That moment I realized EL wire dims fast with cheap batteries

I was making a cyberpunk jacket for a con in Seattle last month. Spent 3 hours sewing EL wire into the sleeves, looked great at first. Then after about 20 minutes of wearing it around the house, the glow dropped by half. Turned out the cheap 3V button cells I bought on Amazon can't sustain the load longer than 15 minutes. Picked up some 4.5V battery packs from a local electronics shop for $8 each, now it stays bright for hours. Anybody else run into this with their wearables?

2 comments

2 Comments

sagep1912d ago

Nah, that's just bad planning on your part, not the battery's fault.

williamhill12d agoMost Upvoted

Hear me out on this one though @sagep19... sometimes a battery just lets you down even when you think you planned for it. I've seen good batteries go bad with no warning at all.