hello, and help please!
‘How To…?’ questions
hello, and help please!
Max the girl.
09-20-2006, 8:21 AM
Hello Make people,
My name is Max, I'm studying jewelry and painting at the Tyler School of Art. Several friends of mine are Make members and the stuff you're doing sounds pretty interesting. Anyway, my quandary lies with lighting. I'm building a large scale brooch (3 pieces, two about 2"x3"x 5", one about 3"x3" x 8") out of delrin plastic and sterling silver. The initial idea was to have 3 large, hollow forms that sit beneath the shirt, and then a sterling wire structure that would snap into a track carved into the forms from on top of the shirt's surface. Think of a jar covered in a cheese cloth and then an O ring snapping over the rim of the jar to hold the fabric on...in my project the O ring is the silver structure, the cheese cloth is the fabric of the shirt and the jar is the plastic. I've decided that the piece would be more interesting if it were possible to reverse the forms so that the silver structure could be worn underneath the fabric of the shirt and the plastic could be worn on top. However, the forms alone were boring, so, since the plastic is thin I've decided to attempt to light it from within to create a sort of glow. I'm interested in very small LED lights that I could mount within the piece, using either the delrin or the silver as a housing. I'm also interested in perhaps using a kind of light that could be voice or motion activated. Where might I find such a lighting system, could I (or someone more technological than I) build it myself? Please help, any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. You can send such suggestions to maxitaliano@gmail.com. Thank you!
Max.
Re: hello, and help please!
RFDave
09-29-2006, 5:16 AM
Hi Max.
You could start with adapting an LED Throwie to what you are doing.
http://www.instructables.com/id/E9D2ZJ3FG0EP286JEJ/
They use a pretty big LED, but it would be a starting point. LED's are, to first order, interchangeable, so you could go to Radio Shack and get some smaller LED's as a second stage.
Voice or motion activated is also possible, but would require a microcontroller to do. You could use a microphone as a voice sensor. A small accelerometer could give you motion sensing. You could even tape a microphone to the chest and get a heart beat sensor. A temperature sensor is also pretty simple to implement.
Dave
Re: hello, and help please!
RFDave
09-29-2006, 5:18 AM
Just a quick addition, you can get LED's in surface mount packages down to ~ 2 mm square
Dave
Re: hello, and help please!
joshkopel
09-30-2006, 8:17 AM
Hi Max,
I have found that it is sometimes easier to just reuse something that already does what you want, then to try and figure out the details yourself.
I was down in chinatown for dinner and in looking in the junk shops there (on 10th street between Race and Arch) I found a little LED light which might be useful for you.
It uses a couple of tiny watch batteries, and has all the electronics needed to drive the LEDs for a long time. The whole thing ends up being about the size of a AA battery, and it has the LED on a long flexible cable. If you took it apart you could most likely fit into a very small space, and you would not have to do any engineering.
Josh
Re: hello, and help please!
cyenobot
10-02-2006, 8:40 AM
Sorry I can't help with the technical end, but thought I'd throw out another idea instead of LED's. It's a new product called "El Wire". It's a thin wire that lights up in different colors.
http://www.thatscoolwire.com/
Sounds like a neat project, please post a follow up when you are done.
Jef
Make:Philly 2007