Latch-Modified Turn-Signal Jacket

I, with support from Prof. Kylie Peppler at Indiana University, made a version of Leah Buechley's turn-signal bike jacket.  We added an 8 bit latch to expand 3 pins to 8 (for additional lights), and use those extra pins to light up the left and right arrows. 

In this tutorial I will show you some of the new soft circuits techniques I learned, as well as how to use an 8-bit latch.

Materials:

• Conductive Thread
• 8 bit latch (74HC595)
• 24 LilyPad LEDs (7 for each arrow, 8 for the latch, 1 for each indicator light)
• LilyPad Arduino
• Lilypad Power Supply and AAA battery
• Fusible Interfacing
• Stretch Conductive Fabric
• Perfboard
• Wire
• 2 Buttons

 

Step 1 Wiring Diagram

For any project, it's always good to start sketching how  your electronics will be connected.    I've attached my sketch below.  Notice the green line coming from the left button switch crosses the Positive and Negative lines from the power supply.  This happened because I actually didn't sketch out a wiring diagram before I started.  Nevertheless, it was easy to sew over the lines by insulating the thread with non-conductive beads.  This will be demonstrated in a few steps.  For now let's lay out the components on the sweatshirt

Comments

[the_gella]

Sparkfun now sells a ribbon with three conductors in it that would also work great for this step instead of the conductive fabric. http://www.sparkfun.com/commerce/product_info.php?products_id=10172

[quasiben]

That would've been great. Actually, I've been meaning to order some. The people that make that have some other cool products: http://www.fabrick.it/