Sewing with circuits
Over the years I have used EL wire and LIly Twinkle products to get some glowing light into my sewn creations. This year I have been introduced to using the raw LED lights directly with conductive thread and hand made coin cel battery holders for a DIY approach that makes the work even more affordable and flexible. Using an LED, a 3V coin cell battery and a metal bell on a conductive thread a negitive power supply form the battery can make a smiple tilt switch that light up when it hits a negitively charged bit of conductive fabric. Rather than buy lots of switches and fixed parts I want to learn to make my own to be appropriate to conditions and cost constraints.
Using pliers I learned (from the We Are Three, circuit sisters of FabMo) to custom bend the LED for easy identification and to catch into sewn stitches.
positive bends into a spiral
negative bends into a triangle
This has been a fun and with some further research I found a nice little project
Tilt demo module, involving a jingle bell as a switch to turn on several LEDs.
First cut from conductive fabric a battery pocket (on black) I found it has too much surface area and is at risk of shorting out. Next I drew up a simple shape and laser cut a from card stock a coin cel holder for the 3 volts to be safe and not have to use the tiny needles sizes the traditional holders require.
The original is design is a neat project that I have simplified to fit in to a one hour session for a high school art class this week. It is my hope that everyone will be glowing by the end of the session and they like the idea of building a tilt switch as much as I do.