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Pedal-Powered EL Wire Night Bike Light

Feb 13, 2011 06:00 PM

A dimly lit arcade featuring multiple pinball machines with vibrant screens and players interacting.

Instructable user samsmith17's solution for riding in the dark is a lot snazzier than your typical bicycle light:

Bicycle with a blue frame and innovative modifications.

"This summer I realized that you don't need a driver to run your el wire if you're putting it on a bike. I hooked a stepper motor up to a transformer from an old cell phone charger and it ramped up the voltage enough to light up my bike in real-time. It even fades on and off with speed, and changes color with the changing frequency. It was one of my best maker moments – to connect two things I knew – that steppers produce AC and El wire takes AC – and put them together to see if it would actually work in real life and it did!"

More electroluminescent projects:

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