Category: LEDs

Beating Heart Headband

The Beating Heart Headband uses a heartrate sensor and perfboard Arduino to flash a heart-shaped LED display to the rhythm of your heart.

This project is a collaboration with Jimmie Rodgers. Build a pulse-sensing headband that flashes a heart-shaped LED display to the beating of your heart! Uses a scratch-built perf board Arduino built from Mintduino parts, the Open Heart LED display, Yury and Joel’s pulse sensor, and a rechargeable lithium battery and power board. The circuit is built into a brocade headband with elastic at the back.

For this project, you will need:

heartbeatheadband.zipDownload
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Quick LED Robot Ornament

Crafting under pressure is irresistible. This year the Craftzine gals suggested an ornament swap– 12 days before Christmas. With a lot on our plates, we all agreed to make time for crafting eight handmade ornaments each, and the deadline made it even more intense. Cheers to speed crafting!

Step 1

Spray paint some scrap cardboard — I chose silver.

Sketch out your robot designs, either in a notebook first or directly on the cardboard.

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LED Shoe Clips

This easy soft circuit project can get you started in wearable electronics and make your toes twinkle. 

Complete step-by-step tutorial originally posted on CRAFT/MAKE.

Gather materials and tools: you’ll need conductive thread, 4 LEDs, 2 CR2032 batteries, as well as some standard sewing supplies and a pair of paper clips.

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TV-B-Gone Jacket

Whenever I bring my TV-B-Gone out to restaurants, I look suspicious pointing it around. So I embedded the device into a jacket and turned it into a wearable TV silencer. For the switch, I sewed paths of conductive thread that become bridged by the metal zipper pull when it passes by. At the restaurant or bar, all I have to do is unzip my jacket to turn off the TV(s).

For this project, you will need:

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LED Frog & Fireflies Embroidery

This picture of a frog catching fireflies is embellished with lights that bring the bugs to life. Conductive thread is the magic ingredient, bridging the gap between rigid metal and soft floss. To make a stitched scene light up, combine traditional embroidery techniques with a few common electronics components. The possibilities are endless, and the result is an artful conversation piece.  This was written as a tutorial for my LED Sewing Kit, where you can include LEDs into an embroidered picture or into a garment of your choice.

Materials and Tools

Supplies & Tools
Electronic Embroidery Frog PatternDownload
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LilyPad Arduino Blinking Bike Bag Patch Tutorial

I added these blinking lights to my fatlab patch for riding my bike at night. Here I’ll show you how to add flashing LEDs to your backpack for fun and safety. I used a LilyPad Arduino with a rechargeable lithium-polymer battery for flatness and re-usability. The LEDs blink in a marquee pattern, two at a time, in patriotic red, white and blue.

Materials and Tools:
-scissors
-needlenose pliers
-sewing needle
-LilyPad Arduino with programmer and USB cable – Maker Shed

Power:
-LiPower board – Sparkfun
-lithium-polymer battery (and charger) – Sparkfun
OR
-LilyPad AAA battery holder (comes with the Maker Shed kit linked above)

-conductive thread – Lame Lifesaver
-conductive velcro – Less EMF
-sticky-back velcro (I got mine at Michael’s)
-bag or backpack
-fabric patch to mount circuit
-small scrap of fabric for switch
-thread
–source code and schematic

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The Original LED Sewing Kit

This v1 LED sewing kit is a supplement to my Electronic Embroidery tutorial featured in CRAFT, Vol. 09 (preview article) and online in step-by-step photo and video tutorial forms. If you’re already into embroidery or needlepoint, this is a good way to start experimenting with electronics. Check out v3 of the LED Sewing Kit for upgraded battery holders and more colors.

It contains:
-1 sewable battery holder
-1 coincell battery
-2 LEDs (you choose the color)
-1 snap for making a switch
-about 7 feet (~2 meters) of conductive thread, enough for 1 or 2 projects

Open Heart Brooch

At Maker Faire Austin, Jimmie Rogers gave me one of his Open Hearts to work into a portable brooch. I used a LilyPad Arduino board and sandwiched the two back to back, using two layers of fabric to insulate the circuit boards. I used conductive thread to make the connections, and I dangled the board sandwich from the LilyPad power supply, to which I attached a safety pin for making it a brooch. Because of the way I made it, I have access to the programming pins on the Arduino so I can change the animations any time I want.

I made an instructable about how I put it together. You can also view my flickr set. Thanks Jimmie!

Here’s a video of it in action:

TV-B-Gone Hoodie


Whenever I bring my TV-B-Gone out to restaurants, I always look real suspicious holding it up and pointing it around, so I’ve been looking for a more subtle and dinner-appropriate solution. I got zippered hoodie sweatshirt from the thrift store which had a convenient logo on the upper left front, complete with rhinestones! I thought the IR LEDs would blend in quite nicely, so I stitched it into the sweatshirt. The batteries are in the pocket. I broke out the pushbutton leads and used conductive thread to sew paths to the edge of the zipper, which has a metal pull. I made two little pads with the thread that are bridged by the zipper pull when it passes by, so all I have to do is zip the sweatshirt up or down to activate the TV turning-off action. Works great! I made an instructable for this project so you can see how to make your own. You can also view the full set on Flickr.

You can buy my LED sewing kit (whose parts can be used to make one).

Hoodie TV-B-Gone

TV-B-Gone Hoodie Schematic