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EL Wire SCSI cable
- Thread starter olePigeon
- Start date
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. 
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
