Attaching LEDs to clothing

[junglesmacks]

Anyone that has successfully done it, how did you do it?

I've heard using a button.. hm. My personal plan was to use 5mm black plastic holders, and then gluing them in from the backside. Any suggestions of what kind of glue would be best to use to bond plastic to fabric?

This is what I was thinking:

[FIGJAM]

Goop holds well and stays pliable.

[junglesmacks]

Goop holds well and stays pliable.

True. I'm thinking that it would need to be some kind of flexible/pliable material. Especially since this is for a pair of pants and I'll be moving.. a lot.. in them.

[Zhust]

Anyone that has successfully done it, how did you do it?

My first suggestion is LilyPads -- available at SparkFun — "LilyPad is a wearable e-textile technology developed by Leah Buechley and cooperatively designed by Leah and SparkFun." They sell conductive thread as well, but you can use wire if you're more comfortable with that.

You can of course just copy the concept, but $1.95 for a populated board set up with a current limit resistor for 5V seems pretty fair.

[junglesmacks]

Hmm.. would work, but not for my application. I'm actually using a preprogrammed PIC board running MOSFETs to drive 50 LEDs per channel on 10 different channels. 500 of those suckers is a little rich for my blood..

[ygmir]

magnets

[phil]

http://www.instructables.com/id/led-pants/


Louise has also used an Arduino Lilypad to sequence LEDS on a jacket she's making:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/civex/4832398745/

[gyre]

There is a good post about fibre optics on clothes with LEDs.

[kraskland]

For a fur coat I used this method, except I used shoe goo for the adhesive which also insulated the solder joints. It had 60 leds and worked great.

[gyre]

viewtopic.php?t=27738&highlight=fiber+optics

[SnowBlind]

This might not help you if you are using LEDs in the standard 5mm shape, but we've build two jackets with 1/2 Watt LEDs on them. Those LEDs need a heatsink if you crank em up, so we soldered them onto pennies, then hotglued the pennies to the jackets.

On the thinner one we soldered them from the inside, with just a tiny hole the size of the actual LED in the fabric. That didn't work too well on the thicker one, so we painted the pennies black and glued them on the outside. Held up great for three years now.

[junglesmacks]

For a fur coat I used this method, except I used shoe goo for the adhesive which also insulated the solder joints. It had 60 leds and worked great.

Wow yeah.. Shoe Goo I think is going to be the adhesive. It's a little trickier being as that I want a clean outside look, and I'm attaching these to a slick metallic surface. I'm using silver metallic fireman's crash pants from a surplus outlet.

I purchased a bunch of these off of Ebay for cheap cheap:



The LED snaps in from the rear of it. I'm worried a little about it popping out, so I put a few drops of super glue and it bonded everything nicely. I'm planning on popping a hole in the fabric, and using the shoe goo to secure. We will see. I only have what, 500 to do..

[gyre]

There is clear shoe goo and some other adhesives by the same company.

[Ugly Dougly]

Goop holds well and stays pliable.

Does it collect playa dust?

[Boijoy]

I used fabric glue to glue some illuminent wire to a coat. Worked well. I'm not sure about metal though.

[FIGJAM]

Goop holds well and stays pliable.

Does it collect playa dust?

No more than silicone caulk would.

[Ugly Dougly]

I don't have a silicone caulk. It's genuine.

[FIGJAM]

Does it hurt when it gets dusty?

[gyre]

Goop holds well and stays pliable.

Does it collect playa dust?

My guess.

[moonrise]

one of THE funniest Crank Yankers epidosde I ever saw was all about caulk;

The puppet calls a hardware store and it went something like this;

What colors of caulk do you sell?

White, brown even black

Oh, good, btw I'm curious, does the caulk have a taste?

IDK, I've never tried it

I'm particularly curious what the black caulk tastes like?

IDK, I've never tried it

Well haven't you at least tried the white caulk?

No

Would you please taste it and tell me what you think

Well sir, I'm not sure I want to do that

Why not? It might taste good...maybe it tastes like nothing or sweet or salty?

IDK Sir, I've never tried it. But you could buy some and try it yourself

*The call went on and on, for a long, loooong time.....I think it was the first time I'd ever seen it (Sesame Street gone Insane?) (I should Tivo it but = and/or heroine...there's a funny cartoon skit about a Tivo junkie too, man goes through all the symptoms of a junkie and eventually gets "cured")


@Jsmacks when I called coolneon....they told me about sophisticated methods for glueing el wire to a hat, sounds like they know their shit...being burners and all. Very helpful but phone was ringing off the hook, Halloween...I said I'd call back after that for the hat and that was that......drat! Call them up maybe?