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My idea was to make a jacket which is illuminated by LED`s. Therefore i searched for an old, thin and solid jacket with as much as possible pockets. I found one in my wardrobe. I turned the jacket around so the pockets were on the inside. This was necessary because later on the pockets were used for the batteries. I wanted to avoid that the energy of the light was absorbed by the dark textile of the jacket so i took a thin, reflecting sleeping-pad, laminated with aluminium and sewed it to the jacket. For the next step, i used 27 light strings, each with 20 LED`s, so 540 LED`s had to be distributed on the jacket. The color i choosed was aqua-blue with white. Each light string runs with 2 AA batteries, so at first i putted the battery holders to the inside of the pockets and then fastend the LED`s on the sleeping-pad in a fairly evently division by using tape. As i wanted the look of the jacket to be a little more decent, i had to find a way to diffuse the bright light points of the LED`s. Therefore i took a cottonwool-pad which was thin enough to transmit most of the light to the outside but was also thick enough to diffuse the light waves. As the cottonwool is not very robust i decided to cover the whole jacket with a transparent plastic foil.
Materials
Tools
If you like my instructables, i also would like to see you on my Facebook account: "BenJeneer" there you get more information about the things i`m currently working on.
My idea was to make a jacket which is illuminated by LED`s. Therefore i searched for an old, thin and solid jacket with as much as possible pockets. I found one in my wardrobe. I turned the jacket around so the pockets were on the inside. This was necessary because later on the pockets were used for the batteries. I wanted to avoid that the energy of the light was absorbed by the dark textile of the jacket so i took a thin, reflecting sleeping-pad, laminated with aluminium and sewed it to the jacket. For the next step, i used 27 light strings, each with 20 LED`s, so 540 LED`s had to be distributed on the jacket. The color i choosed was aqua-blue with white. Each light string runs with 2 AA batteries, so at first i putted the battery holders to the inside of the pockets and then fastend the LED`s on the sleeping-pad in a fairly evently division by using tape. As i wanted the look of the jacket to be a little more decent, i had to find a way to diffuse the bright light points of the LED`s. Therefore i took a cottonwool-pad which was thin enough to transmit most of the light to the outside but was also thick enough to diffuse the light waves. As the cottonwool is not very robust i decided to cover the whole jacket with a transparent plastic foil.
Materials
- Jacket
- Aluminium laminated sleeping-pad
- LED´s (11 x 20 aqua-blue + 16 x 20 aqua-blue-white)
- Batteries 54 x AA 1,5V
- Tape
- Cottonwool ~2 m2
- Plastic foil ~2 m2
- Spray adhesive
- Transparent spray paint
- Old newspaper
Tools
- Sewing machine
- Needle
- Cutter
- Scissors
- Heat gun
- Hands
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At first i thought about using aluminium foil to produce a reflecting surface. But then, i decided to use a more solid material like the sleeping pad because later on the LEDs will be fixed on that surface. Using aluminium foil would lead to a surface which tears very quickly.
As you can see, there are some parts which are not covered with the sleeping pad. Especially at the places where the movement of the joints compress and strech the textile of the jacket, i choosed to work without the sleeping pad. Most of the pieces were sewed to the jacket with a sewing machine. Only the upper lows were sewed with an ordinary needle, the sewing machine wasn´t big enough for these parts.
As you can see, there are some parts which are not covered with the sleeping pad. Especially at the places where the movement of the joints compress and strech the textile of the jacket, i choosed to work without the sleeping pad. Most of the pieces were sewed to the jacket with a sewing machine. Only the upper lows were sewed with an ordinary needle, the sewing machine wasn´t big enough for these parts.
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each light string runs separately with one battery pack (2 AA batteries).