Tools

Over the years, we’ve designed and built a variety of small compact circuits that translate electrical resistance into something we can perceive like: light, sound, vibration. This post intents to pull together all these different items in one place. To see if there are insights I’d forgotten about as well as a pool of inspiration […]

Photos >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/albums/72157705181925511

Build a simple circuit with an LED, a coin-cell battery pouch and interrupt the full circuit connection by inserting two crocodile clips. When the clips connect, the circuit is complete and the LED light will shine. When you mount a textile sensor between the clips, the LED brightness will depend on the resistance of the […]

You can make your own mini-breadboards by cutting up a larger one. Flickr set >> https://www.flickr.com/photos/plusea/sets/72157672660416318 Peel back the stick and remove the metal from the rows you will cut: Cut: Replace the sticky: Five mini breadboard from one long one:

Based on the idea of this Common GND breadboard (electronic components) to snap (textile) connector, I wanted to think-through the work-flow of using such a breakout board that would allow me to prototype both circuit and wearable, with iterations and testing in between, without always re-designing how the two are connected.

This credit-card size flex circuit translates the resistance between two probes into the resistor colour code. Conveniently the resistor colour code chart can be mounted just bellow the LEDs so that you don’t actually have to remember it for this tool to be useful. This version is a first prototype and with through-hole components not […]

This wearable tool translates resistance into colour and sound.

This first ohmGlove prototype is an attempt to make a wearable version of the ohmHook. It allows the wearer to pinch a material between their fingers to listen to it’s electrical resistance as well as how it behaves under pressure. A pull-up resistor of the same material is sandwiched between little finger and palm. The […]

The ohmHook is crochet hook mounted on a circuitboard which measures the electrical resistance between the crochet hook and a crocodile clip connected to the opposite end of the tool handle. The resistance is displayed as the 10 bit reading of the microcontroller’s analog-to-digital converter.

Pincushion Breadboard Bracelet combines the wearable “at-hand” functionality of a wrist-worn pincushion, with the electronics prototyping flexibility of a breadboard. This wearable tool might not seem all that useful to you at first, but I would like to demonstrate that a Pincushion Breadboard Bracelet can be an extremely useful tool for for the right purposes. […]

Tool you can make for visualizing the resistance of materials and sensors.

Snap fasteners (also called “poppers” in British English) consist of 4 parts (LA,B,CW,LA) and these can be cripted together in pairs to make up one female and one male snap. SNAP FLY-PRESS MACHINE We got our machine from: Durable Fasteners Ltd 430 Kingsland Road London E8 4AA UK Tel +44 (0)20 7254 6713 www.durablefasteners.co.uk costs: […]

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could simply press-fit your lilypad arduino to your fabric circuit traces! That you could sew your circuit with the sewing machine using conductive thread and not have to do all the hard-soft connections by hand! Here some experiments in making a 3D printed LilyPad SnapRing that connects in this […]

This little circuit sits nicely ontop of an arduino board and lets you quickly plug in an ATtiny chip for programming using the Arduino “language” and IDE to write the code, and the Arduino board as an ISP programmer to upload the code to the tiny chip.

Programming integrated circuits with an ISP alligator clip extension.

This seam-ripper has a continuity meter built in. An LED lights up to indicate when an unwanted electrical connection is made between the tip of the seam-ripper and the part of the circuit that you wish to disconnect from. An alligator clip can be connected to different parts of the circuit, so that you can […]

This pincushion design has strips of conductive fabric adhered to its surface, so that metal pins or component contacts that protrude through the same piece of conductive fabric are electrically connected. This cushion can be used for prototyping electrical circuits as well as for string pins, needles and components.

This vibrating crochet hook can be used to measure the resistance of a crochet stretch sensor while it is being made. Continuity and resistance can be measured while the sensor is being crocheted. The vibration motor is powered by a 3V coin cell battery. The less resistance, the stronger the crochet needle will vibrate.

Computer controlled textile machinery.

“Desoldering wick”! This is a very useful tool to desolder circuit when you make a mistake, or hacking toy circuits. I use them often but I never knew the name.. Here is the wikipedia explanation “A solder wick, also known as a desoldering wick or desoldering braid, is a roll of fine, braided 18 to […]

While pompom makers are convenient tools for making pompoms in all different sizes, you can also make your own tool from cardboard.

Dino-Lite digital USB microscope AM-311S Handheld Microscope 0.3M / Resolution 640×480 USB 2.0 Output 0X~50x, 200x Magnification Built-in 8 white LED’s 185$

Knitting dolly (Strickpüppchen in German) is a tool to make thin knitted tubes. The picture is the one I bought at the local craft shop with about 5 Euro. In Germany and Austria, there are also a child toy version of this one, made of woods with fancy paintings on them. There are also small […]

also see: circular knitting machine, sock knitting machine also: knitting nancy, knitting wheels, knitting frames, rake knitters, French Knitters, knitting doll, flower tool, corkers and spools, German: Nahliesle These are so easy to make by hand!!!

also see: circular knitting loom, circular knitting machine, sock knitting machine

Also see: circular knitting machine These things look amazing. I have not got one of my own yet, but I would love to.

I never though I’d use one of these, but for threading conductive yarn into small needles for stitching to components with small holes they really are perfect!

Thin nose pliers are useful for making loops at the end of components like LED, capacitor, resistor.. so on. Also, it is often used to pull out needle when sewing in neoprene.

Sewing machines, sergers, embroidery…

also: knitting nancy, knitting machine, German: Strickmühle also see: circular sock knitting machine These machines are amazingly easy to use. I bought myself a barbie Knitting machine via Amazon UK because it was cheaper than the more professional looking ones. It works fine for the circular knit but is very messy at the edges when […]

also: Craft ROBO, Klic-N-Kut, vinyl sign cutter, plotter

Great for opening electronics that weren’t designed to be opened.

Roland MDX-40. With engraving drilling head, you can produce your own PCB. It can not make copper lines thinner than 1.6mm, but enough for DIP circuits. Great thing is that you can skip the messy etching process.

>> Obi >> Local hardware store

also: iron, quilting iron, mini iron Comes in handy when ironing small pieces. Fusing fabrics together.

For cutting conductive fabrics, neoprene, velostat…

Comfortable, angled grip. Do not use to cut anything but fabrics, this will keep the blades sharp.

Great for filing perfboards to have smooth edges, that will not fray or cut through conductive thread.

also: air-erasing markers, textile markers Marking pen, often bright purple in colour, that will vanish without washing. Do not iron over marks because heat will set the marks and they cannot be removed. Test on fabric before using. For darker fabrics chalk and white pencil works well. >> http://yarntree.com/cross-stitch/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=5753 (USA) >> http://www.clotilde.com/detail.html?prod_id=504 (USA)

see also: Materials >> Metal Poppers

see also: “Fashioning Technology” by Syuzi Pakhchyan, page 195