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    Content by Mika Satomi and Hannah Perner-Wilson
    E-Textile Tailor Shop by KOBAKANT
    The following institutions have funded our research and supported our work:

    Since 2020, Hannah is guest professor of the Spiel&&Objekt Master's program at the University of Performing Arts Ernst Busch in Berlin

    From 2013-2015 Mika was a guest professor at the eLab at Kunsthochschule Berlin-Weissensee

    From July - December 2013 Hannah was a researcher at the UdK's Design Research Lab

    From 2010-2012 Mika was a guest researcher in the Smart Textiles Design Lab at The Swedish School of Textiles

    From 2009 - 2011 Hannah was a graduate student in the MIT Media Lab's High-Low Tech research group led by Leah Buechley


    In 2009 Hannah and Mika were both research fellows at the Distance Lab


    Between 2003 - 2009 Hannah and Mika were both students at Interface Cultures
    We support the Open Source Hardware movement. All our own designs published on this website are released under the Free Cultural Works definition
    Traces

    Plated Fabric Traces

    Copper plated traces are flexible and solderable. Start by painting with conductive paint directly onto the fabric where you want the copper to plate to. Then you’ll need to prepare the plating process. It takes only a few minutes to get a nice layer of copper.

    More information on the plating process can be found here:
    >> http://web.media.mit.edu/~plusea/?p=554

    Step-by-step

    Paint with silver paint on fabric. If it is a new fabric it might not be as absorbent and the paint will stay on the surface. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Fabrics that absorb the paint well will get plated on both sides, but the plating take the texture of the fabric, rather than look like shiny metal adhered to the surface.
    To make things easy connect all traces together in one point. This way you only need to attach the negative pole to one place. After your circuit has plated you can then disconnect the traces by scratching or cutting them with a knife.

    Samples of plated traces on different fabrics.


    Plated fabric circuit.



    3 Comments so far

    1. decora on April 5th, 2011

      brilliant!

    2. […] up using alligator clips.  I think when I redo this project I would either like to experiment with creating copper traces or just cut the circuit out of conductive fabric and adhere it to the […]

    3. Brandon on December 25th, 2011

      What fabrics can absorb the paint, hence the copper on both sides?

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