After failing to get the cycling jacket done I was desperate to create SOMETHING wearable with neopixels and the micro:bit. I love my micro:bit belt but it drains a lot of power, even from separate batteries. I wanted something smaller that would run off the micro:bit, more subtle, but just as fun.
Going back to teaching in September I’ve had to dust off my suits and that’s when I thought of putting neopixels in the sleeve of a work jacket 🙂
Materials
- 4 sewable neopixels (the cheapest I’ve found in the UK are to buy 20 from CPC, still quite pricey)
- Conductive thread
- Velcro (any decent craft/wool shop will have velcro strips)
- A jacket with long sleeves
- micro:bit
- micro:bit battery pack with batteries
- Ring terminals
- M3 bolt and nuts
- Multi thread wire – 3 strips as long as your wrist to your chest
Instructions
- Measure the inside of your sleeve
- Cut your 2 pieces of velcro – the rough bit and the smooth bit – the smooth bit is going on the inside of your sleeve so your wrist won’t be shredded when not wearing the neopixels
- UPDATES below have an alternative to sewing directly into velcro. Using the conductive thread, sew the 4 neopixels onto the smooth side of the rough velcro strip. The rough side is going to stick to the jacket.
- Sew the 3 wires onto the rings of 3 ring terminals
- If the terminals look like they could touch, insulate them with cellotape. It’s really important none of the 3 connections touch. Make sure the threads don’t touch or the metal parts of the ring terminals
- Strip and place wire into 3 ring terminals. Crimp like the hulk
- Take the + wire and connect to the 3V of the micro:bit
- Take the – wire and connect to the GND of the micro:bit
- Take the -> wire and connect to Pin 2 of the micro:bit
- To connect to the micro:bit I used more ring terminals, crimping and M3 bolts and nuts in the micro:bit holes. The only problem with this way of connecting wires to the micro:bit is you might get some problems with the other pins between 0, 1 and 2 that control the LED lights of the micro:bit. I’m not using the lights in this project so this isn’t an issue for me.
- To connect to the micro:bit I used more ring terminals, crimping and M3 bolts and nuts in the micro:bit holes. The only problem with this way of connecting wires to the micro:bit is you might get some problems with the other pins between 0, 1 and 2 that control the LED lights of the micro:bit. I’m not using the lights in this project so this isn’t an issue for me.
- Sew a smooth piece of material onto the inner of your sleeve.
- Stick the neopixel velcro onto the sleeve
- Run the wires up your arm and place the micro:bit in the inside pocket alongside the battery
- I used the belt code to create a rainbow effect
UPDATES
With the finished project I realised the conductive thread was exposes on the sticky side of the velcro. So everytime I pulled it off the jacket, it risked pulling out my thread or worse – crossing wires and shorting the micro:bit
So instead of step 3 above try:
Sewing the neopixels into a piece of material first. I used a piece of cross stitch material. Then machine sew that piece of material onto the velcro. It’s a tight fit but now my conductive thread is safe and much neater:
I also sewed the terminal rings on at different lengths to guarantee they wouldn’t touch each other. You can see how much neater the stitching is on the material: