HOW TO GET WHAT YOU WANT

Light Touch Pressure Sensor

To make custom fabric pressure sensors that react to even the lightest touch. Ideally less than 10g of force.

Testing

Testing Eeonyx piezoresitive fabrics for most sensitive ones.
Relaxed (0g)
Resting pressure (1 Euro = 7.5g)
Light pressure (1+2 Euro = 7.5g + 8.5g = 16g)

Testing with my own finger pressure, resting and pressing very hard.
Relaxed: 3.7K Ohm
Resting pressure: 1.9K Ohm
Hard pressure: 0.38K Ohm

Weights

Making-of

Stencils

Tracing and Cutting

Fusing

iron-on glue to fuse copper fabric to neoprene.

Soldering

Protecting

Fusing triangle of silk fabric over solder joint for strain-relief and insulation.

Layering

Sewing Tube

A fabric tube for protecting and beautifying wires.

Sewing Together

Sewing layers together with sewing machine.

Graphing

7 Comments so far

Melanie on October 8th, 2014

I am looking to design a basic pressure sensor to monitor a rat’s breathing. Could you possibly send me some of the specs on the set up you used (especially in the last couple images for connection and transmission of the signal to the computer)?
Edgar Aguilar on November 15th, 2014

What kind of cooper fabric this is. Does it have a name? I leave in USA. Do you know where I might be able to find it?

Does this work to make a bit larger sensors? Let say about 8 inches x 8 inches?

Thanks

Edgar
Lupe Carrillo on December 8th, 2014

I’m trying to make a Light Touch Pressure Sensor as shown here. I need to make a sensor 10″ in length by 2″ in width (looking to make it as thin as possible). I’d like to make three different sensors with different degrees of sensitivity. What I’m planning on doing is having a small LED light turn on as the pressure is put on the pressure sensor. I’m going to connect it to a small coin battery. Is it possible to send me information on what to use and how to go about creating this project. I would greatly appreciate it.

Thank you,

Lupe
ajoy kumar sinha on February 28th, 2015

I want to purchase LIGHT TOUCH PRESSURE SENSOR. please help me
Fabiola on March 8th, 2015

What is the brown material used in the layering step?
Zavere on March 21st, 2015

What program is being used to create the visually displayed graph for this project?
Plusea on April 19th, 2015

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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