As I got a new stretchy fusible/heat bond from Bemis, I started to experiment with bonding fabrics with iron. Making bend sensor with this technique is super quick, super easy and works very very well as a sensor.
Rachel Freire has been working a lot with the heat bond and eTextiles as second skin project >. http://www.rachelfreire.com/second-skin-login/.
I have been inspired by her work to start working with these stretch heat bonds. Especially with these leather like stretch material, it does create a second skin feeling.
Materials:
Bemis stretchy heat bond, stretchy conductive fabric, Eeonyx stretch fabric (20K), stretch synthetic leather (or any material for base)
I used this synthetic leather material as a base. It is stretchy on one direction.
Step by step:
Apply the stretchy heat bond on the back of the stretch conductive fabric and make 2 small stripes. Peal off the backing paper.
Place the conductive fabric on the base material, 5mm a part in parallel and press with an iron. Make sure to use other fabric or a parchment paper to protect the fabric from the heat.
Apply the stretchy heat bond on the synthetic leather. Peal off the backing paper.
Cut the synthetic leather with heat bond into bend sensor shape. Make sure to use the stretchy direction on longer side.
Size-wise it should look something like this. This becomes the outer layer of the sensor.
Now, I trimmed the corner to round shape. This is not necessary as a function. You can choose any shape you like. Then cut the Eeonyx stretch fabric into the shape smaller than the base fabric, but wider than the gap between the conductive fabric on the base.
Now, place the Eeonyx stretch fabric and the outer layer on top of the conductive fabric stripes.
Apply the heat with an iron to fix the outer layer on the base layer trapping the Eeonyx stretch fabric in the middle.
I get a really nice smooth reading with range between 28k ohm and 14k ohm.
It also works as stretch sensor on the long direction.
I made this sensor as a prototype for the Linlow performance costume. It ended up as a elbow and knee bend sensor. Here is the elbow sensor I designed.
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