Introduction: Wearable Loading Wheel - Motion Deactivated

By Dan Chen

I am bring Loading Wheel to real-life!

This is a motion deactivated loading wheel, when you stop moving the loading lights comes on. I found the spinning light to be extremely meditating in the real-life.

For this project, you will need

  • Access to a laser cutter
  • 1/4 "Acrylic Clear
  • 1/8 "Acrylic Black
  • NeoPixel Ring from Adafruit, or individually addressable RGB LED
  • Accelerometer, analog
  • Gemma or any small Micro controller with at lease 1 Digital Pin and 1 Analog Pin
  • Small Lipo Battery, I used 150 mAh
  • Some wires
  • 4 1/8 Screws

Step 1: Laser Cut + Sandblast + Fitting

First, we need to cut some acrylics.

In the cut file you will see 6 circles

  1. The front Disk - Black Arctic
  2. Light diffuser - 1/4" Clear Acrylic
  3. NeoPixel Ring Holder (12) - 1/4" Clear Acrylic
  4. Electronic Housing - 1/4" Clear Acrylic
  5. Electronic Housing - 1/4" Clear Acrylic
  6. Back Cover - Black Arctic

Make sure your NeoPixel Ring fits tightly.

Take sandpaper or better yet, sandblaster to blast the surface of #2, light diffuser

Attachments

Step 2: Assemble Electronics

I use 3M double sided tape to tape all layers together, from layer 1 to 5, layer 6 can be screw on.

Everything should fit nicely in the housing area.

Connections

  • The Gemma comes with Lipo battery jack, which makes it easy to assemble.
  • You would connect Neopixl's Data Input to Gemma's D0
  • Connect Neopixel's GND to Gemma's GND
  • Connect Gmeea's Vout to Neopixel's 5V DC Power
  • Connect Accelerometer's GND to GND, VCC to 3V
  • Connect Accelerometer's X, Y, or Z pin to A1 (You can play with the position by charing the pin )

That's it for wiring.

You can close the housing with 4 screws and attach a string to make it wearable.

Step 3: Programing

The attached Arduino Sketch is based on Neopixel's library. You can have it in rainbow color or different pattern when "deactivated"

Attachments