LED Clothing

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DaddyWizard
 
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LED Clothing

Post by DaddyWizard »

Hey guys,

So I have a couple of questions and comments and maybe I could use some help.

First I have an LED cloak with WS2811 IP65 in the edges and cuffs using an LED SHOP wireless controller, all 12v with a 12v battery pack.

I recently discovered that the IP65 might not be the best application for the desired use, and that IP67 which has a little bit more movement capability for clothing. However, I get it LED's are not ready to be put into clothing. Don't judge me. I don't mind doing the repair work after each rave.

I have a second cloak that has RBG Analog lights with a simple controller in it, and it is less delicate but has the same silicone protection that the WS2811 IP65 uses.

So after extensive use I have found the WS2811 IP67 to be better and I am going to swap them all out, but in my adventures and research, I realize that I want to make a hat.

Like a mad hatter hat. I want to use the adafruit micro neo lights, but I need to put them around the brim and have a controller that I can hide in the hat, preferably a USB Battery bank at 5v but if I have to use a 12v I can just make the hat slightly bigger, I have a big head anyways. It being a hat, and it will be staying on my head or held delicately, It will not be abused as much as the cloak. The cloak has alot of movement and sway which is def not good for the ws2811 strips.

What lights would you guys recommend and what controller would you recommend for a wearable hat application / situation. I would prefer a controller that I can either pre-program before a rave or use a phone app to control at the rave.

Additionally, I am making a rave vest with ws2811 IP67 strips. However, I am curious if you guys might have some other recommendation.
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Led Light Clothing
Led Light Clothing
daddyWizardLights.PNG (105.95 KiB) Viewed 351 times

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rpiloverbd
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by rpiloverbd »

As you are planning to control the dress with a phone app, I think you can use Adafruit Flora and Adafruit Flora Bluefruit LE together.
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-flora-bluefruit-le

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DaddyWizard
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by DaddyWizard »

I will probably have 200+ LEDs especially since I am using the neo LED strips to go around the hat brim of the wizard hat.

I will have at least 400+ LEDs on the vest if using the NEO LED strips. So thoughts still the same controller wise?

Adam

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rpiloverbd
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by rpiloverbd »

Flora can handle up to 500 neopixel LEDs. For more details you can see here: https://learn.adafruit.com/flora-rgb-smart-pixels

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

RGB LEDs require 3 bytes of RAM per pixel (4 for RGBW). This needs to be shared with the stack, heap and any local variables. The Flora has 2.5K of RAM. Allowing 0.5K for typical Arduino overhead, that leaves room for about 680 RGB or 500 RGBW pixels max. You may end up with somewhat less depending on the complexity of your code.

Something like the CircuitPlayground Express would give you a LOT more room (192KB RAM!). And we also have a Bluetooth capable version of that which you could pair with your phone for remote control.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3333
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4333

We also have several Bluetooth enabled boards in the Feather series such as the Adafruit Feather nRF52 Bluefruit:
https://www.adafruit.com/product/3406

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DaddyWizard
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by DaddyWizard »

Ok so that was really good, I was more concerned about the limited pixels.

ok so I am doing a vest.

I need <= 500 pixels for the vest, so the flora should work.

Ok so now need to figure out the LEDs for the vest. This is a wearable vest, but the sew-in single LEDs are too expensive, so I need to do ws2811 or ws2812 strips. The idea would be to put around the arm cuffs and then outline just like the video above except in a vest version. The above LEDs are 12v. I want super bright, and not sure if 5V would be good, but what about battery power for the 5v LED strips and then the Flora. I'm reading the learning page and learning. Just takes time. I have a house to keep and work to do. Hahaha

So now I need to figure out the power sources and the LEDs. Then I can purchase everything.

My thought is to sew flora into the back of the vest, and then run conductive thread through to the arm cuffs and run actual wire down the back for the longer runs. I don't want to wear an undershirt so my other thought is I cannot use conductive thread for the runs just for the LED strips. Then use clips to connect to the conductive thread.

I need to make it rave tough, but I'm delicate, but during raves my solder joints keep coming off especially at the cuffs so I want to change that to E-thread.

I have until March 22nd to get this made. I think a 1 month time line is good.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

The above LEDs are 12v. I want super bright, and not sure if 5V would be good, but what about battery power for the 5v LED strips and then the Flora.
The 12v strips are not any brighter than the 5v strips. In fact, the LEDs themselves never see much more more than 3v for the blue and less than that for the green and red. For portable or wearable projects, we routinely run Neopixels directly from a 3.7v LiPo.
during raves my solder joints keep coming off especially at the cuffs so I want to change that to E-thread.
Solder joints do tend to break if they are not properly strain relieved. But conductive thread has more than its own share of issues with high resistance, no insulation and knots coming loose.

For a reliable build, I would use silicone coated stranded wire for flexibility with strain relieved solder joints.

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rpiloverbd
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by rpiloverbd »

Thanks a lot for answering, dear admin. I also got to learn about Adafruit circuit playground express from your answer. I used Flora but this is something new to me.

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DaddyWizard
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by DaddyWizard »

I did not know this about the 12v and 5v strips being the same brightness. I just made assumptions.

I have figured out how to relieve stress on the solder joints. i need to wrap the wire into the cuffs, but i'd still like quick detach. the strips break easily.

I have been using the silcone water resistant strips ws2811 IP65.

I want to make a vest with Adafruit LED controller and NEO-Pixles with a protection like ip67 not so much like ip65.

My goal is to make something similar to this as my first full project myself. Then I can figure out the big cloak and what to use on it. The vest won't be as fluid as the cloak is though.

Main goal, blue tooth app controlled LEDs
Fresh look with a light weight top. I wouldn't mind having a hat that was in synch or a headband. But I'm good with just a vest.

I'm also thinking about putting LED's on the trim/edge on an iridescent vest such as the one pictured. Anythoughts?


Right now i'm looking at buying a bunch of LED strips, some EL wire, a battery pack, a power source, and a controller. I'm still up in the air on what to get. I'd like to figure that out sometime this week and put my order in so I can have something. I'm going to Buku Music Festival and I really want to rock some Adafruit LED tech.

I have been watching many of the learning videos but still so much to learn. I can solder the LEDs to repair what I have.

I was using LED Shop controllers with LED strips and I thought I was doing good, but adafruit was recommended to me by someone and it opened up a whole new door.
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coolVest.jpg
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145-2.jpg
145-2.jpg (485.99 KiB) Viewed 296 times

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

IP65 should be sufficient for a wearable - unless you plan to go diving with it.

For lining the edge of your vest, you probably want something that is not too bulky. The mini-skinny strips might be a good choice: https://www.adafruit.com/product/2969

An important consideration when using strips in wearables is avoiding repeated extreme flexing of the strips. Yes, they are flexible, but the backing is more flexible than the chips and the solder joints. So when you flex them, all of the stress is concentrated on the solder joints and they will eventually fail with repeated stress. One technique is to cut the strip at joints such as shoulders and elbows and connect the cut sections with silicone-coated wire and strain-relieved solder joints. That way, most of the bending happens with the flexible wire.

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DaddyWizard
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by DaddyWizard »

So for the vest I want to make 2 versions one like my cloak and one like the above.

I like those strips, 144 are too many,
adafruit.com/product/2959
This is better, for my application because battery time is important as well as # of pixels. I think the 144/meter is better for the replica of the one above. That one will be a challenge because I want all the lights to light up from bottom up and all the colors to synch. but that is for another discussion.

Cloak version for iridescent vest:
So lets say I get enough to do two arm cuffs, safe to say that approx. 120 pixels I figure 1 meter or less per arm. I can figure out the exact pixels once I get the vest in but I can chop chop chop.

run the wires on the inside using https://www.adafruit.com/product/3169 3 colors of course
I don't necessarily have to use wires, I could use Thread, but sweat! There will be sweat! always!

Then I would say another 3-4 meters or 240 pixels for the outer trim of the vest. so my pixel count would be 360-400 which is well within the 500 limit and gives me room to add extra data to the code. (i'm still not sure how to code the pixels I have always used presets). I'll give you an example. I need 1 zone for the cuffs and 1 zone for the trim. however the trim will be split in half in terms of pixles. I'll run one cable down the back, but split the cable off to send data down one strip that goes around the body to the left and the split goes also to the right around the body, so when the lights come up, they come up side by side and end dead center back of neck. So while I have ability to program what 500 LEDs in RAM, I may only need 120-140 for the body zone and 60 for the cuff zone. (these are all estimates of course) Based on simply sending data down the wire. Thoughts?

In order to control the pixels use a flora, plus blue tooth
https://www.adafruit.com/product/659
https://www.adafruit.com/product/2487

Now understanding how to link the power to power the pixels, this I am confused about. I need a 6+hr battery source. I don't mind making a pocket for USB battery pack.

then figuring out the coloring, very important because I want to be able to change it on demand. my ws2811 robe has 180 different settings I can use, preprogrammed of course. Plus on demand single color functions.

when you say to relieve stress by worrying about certain spots, your telling me to cut the strip and put a little dead space in and use steel wire to connect them. The stress points should just be the corners and where you solder the 30awg wire onto the contact points. I also noticed that on the strips, when they connect to the next set of strips where a cut spot would be there are machine made solder joints. Those def break. Think of the vest or cloak as flowing. I could show you a video of what I mean, but I can't upload it here unfortunately. :-( There are no bendy stress points. More flow stress points and movement points, my current cloak the resolution was to run wire behind the LEDs in each cuff to relieve stress of the connection to the cuff. Worked magnificently, applied the same idea to the long strip in the back. I feel like the vest will have less stress because 1) it is lighter and 2) less pixels 3)shorter strips means less flow

I realize that LED's are not exactly meant to be worn, but I enjoy wearing them so I don't mind the upkeep. All fun things have upkeep these days.


please correct me if I am wrong on my above application of the products and ideas. I'm going to purchase materials tomorrow when I get paid to kickstart this project.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

regarding power management for wearable pixel projects, I'd recommend starting with a read through this guide: https://learn.adafruit.com/sipping-power-with-neopixels

The Flora is a rather old processor with limited memory. You might want to consider a more modern processor with built-in bluetooth capability to reduce the bulk, part-count and connections. The CircuitPlayground Express is like a 'Super Flora'. We also have many Bluetooth capable Feather processors. These are nice and compact for wearable projects.
https://www.adafruit.com/product/4333
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-fea ... h-feathers
when you say to relieve stress by worrying about certain spots, your telling me to cut the strip and put a little dead space in and use steel wire to connect them.
Not steel. I recommend using silicone coated stranded copper wire for the connections. Stainless thread is not insulated, not solderable and the knots tend to work loose over time.

There are two levels of strain relief here. The first is using flexible wire at the bending joints. This minimizes strain on the strip itself where the chips are soldered to the flexible backing.

You also need to strain relieve the joints where the wire is soldered to the strips. You want to immobilize the wire to minimize any movement at the point where the flexible wire meets the rigid solder. Hot-glue or Kapton tape work well for that.

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DaddyWizard
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by DaddyWizard »

So I'm working on my cloak now. Wish I could send a video.. but the ip65 worked great on the cuff. See photos

The bottom is ip65 the top is ip67 with silicone.

So out of trial and error ip65 Def the way to go for cuffs.

I did some work to destress the wiring. I mean clean is good but as I'm basically trying different things and hopefully in a year have a finished repairable oak and vest and hat. Just takes time and trial and error..

well nvm. Filesize

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DaddyWizard
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by DaddyWizard »

LEDs on the way
Vest in the way


Now I don't understand how to program the feather or circuit playground to have maybe 50 LED changeable settings.

Can you direct me to that. I'm lost.

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adafruit_support_bill
 
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Re: LED Clothing

Post by adafruit_support_bill »

That is a pretty general question. I'd start with a read through this guide to get an idea of the basics:
https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-neopixel-uberguide

Then have a look through the various Neopixel tutorials in the Learning System for examples similar to the effects you are looking for.
https://learn.adafruit.com/search?q=neopixel

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