My Little Plan for EL Wire

Projects General Guidance
1

I hope I am posting this in the right area, if not, please direct me to the right area.

I have an uno with 14 digital pins, and a 8 channel shield for EL wire, using D2 to D9. (I have 10 channels to switch) I also have 5 vdc out from the sequencer, but it is always on, to power the inverter. What I want, is the inverter to be off and only power up when my "event" begins.
I still have digital pins10 to 13 availible, I also have a 4 channel relay board to use
to turn the inverter on and off, and to control 2 more sets of el wire , d0 and d1 will be reserved fo tx and rx? (not sure why, but seems like these can be used for communication?

My first "event" is, using a PID or sonar echo sensor to be triggered and turn on the inverter (D13 to relay board, to dc side of inverter?), then step through 1 to 9 of one meter squares of el wire that light up my garden path steps.
I'm not sure, but I believe the EL sheild will also allow PWM of the 110v circuits, but for now, just sequentily light up and stay on with a pause of 2 secs? between each "step" would be nice.

The last step "10th channel" will be an outline of my small patio , patio will remain on as long as a sensor registers someone is there.

After the 10th channel is switched on for say 30 secs, the other channels will switch off in the order they were turned on (inverter still stays on)

Using a proximity? PID? sensor near the patio, the whole sequence will reverse ie , switch 9 to 1 off with a 2 sec? pause between them when the person leaves the patio.
Channel 10 stays on for another 30 secs, then it and the inverter are powered off, awaiting next event?
I have 2 more unos to trigger another set of "steps and perimeter outlines", I also want them to operate in somewhat the same manner
I would also like them to communicate amongst themselves, wired for now, but eventualy to be wireless
It would be nice to have a GUI interface mapping out my lighted features
nice to have a android interface for a phone as well
xbee looks expensive, I have 3 sets of trancievers 344 mhz? and a mega 2560 kit .
Hell i will settle for just being able to control the damn steps with the ir remote that came with the mega kit!
As i am a complete moron novice at this coding, I am hoping someone can help me out here
all of my wiring works, the steps and perimeters are strung, the connectors to the sequencers
are soldered and ready to go (everything looks VERY nice at night, when I manually have them on)
All of this will also only work when a photo sensor registers darkness.
My main problem is my impatience to learn to code ( I once did some basic back in the 80's, but that was a looong time ago for me)
I will give it the old college try, if someone can set me in the right direction, or if someone is available to write the sketch for me.
Cheers

2

K I think pfodDesigner might be the way to go, to start, looks like some wifi shields or BT are required, going to try and modify a sequencer example from sparkfun to start.

3

From what I've been able to make out, EL wire runs on low voltage and not much current at 10KHz PWM. If that's true then it might drive from a pin or pin-resistor-transistor circuit.

Some day I'll try and find out more, I want to make short segments work.

4

No, while EL is low current it is about 100 volts.

5

I wonder if some version of a Joule Thief would drive it?
The party pack I bought has electronics and a button in a box that takes 2 AA cells.

6

I wonder if some version of a Joule Thief would drive it?

No you need to drive it with a transformer a Joule Thief like circuit would not be able to handle the voltages you need to generate.

7

I'm using a 5v inverter, it handles 14 meters quite well. I have left the el wires on all night with no problems. I have also used the little 3.3v to run 6 meters all night. ( the 5v said max 6 meters, and the 3.3 said max 3 meters). There is a bit of dimming, but not so much to really notice at night, no heating up of the inverters
either. I need to get a meter capable of measuring dc amps, as the only info on el wire is 1 to 1.5 w/m @100v.

Cant find too much info on calculating (easily) total load/meter. I hope to be able to post a sketch tonight (no laughing!) to at least do a temporary run. As soon as my sensors get here, I hope to be able to apply them to my analog inputs (maybe just a simple switch for now)
I am not sure why the dc output of the sequencer to inverter is always on, as I hear you can burn out the inverter if there is no load on the AC side, unless a "dummy load" is applied with a capacitor.
Thanks again for the info,
Cheers
Oops...been replying to myself instead of editing. Guess I was a little too quick to be posting my idea, found another thread that suggests doing everything in small "chunks", didn't think what I had in mind would be overly complicated, so looks like I will do each portion and add the rest as I progress
thanks again