An EL wire consume ~10mA/m, and need a 1800Hz, close to main voltage, sinusoid supply. (The noise is not a matter as the EL wire itself will cut off the frequency >2kHz).
for an installation I would like to power 1km of wire. Therefore I would need a 10A supply to power in order to do that.
What is the simpliest way to do such high-power sinusoid power supply ?
I thought of :
- amplifying a low-power sinusoid signal.
- using a H bridge controlled in a way it will get a noisy sinusoid.
I'm trying to see if it is easy to do, or if it would be cheaper to just buy a bunch of 5 to 10 meter EL wire driver…
Best Answer
For the frequency and power you are looking for, a off the shelf audio power amplifier should do it nicely. It would be best if you can use parallel/serial combinations of this wire to get around 8 Ω impedance, since that is what the audio amp will be able to drive well. Too low a impedance, and the amp will not work well, be inefficient, and possibly even shut down. To high impedance won't hurt anything, but it will be hard to push significant power into it.