8. Feb 25th-Mar 3rd: More electronics and laser cutting fabric grids#

End of February prototyping update

Video documentation#

This week I made videos of what I’ve done so far:

Two interacting oscillators controlled by soft sensors:

Hard to soft#

The next step was to start transferring my ‘hard’ breadboard circuit into a ‘soft’ textile one.

Laser cutting a grid#

I went back to Illustrator and made a quick square grid to laser cut out of fabric. I used a rubber coated fabric, and used speed 100, power 40. (I tested higher powers but this one worked fine).

Attaching the IC socket#

I used a pliers to bend the legs of a 14 pin IC socket so that they faced outwards. I was a little rough with this part and ended up breaking one of the legs - note to self, be more careful this time! Next I used regular, non-conductive, thread to sew the IC socket onto the fabric securely

grid design and with IC socket sewn in

Sewing conductive traces#

I chose a stainless steel conductive thread (you can get it from Adafruit here), as it’s thin enough to be relatively easy to work with, but it’s also quite stiff/springy, so it forms nice loops. I used the grid holes to sew the thread onto the fabric easily. I tested out a couple of different trace designs. I also stuck in some pieces of fabric where traces crossed over, to prevent short circuits.

sewn IC

Testing#

At this point the IC and the resistors have been transferred to soft circuitry, so I stuck the 40106 IC in its socket, assembled the remaining parts of the circuit on a breadboard and connected everything up. And it works!

hybrid circuit

Next steps#

That’s about all I got done this week, and there’s plenty more to do!

Improving the design#

I want to adjust the design so that there are

More soft modules#

I need to also transfer:

to soft circuitry

Then I need to figure out how everything will fit together. I also still want to make more modules, including

But realistically I won’t get all that done ◔ᴗ◔