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    Content by Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson
    We support the Open Source Hardware movement. All our own designs published on this website are released under the Free Cultural Works definition
    The following institutions have funded our research and supported our work:

    Mika was a guest researcher at the Smart Textiles Design Lab, The Swedish School of Textiles

    Hannah is a former graduate student of the MIT Media Lab's High-Low Tech research group


    Hannah and Mika were both research fellows at the Distance Lab
    Connections

    Soldering Conductive Fabric

    also see: Materials >> Conductive Fabrics
    Of the conductive fabrics I tried soldering to, only the copper FlecTron fabric distributed by LessEMF was very reliable. There was another silver fabric that worked, but I don’t know the source. The Laird conductive fabric tape was also good, so were copper mesh and copper foil tape with conductive adhesive.


    6 Comments so far

    1. Samuel Otis on August 11th, 2011

      Hi,

      What method did you employed to solder on conductive fabrics?

      Thanks

    2. admin on August 11th, 2011

      i soldered to the conductive fabrics with a regular soldering iron. most of the conductive fabrics are metalized synthetics so they will melt at high temperatures. use the soldering iron carefully and apply flux to help the solder flow.

    3. admin on August 11th, 2011

      some conductive fabrics (plug and wear) and threads (karl grimm) are made from very fine metal. these are much easier to solder to, and the connections are much more robust.

    4. Samuel Otis on August 11th, 2011

      Thanks a lot!

    5. Ralph on November 1st, 2011

      Hi, I’m looking for a conductive material that is very stretchable, like elastic, and can have small wire leads soldered to it robustly. This will be used on a garment product that flexes considerably. Any suggestions?

    6. admin on November 1st, 2011

      the Shieldex stretch conductive fabric from LessEMF if very stretchy and pretty conductive:
      >> http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=376

      for additional stretch you can cut the fabric as demonstrated here by Nadya:
      http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=1300

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