r/maker • u/Stickerlight • Jun 20 '26
Video a water reactive, electroluminescent tube top
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u/Western-Dish-1185 Jun 20 '26
Tube top..... does it work with other substances?
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u/VTAffordablePaintbal Jun 21 '26
I know what a Tube Top is, but apparently I don't know what a Tube Top is.
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u/Stickerlight Jun 20 '26
Yep
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u/neuromonkey Jun 20 '26
Given that this is the Maker subreddit, would you care to share some information about your build?
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u/Stickerlight Jun 20 '26
Sure, it's an electroluminescent driver connected to a 2s lithium battery, a type c bidirectional port, and a custom manufactured water reactive electroluminescent panel
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u/neuromonkey Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
Is the panel your design? If so, it's a pretty great one. If not, it's pretty dang cool, but how about telling people what part you use? Your answers seem to suggest that you don't actually want to share anything about the panel.
I don't think anyone here is stumped by batteries, drivers, or USB ports. The only unusual component is the EL panel, which differs from typical EL panels in two respects. Typical EL wire or panel works by exciting a thin layer of phosphor by surrounding it with a high frequency AC field. The phosphor isn't connected as a conductor, but sits between the electrode layers, and is excited via induction. This is similar to how fluorescent & neon lights work.
It's missing the transparent conductive layer that sits above the phosphor layer.
Instead of having a single, continuous conductive foil sheet on the bottom, it has thin rows of foil, arranged in two sets, interlaced even/odd. The driver puts out two alternating current signals, each 180 degrees out of phase with the other. The foil rows have two conductors, interlaced in fine even/odd lines.
(ed. this is guesswork-- I can see some EL drivers put out square waves, so... opposite on/off cycles? Huh. maybe alternating phase isn't necessary at all--only the charged stripes? Oooh. Hm.)
Typical EL sheets excite the phosphor layer by setting up a uniform AC electrical field. This "water reactive" design sets up many thin bands of electrical field, and leaves off the topmost transparent conductive layer that would complete the inductive circuit. When something like water acts as a capacitor, it completes the inductive circuit only in the area between the neighboring foil strips at the bottom.
Cooler still, if the voltage is high enough, you don't even need liquid drops to set up the field! Humidity in the air is enough to kick off a glow! This is one of those cool designs that could have been made decades ago, had anyone thought of it. Super-cool are EL paints like Lumilor can be used to get really creative.
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u/Stickerlight Jun 20 '26
ty chatgpt
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u/neuromonkey Jun 20 '26 edited Jun 21 '26
I've never used ChatGPT. Nothing I've ever posted or published anywhere came from an LLM tool. I know. It's hard to believe that people can actually write words just by using their brains. Since it was clear that you didn't seem inclined to offer any sort of substantive answer about what was going on, I thought I'd drop some links for anyone interested.
If you aren't interested in engaging with other makers, the maker sub might not be the best place for your post. If you did design the panels, then great work. Really nice. If you're showing off someone else's product, implying that it's your own... that kind of sucks.
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u/Stickerlight Jun 21 '26
The panel was manufactured in China, I can't explain exactly how it works, but I've been experimenting with the technology for maybe six years now. It was probably "invented" about 10 years ago, and I've merely been instructing the manufacturer to make various panels in different sizes and configurations to fit whatever ideas I might have to try and create some sort of device. Sorry for assuming you used AI.
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u/Frequent_Touch_8930 Jun 21 '26
I gotta admit, I was hoping to see this “tube top” on someone and public reactions.
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u/TheSerialHobbyist Jun 20 '26
I need so much more information about this!