EL-Wire plus 3d Printed Bracelet Project

Found some pics of an early jewelry experiment combining EL-Wire and 3d printing. This bangle, or maybe a bracelet, has got to be one of the simplest designs I've done with this combination of technologies, but it's still effective.

There is very little non-structural plastic in the design. That's not usually an important consideration in my jewelry making ---  in fact, I get way too elaborate with both structure and decoration.

The EL-wire loses some of linear appearance thanks to the undulating repeating pattern

But when I design something as a 3d print I tend to think more like an engineer. So the simple design is pleasing to me because it means I found a basic concept that works. I like it when the most basic form works with no extra parts or decoration needed.

Or maybe I'm just happy because I like it even without a single gear or wing or key or even an antiqued brass raven skull. Not everything has to be Steampunk.

This first-test version is a simple sine-wave-shaped 3d print. The EL-wire runs through a series of holes in the center of the wave faces. This holds the EL-wire in place with friction. And it breaks up the linear shape of EL-wire visually.

The EL-wire runs down the center of the sine wave shaped 3d-printed bracelet.

It's also textured and bright enough (bright pink plastic) to look fun and read well in daylight. It's comfortable to wear and durable. Not bad for a first test of concept.

(Also check out my EL-wire party night light project)

I know these early devstage pics aren't the best, so I'll try to find the actual objects again and grab some better images soon.

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New Side Light NeoPixels make Complex Effects Easier

Adafruit just released a new "Side Light" style of NeoPixels with the LEDs perpendicular to the ribbon instead of parallel. This might seem like a simple thing to some folks. But for anyone who has tried to illuminate a circular or tubular object with a wash or raking style of light, this is amazing stuff.

Oh so simple, but so very helpful. Adafruit now has a 90 degree side light version of their Neopixels.

Until now, the LED strips always projected light away from the curved surface. The light went toward the viewer, not along the surface of the curve. So for the most part, we were limited to having bright strips of light shining at the viewer but not on the object. Now, it's going to be so much simpler to gently illuminate the surface of an object without blinding the viewer or requiring additional, often complicated reflectors to disperse the light.

We can finally throw a wash along a curved surface (LEDs at bottom) instead of projecting all the light out into space (top). 

In fact, these new strips negate years of my work (slight exaggeration) where I created reflectors and deflectors to control the light and bend it to go opposite the curve of the LED ribbon. And I'm not the only one, lots of makers have come up with their own solutions. After all, that's what makers do - we create solutions and have a lot of fun doing it. But I think we all knew there was a better way, we just never got around to creating it.

With cosplay and illuminated, glowing fashion becoming trendy and popular it was only a matter of time before someone came out with a manufactured solution. Adafruit popularized the addressable LED and made it simple enough to use that regular people could create with it. They named it NeoPixel and the world was never the same

Luckily for us, Adafruit is now working closely with Erin St Blaine, a professional costumer and performer. According to Lady Ada, the new Side Light style was initiated by St Blaine. While we amateurs tinkered and fussed to overcome the limitations of the basic NeoPixels, St Blaine spoke up for us and let the company know that she and other pros needed a simpler pre-made solution. And Adafruit responded. We amateurs also reap the benefits, yay us.

Right now, there are only a few configurations available in the side lit style, but if there is a good response I'm guessing Adafruit will expand the line. So come on folks, grab yourself a few of these strips and make something cool so we all get more options to choose from.

My project list for these new lights include:

• Hat with the with a side-lit crown taper
• Hat with a down light brim
• Bracelet that throws patterned light on the arm
• Skirt with a true down light
• Cropped sweater with a real down light

Did you notice that all of these projects involve the human body as the subject of illumination? Well that's because the human body is basically a series of vertical tubes, Until now. we could wrap lights around the body so that the illumination projected AWAY from the surface of the body - basically creating a brightly outlined stick figure. But it was very difficult to illuminate the surfaces of the body without a lot of tricky workarounds. The always lights pointed away simply because that's how they were made.

I tried to work with illuminated clothes a few times with very limited and mixed success. After a lot of work and tears and carefully sewing in reflectors, the clothes still looked like they belonged on a Vegas stage. I had grand visions of creating decorative reflectors that looked like attractive and intentional embellishments, but only succeeded in making awkward boxes that looked like they were tacked on to hide the LEDs.

I love creating diffusers and reflectors for NeoPixels. ten hours of measuring, designing, printing and installing later and you've got yourself a nice project. But hey, now you can do a lot of the same thing just by using the appropriate strip of NeoPixels.

I, like so many others, defaulted back to EL-wire for light-up fashion. It's a lot less complicated, but much more limited than LEDs.

That's why I decided to stick to jewelry where it was easier to hide reflectors and such.  So I'm excited to re-try some of these failed fashion projects.

Other people seem really excited about making light-up signs and displays. It will certainly make that easier too. I'm also eager to try out mixing the two configurations to create a wall wash of one color with a center strip of another color.

Conclusion:

This is a face-palm simple upgrade that just required a large enough community plus a dedicated creator to speak-up to a responsive company. Now we all have a fantastic new set of lighting tools to use. I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with,

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Light-up Cosplay Boots may be happening

Both my hiking-boots and my work-boots completely wore out this summer. Cracked soles, popped rivets and split seams now make them useless for their intended tasks. However, their well-worn look gives them a lot of character and makes them good candidates for some sci-fi cosplay modifications.

I think it's time to revisit light-up shoe projects. Slap some LEDs or some EL-wire on those suckers and call the space-bound. I've already done lighting projects with tennis shoes and with high heels. But this time, it's going to be a little more industrial looking.

I might just add some glowing EL-wire panels to the boots and call it done,

I might keep it simple and just use some simple EL-wire or maybe some EL-panels. That's certainly easy to do. But of curse I have grand ideas about controllable light shows like in the summer blockbuster movies. I have some spare microcontrollers and extra LEDs in the shop that are taunting me from their dusty shelf.

And new products like the sensor laden Circuit Playground and the Bluetooth or LORA Feather boards suddenly make real interactive and controllable light shows possible for a reasonable price. My previous projects were limited to a few pre-set, repetitive light sequences and simple pressure-switches.

I haven't done any real designs yet, not even a single sketch - so I don't have anything to show you for now. However, I've done acceleration projects and sound based projects with the Playground, and my Bluetooth skills are coming along nicely. If I combine these with my old Neopixel controller code I might have a good start on some off-world footwear.

I still needed to refresh my memory on how these things are done - so I went back and re-found some of my favorite inspirational projects and tutorials. This time I decided to take notes and make an easy to use collection of helpful links and I thought I would share them here..








Most of the tutorials and guides I knew of all revolve around either sneakers or high heels. You know, normal everyday footwear - not the stuff of exo-planet explorers. But it's all I could find, so here's a list of my favorites to get you started:.

Sneakers and Tennis-shoes

• Probably the classic tutorial is Becky Stern's Firewalker shoes from Adafruit. It's so good they did it twice, once with the Flora board and again with the smaller (and cheaper) Gemma board.
• 
  
• https://www.instructables.com/id/Light-Up-Shoes-for-Adults/
• Another fun yet simple build, no Arduino required
• How about some simple to use EL-Wire sneakers

Heels

• Add some fantasy and LEDs to your heels here 
• 
  
• Classy and simple lifts plus LEDs 
• 
  
• Dorothy's Ruby slippers with a hi-tech twist

Above and Beyond

• Not only do they have LEDs, these heels feature R2D2
• 
  
• Turn old sneakers into stomp activated combat-boots
• Blade Runner Platforms Sandals with layers of lights
• Stockings with sewable strands of LEDs
• Clear Acrylic Stage Platform Heels  with LEDs or...
• 
  
• Platform gogo boots with a projector 
• 
  
• Not shoes, but the fiber-optic poof is cool
• 
  
• Or maybe some flowery LED clip-ons for your dancing shoes

Right now, I'm thinking some rack-mount headlights, some basic running lights and some sound reactive and acceleration reactive lights. Since these are boots, I can add some clunky control panels without destroying the lines of the shoe - big and clunky work well with boots.

If you have any ideas, images or tips to share for cosplay boots, please send them my way. I'll try to post up some progress pics soon.

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Party Light with EL-Wire

One of the easiest ways to add some "wow" to any lighting project - EL-wire is cheap and super simple to work with. This project adds some reflective panels courtesy of the fins from a gigantic aluminum heat-sink that I scavenged from a discarded stereo.

The spacing between the fins was perfect for the width of the EL-wire. And the polished metal surface gave a cool 3D effect to the project.

You can see the "wire" wrapped around the base in this photo, and notice how the light reflects all the way to the top because of the shininess of the metal.

The light carries all the way to the outside edge of the aluminum heat-sink. Usually, EL-wire projects are either flat or a 3D wireframe. But the heat-sink looks like a 4x4 cube and the way the light falls off and reflects adds to the three dimensional effect.

Also, the aluminum fins hide the EL-wire itself except for certain angles. So the look of the light changes as you move around it.

El-wire is very simple to install and run; just plug it and turn it on. You can find controllers of various power levels, everything from a coin cell, 1xAAA to 4xAA on up to 12v. The more power the controller is the more wire you can run and the brighter the glow is.

Most of the controllers have at least a few display modes (always on, slow blink, fast blink etc.) There are versions that react to sound. And Sparkfun has two versions that use Arduinos to create programmable displays with up to 8x different wires.

If you want to create your own party-light I would strongly suggest buying your supplies from either Sparkfun or from Adafruit. Both of these companies feature high quality, durable and very bright versions of EL-wire components. I have bought the cheap versions from other vendors. They do work, but they are always much dimmer and more fragile. If you want a dependable, brightly glowing version stick to the versions from Sparkfun or Adafruit - they are worth the extra cost in the long run.

Also check out my glowing pillow project on Instructables for more ideas about how to use EL-wire.

Or how about my 3d printed EL-wire bracelet for raves and festivals.