GALAXY, part 11

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[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.]

You will recall that I had ordered 20’ of 2.6mm EL wire from coolneon.com, plus some other supplies, to begin building prototypes of the three sizes of rings. It was very exciting.

The soldering part is easy; one of my goals in this process was to explore connecting the two ends into a ring. Benny at coolneon (technically Funhouse Creations Inc.) had said that hot glue would be an excellent way to connect them, so I began with that.

GALAXY-prototype-1.jpeg

However, the tape was clumsy to work around and hard to get off. I thought about going to buy some little alligator clips or something — then I remembered I have a soldering workstation (that I had just finished using) that had exactly what I needed.

GALAXY-prototype-2.jpeg

Hold that thought.

Without any real knowledge of the materials (other than small samples), I had thought that I would need to use the 5.0mm wire (aka “Hella Phat”) for rigidity, but Kenny had posited that the next smaller size, 2.6mm, would be sufficient to hold the shape.

Alas, it is not, at least for the 15” ring:

GALAXY-prototype-3.jpeg

It’s sufficient for the 9” and 12” rings:

GALAXY-prototype-5.jpeg

I’ve ordered the 5.0mm wire to try that next.

I did this on Friday, intending to get photos of them out in the labyrinth Friday night, but I got distracted and didn’t get to it until Monday night.

Here are the shots of that:

Here’s a shot where the phone decided on its own settings. It’s pretty:

GALAXY-prototype-8.jpeg

Here are my thoughts on this ABORTIVE ATTEMPT/SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION:

  • The concept works.

  • I need to use the thicker EL wire for rigidity.

  • The hot glue had a tendency to come undone with the stress of handling. I have ordered some clear shrinkwrap tubing to try. That would be faster and tidier in any case.

  • The loops on the stands are clumsy: it’s hard to get the rings in them, and the rings tend to fall out if the stand is jostled or moved. A redesign of the loops is in order.

  • If I end up having to use the battery-powered drivers on all 196 rings (Aieee!), don’t use the one with the red light.