is EL dangerous?

FrazzledBadger wrote 04/30/2015 at 08:52 • 1 point

So a quick question, I saw this morning in my emails Make were offering some kits for families and kids. One of which was some EL tape and a inverter set, complete with a happy gif of a boy waving a light saber type thingy around.
Now after a bit of Googlyfying, I found these inverters kick out between 90VAC and 120VAC at around 9mA, if theres not a wire attached, this can rise to 300VAC.
Am I missing something but isn't this classed in the dangerous high voltage category? Not really the best thing to give to a child, (assuming you like the child of course)....

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Jordan wrote 05/15/2015 at 18:58

electrician here, you need 30 milliamps to affect your heart in a perfect storm of conditions. Also. as long as you keep the inverter plugged in, you're fine, the exterior of the EL tape/wire/panel is not "hot" as it were.

Are you sure? yes | no

brian bloom wrote 05/01/2015 at 17:04

It's high voltage but very low current (like a few milliamps - not enough to light a single LED), so it poses pretty little risk, although you might feel a small shock.

One thing to keep in mind is that EL wire can be a bit fragile. It's usually phosphor coated and has a very fine wire wrapped around it to produce that effect. Neither of these handle flexing or abuse very well, so just to keep the EL wire intact they should be well protected, which hopefully makes the risk to a user even less.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/97/EL_wire.svg/2000px-EL_wire.svg.png

Are you sure? yes | no

Jarrett wrote 04/30/2015 at 19:52

Maybe if you eat it

Are you sure? yes | no

.Stack

is EL dangerous?

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