Sensors

A sensor that captures the movements of your pointing finger. Crochet from steel yarn that has stretch sensitive properties (electrical resistance decreases when steel fibers in the yarn are compressed through pressure or stretch)

This fabric touchpad was inspired by the properties of piezoresistive materials to measure both amount of pressure applied through the materials and increase of resistance across distance. It is made by layering piezoresistive material between two conductive layers and using the piezoresistive layer to alternatively measure position and pressure.

This squeeze sensor can be made by knitting or crocheting a ball including resistive yarn. The ball can then be stuffed with different materials to achieve different kinds of squishiness. The ball can also be hand or machine felted, giving the surface a more uniform appearance.

When you knit with conductive yarn, it changes the resistance when stretched. So, I thought of making an accelerometer with same principle. The weight at the end pulls and stretches the knitted structure as it gets accelerated. It works the best when this sensor (more of an object) is turned around like hammer throwing, or [...]

Here, I have crochet conductive yarn with felting yarn and felted it afterwards. It works great as pressure sensor. Making Here is the crochet piece before felting. I mixed Schoeller Nm 10/3 conductive yarn with hippy rainbow color felting yarn. Now it is time to felt. Place the crochet piece on the bowl. Pour hot [...]

By using high-resistance conductive thread instead of conductive fabric, you can make a slider (potentiometer) with zippers. Unlike zipper switch, this sensor gives analog values instead of “ON/OFF”.

A Zipper is a great clothing material that can be converted into sensors. Zipper switch is a known technique used in many projects like TV-B-Gone-Hoodie by Becky Stern. It is also introduced in “Fashioning Technology” book by Syuzi Pakhchyan.

This is a combination of conductive pompom and tilt sensor. The advantage is that the pompom has much bigger and softer surface than metal bead, which helps for it to touch the tilt detecting conductive fabric. Also it gives a certain look, that may be desired for some projects.

also see: conductive pompom, pompom tool Make pressure sensor ball by felting a pompom composed of wool and conductive steel fibers.

Use of a circular knitting machine to knit a circular stretch sensor from combinations of conductive and non-conductive yarns.

also see: crochet tilt potentiometer, fabric potentiometer, time sensing bracelet, Made using the zig-zag stitch on the sewing machine to sew/embroider a conductive and a resistive trace side by side. Then any conductive object can be used to bridge the contact between the traces and measure the position/distance from measuring point through the change in [...]

As it mentioned in CROCHET OR KNIT SIMPLE PRESSURE SENSOR post, the properties of the conductive yarn is sensitive to pressure or stretch. So, if you knit or crochet the conductive yarn to shape of finger, it can be a finger sensor like Sensitive Finger Tips project, but with crochet material instead of fabrics. These [...]

From conductive yarn you can make a conductive pompom, just like you would make a regular pompom. You can also mix conductive and regular thread to both save on the conductive yarn and also for aesthetics. Use conductive thread to fasten the pompom together, both because it is more conductive and will make for a [...]

Using the circular knitting machine to knit a circular tube with the Schoeller 50/2 conductive yarn, makes for an excellent stretch sensor that can be used (among other things) to capture the pressure of a balloon inflating and deflating.

Because of the properties of the conductive yarn to be sensitive to pressure or stretch it can be knit or crochet into any shape and will react to to pressure with a decrease in resistance. By setting a threshold in software this sensor can also be used as a switch.

By using conductive yarn as electrodes, you can create a simple button with crochet. The construction idea is very similar to fabric button.

Here is the crochet pressure sensor. The main principle is same as regular pressure sensor. Instead of conductive fabric or thread, I used conductive yarn from Schoeller, Nm 50/2 60/40 Pes/Inox @ Euros 65.00/kg (25,000 metres/kg). Since this yarn is very thin, it is mixed with normal yarn and crochet, which is what you can [...]

Combination of tilt sensing and potentiometer using regular wool and conductive wool from Schoeller.

The experiment results of carbon paint painted on various stretchy fabrics. It shows resistance difference when stretched. The paints are applied by simple stencil method with sticky tapes.

I have tried various methods, such as knitting and stitching with resistive thread, applying carbon paint to jersey, mixing conductive fibers with stretchy fabric glue, stretching various conductive materials to see if this changes their conductive properties… and some of it worked, sometimes inconstantly or even incoherently or just wore out over time too quickly.

WORK IN PROGRESS Exploring different possibilities to knit stretch sensors.

This sensor is the very first example of something I made with the circular knitting machine.

This sensor senses stroke in multiple directions. Using a technique similar to that for carpet making, conductive threads are distributed in patches and patches are connected together on the back side. Within the patches the threads are connected and when the threads of one patch make contact with the threads of another patch, this can [...]

Following the same principal that you’ll find inside a traditional round and slider potentiometers. Both contain a wiper finger (conductive) and a resistive track. Normally both ends of the restive track end in separate measuring point tabs, as does the wiper finger. Thus you can choose to measure from either of the restive track tabs [...]

Work in progress… Interweaving layers of conductive fabric, non-conductive fabric and velostat to create a pressure sensitive matrix/grix:

These sensors measure pressure and can also be designed and placed to measure bend. They work on the simple principal that Velostat reacts to pressure with a decrease in electrical resistance. When sandwiched between two conductive layers, this change in resistance can be easily measured and used as an indication of how much pressure is [...]

Variations of very simple fabric pressure sensors made from various resistive fabrics sandwiched between conductive layers. This is an ongoing experimentation. Similar to the neoprene Bend and Pressure Sensors and the Stickytape Sensors, these also make use of the resistive changes of various materials under pressure. Variations in pressure sensitivity and stability can be achieved [...]

This rectangular piece of knit, cut from an anti-static glove, has different resistance ranges, depending if you measure across the rows or columns of the stich. >> Instructable The range of resistance across the columns of stiches is about 30K Ohm. The range of resistance across the rows of stitches is about 90 K Ohm. [...]

Four separate pressure sensors not only give feedback about where I’m pressing, but also how hard.

Creating stretch sensors from stretchy fabrics that have conductive/resistive properties that change depending on the stretching of the fabric. I’m hoping this will allow to make super simple stretch sensors and lead to other interesting possibilities.

Combining beads and other decorative elements with conductive textiles to create tilt sensitive designs. A bracelet decorated with six conductive fabric petals and a row of beads with a metal bead on the end, makes for a simple six point tilt detection. It is also designed so that the metal bead will make contact with [...]

also: neoprene pressure sensor, conductive thread Pressure Sensor Stitching conductive thread into neoprene to create a pressure sensitive pad. This sensor is very similar to the Fabric bend sensor or vis-versa. And also close to the Fabric Pressure Sensor, but the difference is that the conductive surface is minimized by stitching only a few stitches [...]

also: soft button, textile button, soft switch These super simple fabric buttons are soft, fun to push and can come in handy when building various prototypes. They all share the same ground or plus, depending on what you hook what up to.

also: neoprene bend sensor, conductive thread Bend Sensor, Bend Sensor (thread) This bend sensor actually reacts (decreases in resistance) to pressure, not specifically to bend. But because it is sandwiched between two layers of neoprene (rather sturdy fabric), pressure is exerted while bending, thus allowing one to measure bend (angle) via pressure.