Electroluminescent wire

Anybody heard of "electroluminescent wire"?http://www.glowire.com/photo_gallery.htm has some stuff about it, but look for other companies and web pages about it on the Internet.

I've read that some can be run by a 9 volt battery. I suppose that wouldn't be too difficult to fit into a poi handle of sorts. The wire's fairly flexible, too.

Pricing is about what I'd expect for something fairly new, but not *too* bad. $11 bucks or so for a single four-foot section, then another $10-20 for a driver (battery-connector thingy...)

I saw a guy experimenting with neon strings as poi, at last year's Portland Juggling Festival. He had the batteries within tennis balls, and was actually swinging them around. He'd found that when the strings strike each other, that spot no longer lights up, so they were in plastic/rubberish tubes. Very clunky things, too, but mostly an experiment.

There was a "refresh" rate to the strings, also, which gave a funky sort of strobe effect. Doing one psychadelic-looking move, he said "People in Eugene WORSHIP this!"

I'm not sure, but I don't think his was the same as this wire. I don't know much else about the EL wire, though.

-me

EL wire. Fun stuff. I don't think it is practical for use with fire poi--I'd worry about the plastic sheath on the wire melting. But it would be great with other poi, running it along the chain.

The other problem is relieving wind-up--you'd need a swivel somewhere.

EL wire in general is not that durable. I made a costume with it and only got four wearings out of it before a couple wires were completely dead (though I think I could do a better job next time, and design it to avoid the kinks that cause it to go out). There are a number of other sources online for the stuff. I got mine from coolight.com, I think it was $16 for a power box (using 2 AAs) and one 6' string.

try www.coolneon.com i think they have what youre talking about.

DRAKE

I actually made a set kinda similar. It was a last min project for a festival. I think I ordered from coolneon.com. I had two of the 'taximan strobe drivers' with two 1-foot pieces of el wire coming off each. I made them as test sections since it was my first experiment with el wire. Then a random fellow poi enthusiast showed me how awesome the idea could be. The drivers are really small, and strobe so fast that it looks constant if they're not moving. But the guy started using them as short poi. The effect was nothing short of jaw dropping. There was no weight on the end, but he said he was used to glowsticks so it didn't bother him. There was about 5 min of awesomeness until the solder joints came loose.
I managed to fix them with nothing more than a lighter and plyers (super happy dance!) then decided to tie the entire contraption onto the end of strings. It worked way better, and managed to stay together the whole weekend. Also, the strings were really long, so I could randomly have super giant poi.

I'm hoping to come up with a better design as soon as I can afford to order more wire!!

Necrobump!

firenza, did you realise the post before yours was in 2001; few users stay on these forums 10 years, the last post Drake made was in 9/01.

I've used el wire for bracelets, but the wire (at least that available in Aus in 09) is nowhere near as bright as chemoluminescent tubes or flowlights (I don't think flowlights were around in 2001). For me it's not worth the trouble to try and make el wire poi now there are so many solid led options available.