Yeah I do kinda the same but I embed them into latex prosthetics. Like horns or protrusions for the face that you glue on. They're really good for a cyberpunkey vibe. I'm just casting some at the moment actually because we're coming up on Halloween soon.
They look great but they're difficult to solder. Too little heat and it doesn't attach, too much and it damages them. The strip has some annoying coating that repels the solder.
Some of them have metal crimped contacts that solve this but at the expense of end flexibility. And those usually have contacts at each end, i prefer them with both contacts at the same end so I can cut the strips to size.
They're also prone to breaking and the silicone is very resistant to glues and it keeps jumping around when you try to fix it in place. Embedding totally in liquid latex helps but if you use a lot it takes ages to cure.
I tend to just drive them with an ESP powered by a simple power bank. Just like the OP but I tend to leave out the drivers, for short lengths 3V is ok directly on the ESP. The WLED firmware with an ESP-S3 and a MEMS microphone can even do audio reactivity.
I combine them usually with ws2812 strips too which have individual RGB. These flexi strips of course don't.
Ps one annoying thing is that some strips are much brighter on one side than the other, and some are not. But on AliExpress it's really hard to determine which ones you end up getting.
gotosun1 17 hours ago [-]
This sounds very interesting, do you have any pictures how these look like?
khaki54 23 hours ago [-]
One of my kids had something like this built into a Halloween costume that their mom procured from Amazon. One of the filaments was blinking out within a day so I started running the length of the filament to figure out where the bad connection was. Unexpectedly it shocked the hell out of me. I put a meter on it and it was 240V. I couldn't believe I got such a nasty poke from 2 AA batteries.
Must have been. I ended up tossing it since I'm sure the costume itself was highly flammable
fnord77 19 hours ago [-]
almost certainly, since EL wire has a driver to boost the v
scottbez1 1 days ago [-]
Author here, happy to answer any questions!
ghm2180 9 hours ago [-]
Cool project. The best part is the actual pictures, you can tell taken with care by a human and the project is well described. So hard to find decent writing these days.
I think for your next big idea create a tee that can match any company's swag brand; I am just tired of managing tees that fill up my drawer, I wish I had one that could be me all. ;)
yakk0 10 hours ago [-]
this is a really cool project! In the future you might want to print the paper designs in reverse and put it on the inside. Any paper remnants wouldn't be visible. I think that's how a lot of embroidered products do it, and I've had some hats that leave a lot of the material instead of tearing it out.
bigwheels 1 days ago [-]
Just want to say- this is a really neat idea and project!
I wonder if white thread would've been more invisible, the black thread seems more obvious against the LEDs? Being nitpicky, its a cool project for a single night.
d3Xt3r 1 days ago [-]
There's actually a specific transparent thread you can use for this, it's called a monofilament polyester (aka "MonoPoly") thread, in clear or "invisible" variant. Would be perfect for this project.
embedding-shape 1 days ago [-]
I was gonna say maybe fishing line would work, but I think maybe some fishing line is some sort of monofilament polyester?
scottbez1 1 days ago [-]
Or color matched. Hadn’t even thought of that to be honest
verdverm 1 days ago [-]
Have you thought about ways to make the lights detachable so you can wash the garment? Or is the trade off at a point where redoing it is easier overall?
scottbez1 1 days ago [-]
It’s maybe plausible to gently wash it with the filaments still attached? I did actually use connectors so the shirt could be detached from the drive electronics, though I’d be a bit worried whether the stitches would survive and corrosion on the solder joints. Adhesive/waterproof heat shrink could maybe help?
The other option is maybe attach the filaments to an embroidery style patch instead of the shirt itself and then attach it with Velcro to the shirt?
wolvoleo 18 hours ago [-]
You could use shrink tube around the solder connections. That would limit water ingress though it's not perfect. It's what I always do, it also gives more mechanical strength so you don't break off the the wire easily.
ok_dad 24 hours ago [-]
Magnets?
david-gpu 11 hours ago [-]
Speculating here. The lights and the electronics could be seen onto a fabric envelope, and the envelope could be attached to the final garment through hoops and loops (Velcro).
verelo 9 hours ago [-]
curious, why use black thread for red light? Haha..
peter_d_sherman 2 hours ago [-]
>"This is how I designed and assembled a wearable neon shirt in just a few days. [...] Of course, the whole thing is quite silly and that was kind of the point. It's not a practical garment, and wasn't meant to be, but I found it to be quite a fun artistic challenge with things I already had in the parts bin. And in case you're wondering, no, it's not machine-washable. Nor hand-washable, really."
I personally think it's a brilliant idea!
And, if you could solve the washability problem, then you could potentially make million$!
Anyway, a brilliant idea!
4d4m 1 days ago [-]
The pwm animation/flicker/ramp up was a REALLY nice touch
IshKebab 1 days ago [-]
Ooo this is cool, I didn't know these exist. I once half made something like this with EL wire but I stopped after getting an electric shock from some EL tape. Turns out the edges are not at all insulated and you need high voltages to drive them. I'm not wearing that. 24V sounds much nicer.
mlmonkey 23 hours ago [-]
Is "LED Filament" the same as "EL Wire" ?
numpad0 20 hours ago [-]
LED uses EL effect of diode, EL wire uses EL effect of compounds dispersed in a material. Technically related, but this is based on tiny LEDs on a flexible PCB covered in the yellow LED goo. It's the same type of strip as ones used for retro look LED lightbulbs.
xgulfie 21 hours ago [-]
EL wire is different, it's higher voltage AC making a magnetic field and exciting a phosphor, it's actually a continuous strip of illuminating material. This is small, dense LEDs in a strip.
ThrowawayTestr 23 hours ago [-]
No, those are more similar to old fluorescent bulbs.
DylanMerigaud 17 hours ago [-]
Looks solid, best of luck with it.
landgenoot 19 hours ago [-]
That's a nice wearable!
danilafe 1 days ago [-]
Beautiful! Thank you for sharing.
fnord77 19 hours ago [-]
We old timers used to use EL wire for this.
wolvoleo 18 hours ago [-]
Yes I've used that too but it has some drawbacks. It's way less flexible for starters, and not as bright. It's not dimmable unlike the leds.
Also it needs much higher voltage around 100V compared to leds so you always need some bucket converter. And there's a minor risk too when it comes to wearables though in general the wire is well insulated.
formvoltron 10 hours ago [-]
want!
Razengan 1 days ago [-]
Reminds me of a Japanese tech demo on YouTube I can't find right now, of projecting a flexible hologram on to a t-shirt with invisible markers.
tanglevins 12 hours ago [-]
[dead]
stuga 17 hours ago [-]
looking great!
buredoranna 1 days ago [-]
This is great, because the one problem I have with the cyberpunk dystopian future we live in, is the disappointing lack of neon.
Rendered at 22:43:31 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
They look great but they're difficult to solder. Too little heat and it doesn't attach, too much and it damages them. The strip has some annoying coating that repels the solder.
Some of them have metal crimped contacts that solve this but at the expense of end flexibility. And those usually have contacts at each end, i prefer them with both contacts at the same end so I can cut the strips to size.
They're also prone to breaking and the silicone is very resistant to glues and it keeps jumping around when you try to fix it in place. Embedding totally in liquid latex helps but if you use a lot it takes ages to cure.
I tend to just drive them with an ESP powered by a simple power bank. Just like the OP but I tend to leave out the drivers, for short lengths 3V is ok directly on the ESP. The WLED firmware with an ESP-S3 and a MEMS microphone can even do audio reactivity.
I combine them usually with ws2812 strips too which have individual RGB. These flexi strips of course don't.
Ps one annoying thing is that some strips are much brighter on one side than the other, and some are not. But on AliExpress it's really hard to determine which ones you end up getting.
I think for your next big idea create a tee that can match any company's swag brand; I am just tired of managing tees that fill up my drawer, I wish I had one that could be me all. ;)
p.s. thanks for the additional sourcing details
The other option is maybe attach the filaments to an embroidery style patch instead of the shirt itself and then attach it with Velcro to the shirt?
I personally think it's a brilliant idea!
And, if you could solve the washability problem, then you could potentially make million$!
Anyway, a brilliant idea!
Also it needs much higher voltage around 100V compared to leds so you always need some bucket converter. And there's a minor risk too when it comes to wearables though in general the wire is well insulated.