LED Holiday Tie

Make an LED holiday tie for that special man in your life this Christmas.  It is easy to create fun light patterns using Aniomagic's Sparkle Board even if you don't have any previous knowledge of circuitry or programming.  This is a great project to do with your kids to teach them a bit about electronics.

Check out these other Instructables that use the Sparkle Board:
Sparkle TuTu by Lynne Bruning
Programmable Light Up Fairy Wings by the_gella

Step 1 Materials

• Conductive Thread - you can purchase this from Sparkfun
• Sparkle Board - from Aniomagic
• Sparkle LEDs - I used 10, 4 white, 3 red, and 3 green.  Don't forget the sparkle board has an LED on it, so in total I have 11 lights on my tie.
• Battery Holder - I purchased mine from Sparkfun.  Aniomagic has a battery holder with a built in switch but they were out of stock.  I didn't include a switch in my circuit so to turn the tie on and off I just take the battery out of the holder.
• 2032 Coin Cell Battery 3V - can purchase from Sparkfun

Comments

[mikeasaurus]

I can't believe that you program it by holding it up to your monitor, awesome!

[Treknology]

Yep, I had a PDA that was updated the same way. The program would just flash a sequence of lines up and down the screen for about 10 seconds and my PDA was completely up-to-date. Only worked with CRTs :(

[Treknology]

As this Sartorial Faux Pas has been plaguing men's fashion ever since four misbehaved school boys removed their hatbands and tied them around their necks I love to see these humble send-ups. Nicely done.

[hedgerus]

I made a very similar tie about a year ago for my neon-themed homecoming dance. Except, I didn't take the time to get good components and had a bundle of wires routed through the shirt and tie to the controls in my pocket. Nice work!

[agis68]

coolest tie ever!!!...any sound on it in an advanced version?

[who1buffy]

Cool tie. In my e-mail, they called it a "Disco Tie."
Holiday Ties sounds better, since there are
persistent rumors that disco is deceased. :)
Happy Holidays!

[pop88]

Very good
Thank you

[fjordcarver]

This is so cool! The first datalink watches downloaded like this....Thanks!! Awesome!