Show Me That Finger Waggle

EL wire sign made for George & Jonathan for Blip Festival 2012.

Had an idea to make some kind of LED lit sign for G&J when I found out they were playing. Started toying with the idea of an EL wire sign, then things got out of hand.

Ordered some triacs to switch the power for the animation (first time I've ever switched AC without a relay), ended up picking the wrong part number. Damn. I used a relay module I had on hand due to time constraints but it turned out just fine - not as elegant but I like the clicking. I ended up adding a handheld trigger button so I could waggle manually with the music. Code is simple, when the button is released it shimmies to the left, and when it's held, it moves to the right. Wrote a timeout after 2 seconds to return to a middle position.

Animation driver (microprocessor/relays) powered by a 9V battery through a standard 7805, EL wire powered by two separate 2xAA inverters.

Thank you to:
Kathy who laid out the design / stapled all of the EL wire (perfectly - it looked incredible).
Chris helped me mount everything to a stick so I could hold it way above the crowd without it falling to bits.

A couple of GIFs from WTSNACKS...

Video of it coming out at 5:50- seriously so much fun to walk through the crowd with this thing.


Check out those synced animated LED headbands too - James is a genius.