68kMLA Classic Interface
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| EL Wire SCSI cable | |
| Posted by: olePigeon on 2015-11-04 09:02:26 I was wondering. Is there enough power on a SCSI cable that if you used an EL Wire it'd glow? 🙂 I've seen SCSI terminators that light up an LED. Would be cool if the termination wire was an EL Wire instead... glowing when you terminate a SCSI chain. 😀 | |
| Posted by: bibilit on 2015-11-04 09:08:45 I have got one of those, will make a picture if you want, enough LEDs on it that will make a christmas tree feel ashamed. | |
| Posted by: olePigeon on 2015-11-04 09:49:08 Sure. 😀 I have an el wire at home. I wonder if it'd work. Suppose I can just try it. I don't quite understand the SCSI cable layout, anyone here hazard a guess which wire I'd use? Presumably the termination wire... or whichever two wires would be used to make an LED light up. | |
| Posted by: Gorgonops on 2015-11-04 12:23:19 So... it looks to me like EL wire requires an inverter to supply a high-frequency (and relatively high voltage at around 90v) current to it to glow. A small inverter capable of driving 1-8 feet of wire draws about 200ma @ three volts. In theory then, yes, I suppose you could drive that off the TERMPOWER line on a SCSI chain, as TERMPOWER is per standard supposed to be able to supply about one amp at five volts. (Although there are different figures for this; one source said 900ma, another said up to 2A, and there are also considerations related to voltage drop over long cable runs.) Practically speaking, though, it sounds like a sort of crummy idea. It would probably be safer to tap your 5v more directly off, say, a SCSI enclosure's power supply and drive your blinkenlights indepenantly. A typical LED like you might find in a light-up external terminator only pulls about 20ma; that's a tenth of what an EL cable run will draw and I'd also worry a little about a cheap little inverter putting noise on the data lines if you pull from TERMPOWER. | |
| Posted by: olePigeon on 2015-11-04 15:12:58 El Wire power cables already exist. I guess the actual SCSI cable itself would be problematic. I was thinking maybe El Wire would be similar to a regular LED, but I suppose not. | |
Posted by: Gorgonops on 2015-11-04 16:13:35El Wire power cables already exist.Are you talking about cables to power an inverter off a computer power supply, or a power cable that has EL wire in it? In any case, EL wire has pretty much nothing to do with LEDs. It has more in common with a florescent light bulb. 😉 | |
| Posted by: olePigeon on 2015-11-05 08:32:01 A power cable that has an EL wire in it. I was thinking of doing the same with a SCSI cable. | |
| Posted by: Gorgonops on 2015-11-05 09:17:36 I'm sure that power cable has the power supply for the EL wire embedded in the plug housing. Really, if you want to make a SCSI cable like that there's nothing stopping you, assuming you can find or make a 20-something conductor cable with a clear outer insulation you can thread the EL wire into. I'm just skeptical that driving the inverter with termpower is a great idea. There are plenty of other places you can tap 5v or 12v in a chain of SCSI enclosures. | |
| Posted by: olePigeon on 2015-11-05 11:53:01 Could just piggyback it on the power cable. Meh. It was a neat idea in my head, just isn't practical in the way I wanna do it. | |
Posted by: bibilit on 2015-11-22 07:50:27Sure.Here is my SCSI Bus tester...  As i said a lot of LEDS... | |
| Posted by: olePigeon on 2015-11-22 13:23:02 Very cool. 🙂 | |
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