20040111 - I am having a lot of fantasies about sewing hundreds of dollars in flat EL paper to velcro and making a killer suit. The suit could use the same design as the Jumpsuit circuit, just making use of traics rather than transistors. The EL-PANTS board could be used more directly. Seems like a fun project to make a full suit that blinks crazy fast with flat el all over it. The EL might not do well with bad weather, not sure how to handle that part. Parts needed: Triacs Flat EL I have the inverters, PCB build stuff, and can obtain velcro from the local store. Although I could do a jumpsuit, I hat is making more sense for starters. I already have a jumpsuit. All Electronics (2) =================== Part - ELECTROLUMINESCENT STRIP, 12"X1" URL - http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=EL-12 Price - $5.50 QTY - 10 Part - ELECTROLUMINESCENT STRIP, 5" X 1" URL - http://www.allelectronics.com/cgi-bin/category.cgi?item=EL-5 Price - $3.50 QTY - 10 Digi-Key (1) ============ Part - MAX232 URL - http://www.digikey.com/scripts/DkSearch/dksus.dll?Detail?Ref=284321&Row=268824&Site=US Price - $3.31 QTY - 5 Microchip Boot loader. http://www.microchipc.com/PIC16bootload/ Include this in the board. 20040305 - I had signed up for a dorkbot talk recently and really wanted to have something new to show. A culmination of all that I have learned to date about electronic clothing. - Velcro for washability - Sequencing - Input devices - Conductive thread - Simple, Clean, Elegant As I started sewing I needed the old EL pants sewing machine settings. Good thing I was being anal and saved those. - numeric stitch select - zig zag 3/21 - knob control - top left dial: 1 - middle dial: 5 - right dial: 3 The stitching came out great. I have a LED that works fine. I went on to try putting some FLAT EL in velcro and driving it with a mini 2kHz. That too came out great, although its not using conductive thread for anything. I need to pick out a outfit to stich conductive thread traces in. Preferably a light coat or sweat shirt. The Flat EL can be attached by two layers of velcro. Soft layer facing outwards stitched to clothing. Ruff velcro facing soft velcro. Need a good clamp mechanism for removing Flat EL for washing. Could use four layer velcro like jumpsuit to make detachment easier, and use wire wrap to clamp conductive thread to flat EL. 20040306 - The ideas keep on coming in. I've come up with some techniques using velcro, plastic welder, conductive thread, and transparency paper photocopies to spell out "Technology will save us. I printed signs using Apple's Textedit. The font is "cochin" the size is 64. That fits the little aqua flat EL strips quite well. Those strips have the best color. I'm going to over to kinko's to photo copy this onto transparency. After the transparencies are made I can stitch conductive thread to the flat EL leads using hard side of velcro and wirewrap. The shirt I will be stitching the sign too needs two conductive stitches per velcro piece. The flat EL is hooked up to the velcro and all three pieces test fine with a 9V inverter or higher. The transparencies look good and are taped in place. Now some stitching needs to be done on the jacket, and some velcro placed on the jacket. 20040307 - I woke up and started sewing right away. I had no problems stitching in the velcro strap to the my sweatshirt, but once I started just sewing the soft material my sewing needle constantly jammed up with the conductive thread. The solution will be to remove the spool of conductive thread from the machine, and only let the bobbin use conductive. Using ordinary nylon or cotton thread from the spool. I really don't want to give up using the conductive thread on either side, so I'm going to experiment with different stitch patterns as Wendy suggests. 20040309 - I've read through the sewing machine manual and come up with new settings to try and help make the conductive thread sewing easier while going through the sweatshirt like green jacket. Left Most Wheel: 1 Middle Wheel: 5 Right top Wheel: 4 Right side Wheel: 3 / 21 I had to swap out the metallic thread on the top spooler for a thin cotten thread, then the sewing became easy again. I recommend running over the same zigzag strip several times. I used a ohm-meter to measure the resistance in my trace. It was about 50ohm going from my mid-back to my left jacket pocket. My goal is to get as much conductive thread into the stitch as possible. The best way I've found to sew at this point is to use a top spool thread that is the color of the garment. The bobbin should be loaded with conductive thread. Stitching at a fairly fast pull rate (really slow is very bad). Sew 1" then hit the backup button over that inch. This causes massive tangles of the conductive thread at the button. Very good for conductivity. 20040313 - Spent about two hours hooking up a lytec 3-channel sequencer today. It looks pretty good. Thre are four velcro strips which can be ripped off inside the left pocket. The top half of the velcro connect to the sequencer, the bottom half of the velcro is stitched to the jacket itself right onto the traces that run to the flat EL. The one silly mistake I made today was using conductive thread for the top velcro that connects to the sequencer. I should have used ordinary thread topside of the rough velcro and conductive thread on the bottom side of the rough velcro. That way I could put my hand in the left jacket pocket without being electricuted.