BagLight

What is BagLight?

BagLight is a moveable LED strip designed to help people find items in their bag easily. It has a slide switch,so it can be turned on and off. It also uses a soft battery holder that makes the strip thin and compact.

The outside is made out of leatherette so it is in keeping with the aesthetics of bags, although any fabric could be used. The bag light has a strap that can be pinned or clipped on to the inside of a bag. The straps makes the light able to move around a bag to cover all the hard to reach places.

The soft battery pocket is secured with a snap fastener to give easy access to the coin cell so that it can be changed. BagLight is very easy to make, but requires a basic knowledge of textiles and circuits.

Learn how to:

Make an e-textiles product

Use sewable components

Level of difficulty:

Intermediate (requires basic textiles skills – hand sewing, machine sewing and a basic understanding of simple electronic circuits)

List of components and parts

In order to make your own BagLight you will need:

Thick fabric 2x (16cm x6cm) 1x (18cm x 2cm) 1x (4cm x 5cm) 1x (6cm x 2cm)

Thin fabric 1x (16cm x 6cm)

Conductive fabric 2x (1cm x 4cm)

Bondaweb 2x (1cm x 4cm)

Snap fasteners x1

Sewable LED x5

Sewable slide switch x1

3v coin cell x1

Black thread

Conductive thread

You will also need the following equipment:

Needle

Leather punch

Sewing machine

Iron

Chalk

Ruler

Step 1: Template

Print out the fabric template on an a4 paper, and cut out your fabric

Step 2: Marking Out Fabric

Mark out where the conductive fabric, battery holder and components will be sewn on the thin fabric. For ours we spaced the LED's approximately 1.5cm apart from the centre of each LED.

Step 3: Making Soft Battery Pocket

On the highest setting with no steam, iron the bondaweb paper side up to the conductive fabric. Peel the paper off and then iron one piece to the thin fabric and the other to the battery pocket

Sew the battery pocket onto the thin fabric using the stitch guide lines to create a battery holder.

Step 4: Sewing the Circuit

Using the conductive thread, hand sew the components together in a parallel circuit. Make sure that all the positive and negative side of your components are in the same direction.

Step 5: Adding Final Touches

Mark out where the LEDs holes will go on the front piece and punch the holes through. Use anything that can safely make a hole through your fabric, we have used a leather hole punch.

Fold the strap piece in half, length ways and sew down the open edge. Secure it to the back with a pin or a piece of tape. Sew the strap and the battery flap to the back piece.

Hand stitch the snap fastener to the front piece and the battery flap

Step 6: Putting It All Together

Finally sew all 3 pieces together – the thin fabric with your components on to the back piece and then sew the front piece to the rest of the item, making sure you leave a gap on the top for the battery.