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How To Make Two Daft Punk Outfits with Helmets

How To Make Two Daft Punk Outfits with Helmets
For my 30th Birthday I decided to have a D-Themed costume party, my girlfriend Kylie and I decided that we would go as Daft Punk. The costumes were quite involved to make, but we had lots of fun and they looked great!

We used a lot of resources from the internet, including a great article on how to stitch EL wire into clothes that I found here: http://www.instructables.com/id/how-to-add-EL-wire-to-a-coat-or-other-garment/.

I also learned a lot about prototyping boards (particularly the Arduino, and its clone the Seeeduino) and really enjoyed tinkering around with LED Arrays, learning the difference between common cathode and common anode, figuring out how breadboards work, and just generally collecting heaps of post at work from various electronics and EL wire companies.

Here's a few videos showing the final result, so you can decide whether you want to bother reading any further:






 
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Step 1Ingredients

Ingredients
Quite a few bits and bobs went into the outfits, here's a list of what we used.

Before you start, I'd recommend finding a talented, amazing girlfriend who can sew 100m of fishing wire and 75m of EL wire into two outfits and have the result look just like the Daft Punk originals. You can't have mine though.

Outfits

1. Two Pairs of Jeans.
2. Two Jackets.
3. One Black Fabric Dye Pack.
4. 65m of EL Wire, cut to different lengths and pre-soldered to order.
5. Four KL10 Power Packs for the EL Wire.
6. Four 1.5m EL Wire Extension Wires.
7. Four 1-3 EL Wire Splitters.
8. 100m of Fishing Wire.
9. Two Blunt Sewing Needles.
10. One Box of Plasters.
11. Four 9v (PP3) Batteries.

Helmets

1. Two Black Box WIred Motorcycle Helmets.
2. Two Black Visors (not street legal in the UK).
3. Two 5m Lengths of EL Wire, pre-soldered to order.
4. Two KH4 Battery Packs for the EL Wire.
5. Two Seeeduino (Arduino clone) Prototype Boards.
6. Two Max7221 LED Control Chips.
7. Two Breadboards.
8. Two 8x8 RGB Common Anode (Cathode would have been better) LED Arrays.
9. Two Handfuls of Jumper Wires.
10. Four AA Batteries.

I will upload the code I wrote for the Arduino that controls the LED array so you can use that too if you like. Even if you want to change the display it's probably easier to start with something that works already.
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71 comments
1-40 of 71next »
Oct 11, 2011. 4:36 PMbr0ken_shad0w says:
Thanks for the inspiration guys! I went a slightly different direction from your instructions. Instead of the LED control chips, I bought a LCD Backpack from sparkfun.com. It's expensive ($60) but saved me a lot time in wiring it all together since all I needed was 5 jumper wires. I think it's coming up nicely (looks crooked but that's because I'm still tweaking the program and haven't taped it in yet):
Jan 6, 2012. 8:40 AMsugarloo says:
hey let me buy one if you have another 1, russiankin@gmail.com
Oct 11, 2011. 4:45 PMbr0ken_shad0w says:
Edit: that would be a LED matrix with backpack: http://www.sparkfun.com/products/760
Jan 23, 2011. 3:39 AMDa_Fudge says:
Your guide inspired me to make a similar thing for my grade 11 formal. We ordered 16 MAX7219's, 16 Red LED Matrix's, a heap of batteries, 2 Arduino's, but only 20m of wire (10 red, 10 blue).

I wish we had have bought more wire, as we ran out, only being able to just outline everything. We also went to the op-shop and bought some second hand dinner suits, and put our wire on those. We ran out of time to finish them properly, and didn't even manage to get any of the matrix's hooked up and working. On the afternoon of the formal, we threw together a night rider scanner and sound sensitive jaw of LED's.

I WILL be rebuilding these, using the matrix's, more wire, and maybe even some sequencing...

Thank's for the inspiration!
Apr 29, 2011. 7:45 PMjoehudy says:
can some one make a patern for el's fore a little kid hotwheels car
Mar 8, 2011. 5:27 AMnin434 says:
please can u tell me where i can find a helmet like thomas bangalter, i really cant find any, and if u can, ill buy a full daftpunk suit from u, name your prise!! T_T
Feb 2, 2011. 3:46 PMrtty21 says:
BOSS!
Jan 12, 2011. 4:19 PMbandgeekzak says:
About how much did this cost? and i am only looking to make one costume. Guy's to be exact. so i just need a rough estimate of the cost.
Dec 29, 2010. 10:33 PMtobymac987 says:
Hey buddy I just had a quick question. I am about to start working on this but was wondering. I am only making 1 costume right now. So how many feet of EL wire would I need for just 1 do you think? I know in the instructions you say 65M or el wire that rounds out to like 234 feet is that right or am i mis-understanding. I only ask because that seems like alot.
Oct 31, 2010. 11:31 PMlaurieann says:
Thanks for the instructable! I made a Daft Punk jacket for Halloween. Was super fun, and I made it so everything can blink or be constant.
Mar 21, 2009. 6:52 PMfinfan7 says:
It would be awesome to put an LED equaliser in the visor of one of the helmets.
Oct 13, 2009. 7:50 PMagent says:
When I make my suit (with several arduinos for 4 LED matrices) I'll try to do this! What I want to include is an MP3 (or maybe just Aux input) player in it. The equalizer idea isn't too bad :D
Mar 6, 2010. 6:03 PMgrrroundhawk says:
YOU SHOULD MAKE AN INSTRUCTABLE ON THAT.
I WOULD BE FOREVER IN YOUR DEBT. 
Mar 6, 2010. 6:08 PMfinfan7 says:
I second that motion.
Sep 16, 2010. 8:56 PMPryo Chain says:
I concur.
Sep 29, 2010. 3:50 PMagent says:
I finally have the means to actually do it, I'm finally going to start.
Oct 10, 2010. 4:06 PMmspark400 says:
You can also chain several (up to 8 at least?) max27xx chips together very easily for multiple displays. One thing to consider however is your current draw from multiple displays(on a full on intensity image, the ma's add up significantly).
Best of luck to you.

cheers,
Mspark400
Jun 22, 2010. 6:21 PMhellonfire30 says:
Umm can you put some pictures of the helmets to see how they turned out.
Apr 23, 2010. 3:48 PMnin434 says:
how much will all of this cost... coz it looks like alot and im not that rich im just 13 years old
Feb 22, 2010. 7:46 PMwannaburst27 says:
do i need to solder this at all??
Feb 21, 2010. 1:04 PMbp-builder-24 says:

Would I have to use both the Arduino and the Seeeduino, or can I just use the Arduino?

Feb 19, 2010. 9:00 PMJ who says:
 Where did you guys get the jacket that looks like theres i need to know please.
Feb 13, 2010. 7:57 PMclonaciano says:
how much would be the total cost for the two outfits and helmets with the EL wire and LED. Pleace respond me.
Oh!!! and by the way, it looks AWESOME!!!!!!!!!
Jan 15, 2010. 7:21 PMmjlynch712 says:
For the EL wire, how long did each battery last for?
Nov 17, 2009. 5:32 PMVables says:
How much did the EL wire cost? i leave near that shop so i was thinking of going down soon, i just wanna know how much im looking at before i go down lol.
Nov 17, 2009. 5:35 PMVables says:
i meant live..... sorry
Oct 19, 2009. 6:01 PMTheSuperSoap says:
I'm interested in building the helmet. Do I need to buy the breadboard for constructing the LED display?
Oct 20, 2009. 5:24 PMTheSuperSoap says:
alright thanks! I'm not good at soldering either, so I'll follow your instructions with the breadboard.
Oct 16, 2009. 3:59 PMborregotv says:
just want to make sure one thing is it really 65 METERS????!?!?  are you sure?!?! thats a lot and to long, well for me; but anyways are you really sure its 65 meters?

Oct 16, 2009. 10:37 PMSpartah says:
fdsfs QR3RQ3FFEFWEXFDSdqeddc 
Oct 14, 2009. 11:38 AMSilasR says:
did you use continuous pieces of EL wire for the trousers/jacket or didyou cut it into pieces connected with cheaper more flexible wire?
1-40 of 71next »

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