I made a simple led circuit that lights of the petals of a flower. The “switch” is a safety pin on the back. The pin connects two pieces of conductive fabric and thus the LEDs light when the patch is pinned to something.

The process of making this project is outlined in the following pictures.

These are all the parts that I used when starting the project. The only things not shown are the black felt and the glue on patches that hold down the knots after finishing.

I cut out the flower shape and lined up the LEDs to see if it looked appealing.

I sewed the yellow petals onto black felt and hot glued the leds (with curled leads) to the petals.

Here I sewed all the “inside” negative leads together and you can see the pattern the conductive thread makes on the back of the felt. Note: All of the LEDs were arranged so that the negative leads faces the center of the flower while the positive leads faced out of the flower.

Next, I sewed all the positive leads together with conductive thread.

Then, I sewed on the battery holder.

Next, the switch. I decided to make my switch out of a safety pin and conductive fabric. One strip connects to the positive end of the LEDs and the other strip connects to the positive side of the battery holder. The strips are connected with the safety pin, completing the circuit.

This is the done project – or so I thought. Unfortunately, there were a few problems. First, I connected the battery holder incorrectly. I accidentally shorted it out by have conductive thread go through both holes on the negative side and overlapping with the metal strip between the two holes. This metal strip is connected to the positive side of the battery holder. I had to correct this before being “finished”. I undid my stitching and made sure to only sew through the holes and not touch that metal strip. Also, once I corrected this. The first LED was very bright, but the last was very dim. To correct for this. I connected both ends of the negative LED circle to the negative end of the battery holder and both ends of the positive led circle to the conductive fabric not touching the battery. Problem solved. Now the LEDs are much more evenly bright.

This is the actual finished circuit.

This is a close-up of how the LEDs are attached on the front of the fabric.

Finished product.

Finished product. Turned on.

This is a schematic of the circuit.

Here is a video of the project in action.

This is the first prototype of a fabric-based flexible XY motion gantry which can be controlled by a computer. The design can be scaled to cover an entire wall, and might also be able to conform to certain curved surfaces. Bot-of-the-Cloth could be used to draw patterns on fabric, ink conductive traces, cut fabric with a knife, and more.

Kinematics

Initial Sketches

Sketch Model

Solid Model

3D Printing!

Fabric Construction

Conductive Fabric Test Bed

Finished Prototype

Detail Shots

Files

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6640

]]> http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/?feed=rss2&p=570 1 http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/?p=479 http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/?p=479#comments Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:31:27 +0000 KristyKat http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/?p=479 I created the beginnings of an elegant evening wear cape that lights up when fastened/snapped together. Below is a sketch of my initial concept.

Creating the cape pattern took a considerably longer amount of time than I expected. With the assistance of another student, I customized my cape pattern fit using draping and chalk lines.

To find the neckline, I used the draping technique with scrap fabric.

Below is the finished pattern before I sewed and ironed the edges with interfacing.

In my initial concept, I planned to disperse and wire  LEDs with conductive thread that formed an organic flower pattern. Unfortunately, my circuitry knowledge is rusty. To tackle this assignment, I kept shrinking my work area until I had a pattern working on one side of the cape.

Here’s a video of me wearing the cape

And the circuitry

Sewing conductive thread into the windowcovering

Prepartion for sewing in the resistive felt between the conductive pockets

The textile allows light in during the day

..and can light up with pressure applied at night

Maria Stangel

Hello! Since I don’t have any experience with an electric circuit, for my first exercize I made a simple necklace. I was wondering if I can use an ordinary objects from my daily life  and update them to a “second life”. Here I used a plastic meal mat, hair decoration, chain and 5 LiliPad LEDs.

Please find the movie under this link:

or download it here Project01-NewTextiles004-desktop

For this first project I wanted to create a lantern or pendent lamp. I gained inspiration  from designs such as the ones listed below. I wanted to create something playful and elegant. I used two layers of fabric; A dark grey felt a blue tule layered on top. The LED’s are sewed into the grey felt in a parallel circuit. The switch is comprised of two strings( made of conductive fabric) that tie together to turn the light on. Below is documentation of the process, final result as well as my calculations.

We discovered yesterday that the calculations we more complex due to the resistance mesured in the yarn in addition to the resistor mounted on the LED board (100 Ω ).  I measured R for the yarn in between each of my LEDs (in parallel). I used the parallel equation (1/R = 1/R + 1R…) to calculate the R. This calculation is not completely accurate due to some assumptions about adding the 100 Ω of the resistor to each R1 value.  The value I calculated for I was 6.4 mA. Here V was equivalent to the voltage drop or the voltage of the battery (2.6 v) – the voltage of the the LED (1.8v).  The total current running though my curcut (measured with the multi meter) was 11 mA.

Glass Pendent Light: West Elm

Paper Lantern: Sycamore Street Press

Here is a link to view a video

]]> http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/?feed=rss2&p=329 0 http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/?p=314 http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/?p=314#comments Tue, 15 Feb 2011 03:49:24 +0000 heidiqc http://newtextiles.media.mit.edu/?p=314 Description:

The shooting star is designed to be something like a lit up version of a wind chime. The idea is that the star would flicker and glow when the wind blows (or when an object brushes past it), somewhat like how the stars flicker in the night sky.

The textile circuit is constructed out of 5 yellow LEDs, a 3V battery, and silver plated conductive yarn (with a resistance of about 3 Ohms per inch). The shape of the main circuit is a star, and the LEDs are arranged to light up the arms. The 3 droplet shaped streaks form the 2 switches of the circuit, and the circuit is closed when the center purple streak contacts the side black streaks. The streaks are felt, sewn over with conductive thread and a bit of conductive fabric.

Process:

After settling on the star idea, I made a paper prototype just to aid in the visualizing process. Subsequently, I tested out the circuit with the 5 LEDs to make sure that it would work and the wiring was correct. Finally, when the circuit was sewn onto the felt backing and tested, I added polyester stuffing, beads,  and the top patterned layer for aesthetic appeal. The back showing the conductive yarn was left exposed as I like the shape of the circuit. A slit was cut in the back to form a slot for the battery to be easily replaced or removed.

Watch video of completed product on YouTube

Electrical Measurements and Analysis:

Using the multimeter, I measured the resistance of:

• Each LED (R=100 Ohms)
• Each conductive yarn trace in the circuit – represented as resistors in the circuit diagram above

Unfortunately, the circuit cannot be reduced to an equivalent parallel or series resistor chain as the battery is positioned in the middle of the parallel chain, thus the total resistance of the circuit was not calculated. While measuring the resistances, I noticed that the resistance of the yarn varies with pressure applied, and there was difficulty obtaining consistent values. As I used backstitch for many parts of the circuit, the resistance would also change as the fabric was moved and the individual yarn segments touched or lost contact with each other.  This made it particularly challenging to measure.

The battery’s voltage was measured to be 2. 932V, and the current through the circuit was 14.7mA for the left arm and 14.6mA for the right arm.

This is a simple project with electrified toys that could be used in a classroom to teach children about concepts of electricity. When tails and tails / whiskers and whiskers come into contact the noses of the mice light up.

Within a week of buying a pair of winter gloves from the Gap, I lost the left glove and was so devastated that I set out to buy an identical second pair.  When this project came up, I was eager to transform my sad left glove into an electrified lighted circuit.  The idea was to light up an LED with different hand gestures, something I never thought I’d be able to do in my lifetime.

Since this was my first time really sewing and making a circuit, I didn’t expect the project to work at all.  To my surprise, it did!

Finished video demo 1

Finished video demo 2

My first working textile circuit!

My initial design

Circuit Design

Electric Glove at Rest

First light

Second light

Using the materials and tools introduced in class, construct an interactive circuit out of soft materials. Your circuit should contain at least one output (like an LED or motor) and one switch or sensor. There are links to useful tutorials for this assignment on the Links page. For inspiration, check out some of the textile circuits from last year’s class here.

Once you finish your circuit, you’ll document some of it’s basic electrical characteristics. You’ll use a multimeter to measure some properties, and Ohm’s Law–which says that V (Voltage) = I (Current) x R (Resistance)–to calculate a few others. Lady Ada has a good tutorial about how to use a multimeter here, and there’s a fun interactive web page on Ohm’s law here.

Measure or calculate the following properties of your completed project:

• measure the resistance of each trace in your circuit
• OPTIONAL: use these measurements to calculate the total resistance of your circuit
  if you are using more than one LED in your circuit, this page can help you calculate the total
  here’s an even better hint
• measure the voltage of your battery
• OPTIONAL: use Ohm’s Law to calculate the current running through your circuit
• measure the current running through your circuit

Create a post (on this site) that documents your project and measurements. Make sure to add your post to the the Textile Circuit category. Your page should include:

• a few sentences describing your project
• a few pictures of your work in progress
• at least one picture of your completed project
• a short video of your completed project
• a diagram of your circuit that includes your resistance and voltage measurements
• a listing of the rest of the electrical measurements and calculations you made

Here’s an example diagram:

Create a username and password for the site here. There’s a tutorial that explains how to make a WordPress post here.

Bring your project to class on the 15th for demos!