SF Burner Seeks Help w/ Custom El-Wire Suit Build

[spazbot81]

Hey folks,
So I'm a San Francisco burner looking for someone who might be interested in helping me construct a custom el-wire suit. I have a pretty good idea in my head of what I want to do, but where I'm lacking is in the execution. I'm not the best when it comes to sewing, fabric, and materials, etc. I did it myself last year and it was OK but I think I need to enlist the services of a professional this year.

I tried attaching some photos but for some reason I'm getting an error message that says "board attachment quota reached"?? -- umm OK. Well instead I've posted a video from YouTube. This is a video of me wearing the suit at night. It's hard to see in the video, but the main problem with the suit was that the LED panels were quite exposed and I ran into issues last year with some of the wires getting tangled and broken. I'm looking for assistance in building reinforced cases for these panels, probably made out of nylon sheaths, velcro, and clear plastic windows for the lights.



I've got a bit of a budget for this, so not looking for someone to do this for free. I understand this will take some time and effort and I'm cool with that. If you're interested please drop me a line and let's chat. And if you have a website or samples of work that's even better. I'd really prefer to work with someone local in the SF Bay Area, and preferably someone no more than a 30-45 minute drive from the city if possible but I'd entertain any serious inquiries. And if you happen to know someone else who might be interested in this, please pass this on or give them my email: andrew.casden [at] gmail

Thanks and Burn On!
The Spazbot

[spazbot81]

Just to be clear, I'm not actually looking for help building the LED panels themselves. That part is done already. I'm looking for help assembling protective casings for the panels and attaching them to the suit. and the sewing of el-wire. Thanks - Spazbot

[junglesmacks]

Damn.. that's some nice work. Doesn't look like you need to much help there!

You're a little late to say the least if you're just now trying to tackle the full planning of an updated LED suit and especially if you're trying to enlist the help of others in the final 4 weeks before the burn. You're going to have to use your head and think through this as best you can. It's good for you

For my LED suit this year, I ended up designing my own custom PCBs and used nylon nuts and bolts to secure them to the clothes along with 1/16" white laser cut panels to sandwich over them to diffuse and protect. My design is much more geometric than yours though and I'm going for sheer lumens with 2,440 total LEDs sequenced on 8 channels.

All I can say is to overbuild everything, as you know. Solder everything well and secure all those joints with heat shrink and other reinforcements. Use anything you can think of. Hell.. it hit me like a ton of bricks how useful duct tape is to give an extra level of support on the backs of those PCBs for the attaching wires. Spray adhesive + strips of naugahyde work great to secure runs of wires on the insides of the garments. The list goes on and many times you'll be coming up with solutions on the fly as new design obstacles arise. Just.. use your head.

Again.. this is good for you. You can do it. Get to it!

[spazbot81]

Thanks Junglesmacks. Yeah, I know it's getting on in timing but I've been traveling quite a lot in the past few months and just now finally have time to deal with this.

I appreciate the construction tips, I really do. But honestly a lot what you're describing is over my head and possibly more complicated than what I'm really looking for. I really just need someone to design a few nylon and plastic cases for the LED panels (and ideally, sew on the velcro patches). I'm planning to attach the cases via velcro to the suit so they can be moved around and modded. For someone who knows what they're doing it seems like something that could be done in a week or week and a half.

Thanks for the vote of confidence, though! We'll see... I may very well end up DIY-ing it again.