do more research on that and get back to you.

1stHotBoy: Working on 1st prototype now, is in car, pictures soon.

CrankinCivic: What you just said is like saying 'Hey my engine runs, why question that? Why mess with it? Why make it go faster?' I have engineering blood in my veins, it's called curiosity and thirst for knowledge. I wanted to know how they work and why it is such a big secret, so I decided I'd figure it out. Now I can make indiglo anything, can order the sheets, power them, create anything I want to without having to pay the man HIS price for what I want done.

Oishi: Over the past few days I've pondered your research so I grabbed a function generator and a 555 Timer chip and started playing... the difference between the sine wave and square wave aren't really very obvious yet... still expiramenting, however I also haven't cranked up the Frequency on it yet... still hovering around 60 - 500Hz... gonna go up to 1000 and 1500hz on the square wave soon.

Also, Oishi.. I'm building a mini-circuit already to duplicate what you receive with the guages. It's basically consisting of nothing more than a 1:10/1:20 combination transformer, a 555 Timer Chip, and two rheostats.. one to control the frequency of the 555 Timer chip (like anywhere from 30-3000 hertz sine wave) and the other is to control brightness (basically just limiting current through a potentiometer.)

PM Me if you wanna talk/have any questions

Blznweels

Hey Rally! I sell sheets of indiglow material and in any size you want, plus I can order it for you in Royal Blue, Electric Yellow, Gleaming White, Blood Red, Lightning Green, Deep Purple, Ice Blue, and Bright Orange.

Let me know, if you want some shoot me an email InCarEnt@aol.com

Blznweels

And heres and example of some one who used this product, they made there own indiglo guages, he even put a pict of his car on the guages....

Before

After

Sweet huh?

genterara

<< And heres and example of some one who used this product, they made there own indiglo guages, he even put a pict of his car on the guages....

Before

After

Sweet huh? >>




It says You have reached a restricted area.

Blznweels

here are the picts.....


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gearbox

iTrader: (95)

good info. also the indiglo light doesn't mess up nightvision.