Materials
eTextile
copper conductive fabric
Shieldex® Kassel
Company: Statex
Characteristics: Corrosion proof copper-silver plated polyamide ripstop fabric, < 0.03 Ohms/cm2 surface resistivity. Can be cut with laser cutter. You can also apply solder.
example:
Lasercut Fabric Breakout
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=2672
silver stretch conductive fabric
Shieldex® Technik-tex P130
Company: Statex
Characteristics: Silver plated knitted fabric, 78% Polyamide + 22% Elastomer plated with 99% pure silver, < 2 Ohms/cm2 surface resistivity.
example:
Stretchy Traces
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=1300
Resistive carbon coated fabric
Eeonyx NW-SLPA 20k, MA-3-12
Company: Eeonyx
Characteristics: Resistive material (20k), non woven, can be used to make pressure or bend sensor
example:
Pressure sensor
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=4619
Resistive carbon coated stretch fabric
Eeonyx
Company: Eeonyx
Characteristics: Resistive material, stretchy in both direction, can be used to make stretch sensor
example:
Fabric Stretch Sensors
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=210
Resistive carbon fused plastic
Velostat
Company: 3M
Characteristics: Resistive material, good for making pressure or bend sensor with. Very cheap.
example:
Neoprene Bend Sensor
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=20
silver plated conductive thread
Elitex Fadenmaterial Art Nr. 235/34 PA/Ag
company: Imbut GmbH
Characteristic: silver conductive thread (100% polyamid beschichtet mit silber
example:
Neoprene Bend Sensor
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=20
copper conductive thread
High Flex 3981
company: Karl Grimm
Characteristic: Very conductive, Solder-able, good for making circuit connections
The image is from the silver coated version of the same thread. The one we have at the eLab is in copper color.
example:
Machine-Sewing Solderable Traces
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=3395
stainless steel thread
Bekinox VN 12.3.2.175S.HT
Company: Bekaert
Characteristics: Stainless steel yarn, good for heating use, plied
conductive yarn
Nm10/3 conductive yarn
Company: plug and wear
Characteristics: Nm10/3 conductive yarn, 80% polyester 20% stainless steel, light grey, Surface resistance < 100000ohm
example:
circular knit stretch sensors
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=2108
conductive wool
Bekinox W12/18
company: Bekaert
Characteristic: Wool fiber mixed with stainless steel fiber, Suitable for felting
example:
felted pressure sensor
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=3089
Paper and ink
copper tape
Copper Tape 5mm
Characteristic: Adhesive on the back, good to make connections for paper circuits.
example:
Jie Qi has many nice examples on paper electronics.
http://technolojie.com/category/featured-projects/
Also, her shop, chibitronics has nice examples made by their community >> http://chibitronics.com/community/
conductive ink (carbon)
Electric Paint – 50 mL + 10 mL
company : Bare Conductive
Characteristic:carbon based conductive ink. It has some resistance, so not very good to make a circuit with. It can be applied on paper or on skin. You can also use silkscreen to print. Water soluble. Good to make contact sensor or capacitive sensor with.
copper ink
CuPro-Cote™ PAINT
company : LessEMF
Characteristic:very conductive. It can be used to make a circuit with. It can be applied on paper or on fabric. Not suitable for screen printing.
example:
Screen printed capacitive sensor on paper
http://etextile-summercamp.org/2014/screen-printing-circuits/
Actuators
SMA (shape memory alloy)
EL wire/ panel
Optic Fiber
Other kinds of Sensors and Actuators
You can find many examples of eTextile sensors and actuators here
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?cat=26
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?cat=28
Stroke Sensor
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=792
PomPom sensor
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=2028
Fabric Speakers
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=2936
Today’s activity
Neoprene Bend Sensor
http://www.kobakant.at/DIY/?p=20
-Neoprene (non conductive, outer layer. It can be any other materials such as felt)
-Conductive thread
-Conductive fabric (tab)
-normal thread
-needle
After you finish building the sensor, let’s check it with multimeter to see if it changes its resistance.
Let’s connect it with Arduino to see if we can read it as a sensor.
The fabric bend sensor changes its resistance in a range. It is not a digital sensor (On/OFF) but analog sensor (various range). To read this sensor with Arduino, we use Analog inputs.
More details, read here >> http://elab-kh-berlin.de/introduction-to-arduino-sensor/
To read the sensor value with Arudino, we need to make a Voltage Divider
Use the sketch File/ examples/ basic/ AnalogReadSerial
Now, if you could read it, you can also upload firmata library and try to read the value from other programs on your computer.
Firmata a generic protocol for communicating with microcontrollers like the Arduino from software on a host computer. (from Arduino Playground)
For example you can access the sensor data on Arduino from Processing or PureData using Firmata Library.
Download the firmata library for Processing and try to read out the data from Arduino. You can then use this value to draw or to play music… however you like
http://playground.arduino.cc/interfacing/processing
Here is an example sketch for processing.
https://github.com/mikst/sockpuppet/tree/master/ellipse_move
And firmata for PD (called Pduino) is here
http://playground.arduino.cc/Interfacing/PD
http://at.or.at/hans/pd/objects.html