Powering EL WIRE Sculpture with Solar

linseyme · Post by **linseyme** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 2:37 pm

Any advice on how to safely run el systems on the playa w/o burning out the inverter box in the heat?
(300ft of wire @110V)

Dork · Post by **Dork** » Mon Jan 19, 2009 4:49 pm

Get an inverter rated for 300ft and don't worry about the heat. If it has a fan on it, keep it in a relatively sheltered spot to minimize the amount of dust getting blown through.

It doesn't get hot enough to melt electronics, and besides you'll likely only be running it at night anyway when it's much cooler.

What does this have to do with solar?

klondike_bar · Post by **klondike_bar** » Tue Jan 20, 2009 8:57 am

id suggest laing the unit within a rubbermaid tub that has air holes cut along its sides. cover those holes with a decent filter cloth, and minimal dust should enter the inverter.

and yes, what does solar have to do with this? you could probably run el off a car/marine battery for the whole week

robotland · Post by **robotland** » Fri Jan 23, 2009 10:15 am

The dust either blows into or settles onto surfaces, rarely defying gravity except in a BIG dustup...if you can locate the electronics under a box with heat vents (heatsinks are nice, too!) that are also covered loosely so that dust can't fall in and settle on your guts you'll be fine. Spray glue and foil (or "space blankets") can make just about ANY surface largely heat-reflective. With some clever engineering you could even arrange to reflect the sunlight off your control-box and onto your solar collector! (Test this, though- while reflective intensifiers work well in the Default World, you might be getting enough Sol out there to actually melt your panels if you're using plastic housings...)