Using the EL Escudo Dos

[rjwissbaum]

I have some EL animated signs (very small, less than 2" square) with five EL elements. Each sign comes with six contacts: one contact for each of five elements, and a sixth, common contact.

I want to animate these signs using an Arduino and an Escudo Dos EL sequencer shield. I get that I need an external inverter (probably 3V) along with the shield. I get that I can control each of the 8 channels independently.

My question is about the common contact: can I connect one side of the eight sequencer channel outputs together to make a common connection?

[TS-Chris]

Yes, you can do that. In fact when you look into the EL connectors, the second pin in the socket is common on all the sockets so you could get away with only running a single common from one socket and then use the first pin on each connector for each of the elements.