As much fun as the 1.0 hoodie was, realized could take it up a notch by adding a
That way it would flash along with the beat when you wear it to a concert or on stage.
We stock a 6v and a 12v. To drive one length of EL Wire you need to use the 6V.
high-brightness-aqua-electroluminescent-el-wire-2-5-meters +
el-wire-6v-sound-activated-pocket-inverter + a 4x AA Battery Pack
Before soldering anything, it's a good idea to make sure the circuit works with alligator clips.
From Left : EL Wire adapter to sound activated inverter to 4xAA battery pack.
The dashed white lines on the inverter go to the RED lead on the battery pack.
Then I cut some heat shrink tubing. Important to slide this on the wire BEFORE you solder it.
At this point realized I needed to strip the ends of the battery pack a bit more to get a good connection.
Attempted to do it 'old school' by rolling a boxcutter along the wire. Then found out it was Stranded Core and gave up to go find the excellent set of Hakko wire strippers.
If your wire is solid core you can get away with rolling it under a boxcutter, stranded core you end up cutting through half the strands & won't work.
Once you have the insulation cut, for stranded core, roll it off with your two fingers. This will twist the wire to make it easier to solder.
Tin both the leads
If I have very fine wire, rather than trying to horizontally solder them,
I will sometimes twist them together with needle nose & then solder that connection. Especially for clothing which will have more movement and torque on the joint.
Slide the heat shrink back over & apply light heat with a lighter or heat gun in smooth back & forth motions.
Don't hold the heat source in one spot or you may get smoke & eventually possibly fire.
Also the tube will only shrink so much, so use the right guage.
Success !
**Footnotes**
The hoodie being modded is a BetaBrand Reversible Disco Hoodie from San Fransisco.
For larger (non-hoodie) projects, If you want to drive 3+ meters of EL Wire, you would need to use
el-wire-12v-sound-activated-pocket-inverter + an x8 AA Battery Pack.
For the x8 you would have to cut off the barrel jack adapter & strip the leads a bit.
For a good sewing starter project, I decided to replicate Adafruit's Tron Hoodie.
You only need a hoodie, needle & thread, & some EL Wire with a battery pack. No soldering involved.
Relatively straight forward, sew thread loops around the EL wire about every 3 inches.
To get a nice curve along the hood, use a tighter spacing of stitch.
Good idea to measure the inner length of your hoodie first as I ended up having enough EL wire to do half the back too.
A second consideration is if you want it inside the zipper or outside.
Inside you won't see half the EL if you zip it up.
I chose a reversible hoodie, so could wear it inside or out.
Sew the battery connector close to a pocket, so that can sit in there undisturbed.
Completed Hoodie :
The standard EL Inverter has 3 modes for the EL Wire.
Fully lit, flashing & seizure mode.
Good times.
Intended as a companion to read before the OFFICIAL BUILD GUIDE
Some additional hints on things to be aware of during assembly.
Unboxing.
Use the buttons to prop board up to make it even for soldering.
Little containers are great for organizing kits with many parts.
You need to save your component lead 'off-cuts' so clip them off FACING AWAY from you into a small box.
Careful to distinguish between similar LOOKING parts.
Can use needle-nose pliers to bend leads out a little to make it easier to mount on the board. Be very gentle.
When preparing to insert the IC, gently & SLOWLY roll / bend it against a firm non-static, non-scratch surface. This will make the pins easier to insert.
*OPTIONAL / NOT RECOMMENDED*
I pulled the battery JST connector out to make it easier to move the board around for soldering. It was firmly in there, so used two sets of pliers to remove. IT's VERY easy to DAMAGE your board like this, so only do this step if you are super confident in your abilities. Not recommended & NO REFUNDS if you damage your product. Mini linesman (square pliers) must be parallel to sides of JST mount on board.
If you haven't recently trimmed your fingernails, I'm sure a motivated person could do it without tools as well.
*/ END OF OPTIONAL STEP*
A real PROTIP is to use tools to prop components FLUSH to the board from underneath & solder them in on top.
This will keep it even when you solder.
The serial programmer, in this instance.
The LCD will no longer let you sit it entirely flat.
The Volume & Brightness Dials ESPECIALLY must be soldered in flush, or they will not be able to turn as they will hit the LCD. Check it on both sides to make sure no gaps are under one of the Dials connector legs.
*OPTIONAL*
Use a microscope (or magnifying glass) to make sure all your solder joints are not overlapping.
For the curious, I viewed the USB microscope output on Ubuntu using Cheese App. No drivers were necessary.
*/ END OF OPTIONAL STEP*
Almost done...
Booting !
All that's left is the case assembly.
I used clear gorilla tape to affix the speaker to the back plate.
Can now play all the demo games on the card !
Remember to sleep!
*We had some extra colored buttons around the office, so used those to spice it up a bit. The standard kit comes with black buttons.
IF you hit any snags, check here first :
IMPORTANT NOTE : Had a brief panic it was dead, as I accidentally shut it off while it was loading a game. When you turn it back on, the screen will be lit, but no content shown.
If this happens to you, follow the C-button (top left) reboot method here :
https://www.makerbuino.com/build-4-some-more-soldering/
BE PATIENT while games are loading, up to 30s each.
BRAND NEW FROM EUROPE !
A very exciting DIY-portable-Arduino based game console !
Unboxing :
Close Up :
We can't wait to get started with this product & will be documenting a build very shortly.
The kit comes in two versions.
For more information, jump to our MAKERbuino product page.
With the 2018 Maker Festival Toronto coming up on July 7th and 8th, we thought it would be fun to build a few things.
Ever since Adafruit released their Animated Eyes Bonnet, I knew we had to build one. We have also been on a big Glowforge kick lately, so it seemed natural build a box for our animated eyes.
Adafruit already has an excellent guide for building the hardware and getting the software working, so we won't go too far into the details on that part. A few things to note:
We started by soldering everything up and installing the software. Here's a video showing the eyes before we built the box
We then took a bunch of measurements and drew some basic drawings. A whiteboard is your friend here.
We used MakerCase to generate the box plans, and then we put the SVG file into Inkscape to add all the holes and artwork. Here it is good to measure twice and cut once. It is easy to make a mistake, and the Glowforge Proofgrade material is not cheap! Here is a video where we are cutting the box on the Glowforge:
We wanted to make it so our fans could see the guts of the project, so we separately cut the top of the box with acrylic. We have found that these boxes are quite sturdy if glued on all sides except the top, so we made the top piece removable.
A bit of assembly and tweaking and we could not be happier with the results! We haven't even tried to update the code yet, this is just the default code. If we have time we will add some sensors and have the eyes react appropriately.
Bill of Material:
Stamps for scale.
Following in the time honoured elmwood tradtion of making desk-toy-classic-mac-tchotchkes...
Quick test of laser cutting a Classic Mac SE/30 papercraft template .
Made a SVG cutting template to lop off all the internal paper folds.
Used original MacPaint demo screen by Susan Kare.
Maybe this little guy will get some guts over the summer.
We'll see...
A new regular Blog series.
Featuring quick overviews of the various platforms Elmwood offers.
Product :
BBC Micro Bit Wikipedia
Current model:
Micro Bit v1
A tiny ARM chip with integrated motion sensor, bluetooth, two buttons & LED grid.
Previous models:
n/a
Installed user base :
The BBC gave out 1 million units to grade 7 students in 2016, with 90%
reporting it made learning programming easier.
As production ramped up, commercial + educational sales have lead to shortages in the past , so a very popular platform.
Out of the Box :
Basic as long as you have a USB to microUSB cable
and access to a computer with a modern browser like Chrome, good to go!
You'll need a battery pack If you want to use it away from a computer ONCE you have already programmed it.
MicroBit GO : Battery pack, batteries & usb cable included
Elmwood Bundle : Battery pack, batteries, usb cable & case included
You can also pair with Android or iOS instead of a laptop to program the MicroBit, but haven't tested that here.
Suggested Companions Out of the box:
MiPower is a bit more convenient than the JST battery pack
Inventors Kit a very popular starter kit.
KittenBOT is just adorable
Tank body. nuff said.
Intended Use :
Home or Classroom fun and enjoyment learning basics of programming.
Programming :
Blocks editor in browser
Python in browser
If you want to code without access to the internet, the Mu editor is a great way to program MicroPython devices including the MicroBit.
Performance :
More of a conveniently packaged chip with controls for learning computing than a barn burning processor.
Hackery :
Good generic platform for quickly prototyping any simple experiment.
Integrated bluetooth and buttons as well as 5 gator clips provide ample
connections.
Or hookup a breakout board to access almost everything.
Or get mobile with your own motor board solution.
Our Full Range of MicroBit Products
Next week :
Arduino !
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