Busy hands | Disquiet mind

I find myself wanting to use the same hardware controls in different projects again and again. But in various configurations. Can I make something modular, that I can reuse as needed?

Let's take the Colour Stealing circuit, actually let's take the version with a microphone.

( Details )

Here's the whole system; wrist controller connected to power regulation and signal level shifter board and NeoPixel matrix. For the longer runs of wire I'm using thicker silicone wire that I have loosely plaited.

Overall it has the same problem as watches, in that the heavier section has a habit of shifting around, but if it annoys too much I suppose I could always stick it in place. The nice thing is that it all disassembles cleanly, making everything (not soldered to the protoboard) reusable.

Wrist Controller in the middle of it all
Photo by chebe

A long, long time ago, in a terrifying place known as "the real world" I acquired a fibre-optic LED umbrella. It was wonderful quality and lasted me a long time. Until one day the lights would not turn on, no matter how new the AA batteries I offered it were. Then it sat, half forgotten, in a dark cupboard, for a long time.

The place I bought it from no longer sold them, so earlier this year I decided to fix it. First step; take it apart and have a look see.

( Take apart, reassemble )

That's it. Now go play with your own private starfield.

It works!
Photo by chebe

In times gone by, when you caught a cold or got a cough, one of the things you could do to try and cure it was to tie a red flannel around your neck, under your clothes. Did the extra layer of warmth actually help, or was it just superstition? I'm not in a position to answer that, but it sparks some interesting questions.

For all its vibrant colours, traditional torque design, and dynamic nod-to-Newgrange kerbstone spirals, this piece strikes me as something futuristic, or interstellar. How Niki massaged the felt into these shapes I've no idea but, except for the torque clasp, this is one solid piece.

Red flannel neckpiece at Dublin Maker
Photo by chebe

( Glorious details )

But for all the set-backs and frustrations, this piece turned out to be many peoples favourite. Everyone who tried it laughed, some almost split their sides. Niki has some good ideas on improvements for the next version, and at the very least there will be fewer microcontrollers involved! So keep an eye-out for the next revision.

Last we looked in on this project I'd just added in the adapter for the keypad and a battery holder. Since then a couple of things happened.

One; in the two-and-a-half years since starting this project, the silver on the conductive thread has started to corrode. This manifested first as the programmed time delays no longer seeming to work right, and then with an un-even light disruption across the LED grid (this happens anyway, but wasn't noticeable before this). So I rather carefully went over every single trace of conductive thread with a thin paintbrush and a bottle of fray-stop glue. Hopefully it will slow down further corrosion.

Two; I got my hands on a IR-detector unit, and wanted to include it in the top (as talked about in the Dublin Maker Faire post). To make this possible the keypad-adapter would have to double up as an ir-adapter. But this required a change of circuit layout.

The keypad has five wires; 3 output, 1 led, 1 ground. The ir-detector has four wires; 1 output, 1 led, 1 ground, 1 power. The adapter has five slots. But two of them are pins 0 and 1 (Rx & Tx) and I had trouble getting them to work consistently. So to fit everything in I decided to move the power and ground lines out to their own adapter. But where was I to find a two-pin breakout board? They come in large, small (used for the existing adapter), and that's it. *brainwave* I remembered a set of empty LED boards I hadn't gotten around to using.



And sure enough, two separate connections, just add headers! I pulled out the existing stitching and stitched the new layout in. The power lines are actually run along the back in channels of bias-binding for insulation because the whole thing is so crowded at this point.



Turned it on, fixed up the code (new pin numbers), adjusted the timing on the patterns, and tried my hand at interrupt coding. However, before I could finish it up, my top needed to go off with Jeffrey_Roe and PartFusion to NY MakerFaire to represent tog, so development of new features was promptly abandoned, to be continued once it returns. (Although, I hear it was a bit wet, so I expect my top probably stayed in somewhere nice and dry.) *edit* Spot the LED top. But now I have a definite list of things that need doing, and then it will actually be finished!

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4.a

The Electro-Sewing Workshop was last Friday, and I feel it went very well. Even with starting on Irish-Standard-Time and forcing the class to sit through a slide-deck, there were seven very pretty LED-flowers two-and-a-half hours later. Definitely a success!

Here's a couple of pics from the night.



Aren't they pretty! I am planning to write up a how-to for these, but truth be known, they follow essentially the same method as for the LED-horns from last year. Nonetheless, people seemed rather enthused about the whole experience :)

I've also gotten my hands on the new LilyPad ProtoSnap Development Board. It's very nifty; all the main components of the LilyPad range, pre-connected on one board! So you can practice your programming, or simply getting the components to work together the way you want, without having to worry about any of that sewing malarkey. Then, if you want, you can snap the pieces apart and sew them into an actual project!

I plugged it in just yesterday and was highly amused to find a pre-loaded program that tests most of the components (make sure to play with the switches!). But, looking closely, I've noticed that only the RGB-LED, the five white LEDs, and the momentary push-button are connected to actual sew-holes on the Simple Microcontroller Board. The rest of them are connected through paths that would be available on the full Microcontroller Board, but that aren't exposed on the Simple board. Makes sense, seeing as how the LEDs/button take up all the existing holes! (Still, I imagine the numbers printed on next to the other components could get confusing for someone just starting out. Speaking of, there's a nice tutorial available to get you up and running.)

And all this has inspired me to maybe run a LilyPad course in tog in January. We'll see.


In other news, I don't have any photos from Octocon, but we made the same flowers as shown above, and you can check out the photos from Darklight (where I spent some time teaching people to solder) in the Gallery. (Can you spot me, or rather my Dresden Dolls hoodie?) That's almost it for my busy October. *phew*