Electrical Guidelines for Designers

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All electrical wiring used in a WOW entry must be safe and simple to operate in New Zealand. WOW encourages designers creating entries with electrical components to have them checked by a qualified electrician prior to sending them to Nelson for judging.

Here are guidelines to consider when creating your entry and preparing your dressing instructions.

Freighting:

Batteries and power banks are classed as dangerous goods and generally are not accepted for freighting. You will need to discuss with your freighting provider before packing batteries with your garment.

Please note that we will not be able to return any batteries or power banks sent with garments.

If your garment requires a specialised form of power supply, please e-mail Leonie Trathen to discuss further.

Paperwork:

If your garment has electrical components, please make sure that you provide detailed instructions on how to use the electrics, including:

The quantity, e.g. 2x AA batteries for each glove.

The type, e.g. power bank for body piece.

Runtime (how long the batteries will last) if under 30 minutes, e.g. minimum 10 minutes.

Charging time

Please include photos of the electrical components and batteries attached into your garment.

Voltage:

New Zealand has a 230/240 volt wall output. If your voltage differs to this, please advise us in your garment paperwork so that we can ensure the correct voltage is used when charging to avoid potential issues with the electrics.

We recommend that all electrics have a maximum of 12 volts DC.

We recommend that batteries are connected in parallel so they do not change voltage, batteries connected in series will have a combined voltage (e.g. 3x 9V batteries connected in series have 27V of power)

Batteries/Leads:

Check with your freighting provider before freighting batteries.

All electrical garments must have either easily removable batteries or leads for charging.

Make sure that batteries are easily accessible for inspection, battery replacement and charging.

Battery operation should have a minimum of 10 minutes runtime.

General Advice:

Please ensure that there are no exposed wires and that they are fully encased. For the safety of the model do not have any wires against the skin

Electrics need to withstand movement and multiple wearings.

If you are a designer entering from outside New Zealand and Australia and your power source needs to be charged with a plug, please provide an adapter to New Zealand power

Please note that garments with electrical components must run off a stand-alone power system i.e. batteries and must not rely on being connected to mains supply in order to work.