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If you're looking for an easy, fun, and glowing Halloween costume this year, hang out with
us for a few minutes to learn how to make an animal mask with EL wire on a bike helmet.
We were inspired by Tom Newsom's Glownimals project over in the UK, which he showed off
at Elephant and Castle Mini Maker Faire last summer.
Plain wire supports the glowing design and because the helmet straps securely to your
head, you have a lot of freedom to design whatever character you want.
The finished mask isn't as safe as a regular bike helmet, so ride carefully or just go
to that party on foot. We're using 19 gauge galvanized steel wire
to create the basic shapes from our sketches. Wrap the wire around the helmet and twist
it tightly with a pair of heavy pliers. Use more wire to support heavy or long parts of
the design-- doubling the wire over and twisting creates more stability.
Wrap any pointy wire bits with masking or gaff tape so you don't stab anybody, then
it's onto the electronics! Figure out where your inverter battery pack
will go, then secure it in place with some Velcro tape. Plug in your first strand of
EL wire and start attaching it to your wire frame by wrapping clear thread around both
wires. Twist ties come in handy to help hold the wires in place as you go.
You can create broken lines in your design by adding pieces of heat shrink tubing wherever
you don't want the EL to glow. If you do need to cut and solder your EL wire to complete
your design, we've got a tutorial for you on the Adafruit Learning System.
Use a flexible measuring tape to estimate how much EL wire your design uses and double
check your inverter's specs-- this 4x AAA inverter can power three to four meters of
EL wire for about seven hours. While clear thread creates an instant connection,
but for rockin' out all night you'll want to glue the wires together every couple of
inches using E6000 craft adhesive, which takes about a day to dry completely.
EL inverters make a high-pitched sound you may find annoying-- a bit of hot glue on the
capacitors inside will help dampen the noise. Or just stick it in your pocket so it's not
near your ears. These masks look great in a group and are
a blast to make with friends-- share yours with us on our weekly show and tell on Google+,
tag your projects #ElectronicHalloween, and subscribe for more costume ideas from Adafruit.