LED-lit Tron v2.0 suit

Step 2 Clothing Layout

I'm not really a clothing design expert, so I made this suit by attaching laser cut faux leather to a store-bought undergarment instead of sewing *everything* from scratch.

Your undergarment needs to have the following characteristics in order to work for this project:

1. You want an undergarment that is pretty much form fitting (I got one that was a size too small for me on purpose).
2. You want something that can diffuse light well, and absorb very little light.
3. It is recommended to use something with flat seams on both sides of the garment. This will make your life *much* easier when it comes to attachment of the light blocking material.

This requirements pretty much limit your search to lightweight athletic performance base layers. For the record, I ended up using an REI Lightweight Polartech Power Dry Base Layer as my undergarment.

For the overlay material, you need something that is going to be completely opaque to very bright LEDs, yet laserable. This limits your choices pretty much right off the bat to some sort of synthetic leather (which stinks since it is still kind of spendy...I'd love to hear of other lightproof, wearable, black fabrics that people know of in the comments below). I used some Home Decor Fabric made from polyurethane

Comments

[r351574nc3]

Have you considered neoprene?

[sheetmetalalchemist]

Yes! Someone else here actually mentioned this. It sounds like it could be viable, but YEOW would it get hot!

[ahunt7]

so the shirt material is nearly see through and the leather isnt right.

[sheetmetalalchemist]

Yup - you've got it!

[paulzef]

I've had similar problems with fabric in other projects I've done, I found that a layer of very black (that brand new black that you can only seem to find in clothing) fabric like the ones they use for T-shirts (it had a tight weave meaning less light gets through) with a metalic layer of black fabric from a dressmakers or craft store layered on the back (metalic side ine, very thin) blocks like ALL the light for LED's. I've even got a cape made of it :) If I get around to doing this project, I'll let you know how it turns out.

[sheetmetalalchemist]

Wow - that sounds like a great idea. It would also probably be way more comfy than the fake leather that I used. Can you laser through that metallic stuff though?