Winter is reaching a crescendo in London, which means things get dark early. Cycling in the city is a bit of a dicey thing to do at the best of times, and it gets even worse when its dark. One can reflective clothing, which works for some people. For me, finding a coat that fits and isn’t too hot is a massive pain.
So I present the solution for being a bit more obvious, the Tron Case:
The Briefcase is something I almost always carry, and was salvaged from a previous job. It was used to transport laptops from location to glamorous location on films like James Bond and Nanny Mcphee. It was being thrown out as someone had got drunk on set and fallen over with it on. With a bit of percussive maintenance its as good as new.
The Build:
I watched the fantastic guide made by lady Ada, however as I’m not sewing my wire on, I had find something more effective. (more on that later) I didn’t want to drill more holes than were needed, so I traced out the design roughly. I originally wanted to have something more tron like, however I didn’t like the idea of peppering an otherwise rainproof case with lots of holes. Plus cutting and soldering new connectors on EL wire is a massive pain.
With the design settled I drilled the four holes need to route the wire.
You can see the connecting wire that links the edge to the circle. I’m holding the inverter in my hand. It fits neatly in one of the otherwise useless pockets. (those aren’t credit cards in the top right, they are business cards)
The wire is held on with plane old sticky tape. Its a bit rubbish as it leaves a lot of stick if you have to peel it off. However it was the only thing I had to hand and seems to be holding up to abuse. Super glue is far to brittle to be long term, it also turns the wire opaque.
Sourcing parts:
*Warning* this is really only useful for people of a British persuasion, although it might be a useful for people in the EU.
- Inverter powerpack
- Orange EL wire (needed around 1.6m)
- Blue EL wire (needed only 60 CMs)