Hello everybody,
I am brand new to this world, and very interested in making my own DIY wearable project. The barebones of what I want to do, are a fabric LCD screen, and a series of LED lights controlled by music, or synchronized with music.
However, I can't make asses from elbows in this new world (I'm a musician and producer) and would really appreciate a nudge in the right direction. I'll learn everything I need to, if somebody could point me to a good basic guide? Or youtube video covering basics of some stuff? Or a book maybe? I noticed there aren't a whole lot of resources for this right now, so anything would be helpful really.
Hi sargentpilcher,
Welcome to your new obsession!
Take a look at Adafruit Wearables for ideas of what is possible.
Pat.
That looks like a great resource thank you!
sargentpilcher:
a fabric LCD screen
What do you mean by that? LCD screens are generally flat and rigid and come in a huge variety of designs from custom monochrome displays with a few segments for 1080p backlit color displays showing full-motion video. Fabric, on the other hand, is soft and flexible. Are you talking about some kind of flexible video display? Maybe an array of LED's for showing low-resolution animations?
You might also want to check out a couple of books "Beginning C for Arduino, Second Edition" - it covers setting up the build environment on your computer and basic C programming. Also, the book "Practical Arduino - cool Projects for Open Source Hardware" has a bunch of basic ideas in there you can build on.
a fabric LCD screen
What do you mean by that?
Like you see in the science fiction movies: images move across someone's clothing.
Audio & Interactivity
Booklet compiled by Mark Anderson
Based heavily on the works of Mike McRoberts' Arduino Starters Kit Manual:
A complete Beginners Guide to the Arduino.
I've been using this book and its a nice easy intro....
johnwasser:
What do you mean by that? LCD screens are generally flat and rigid and come in a huge variety of designs from custom monochrome displays with a few segments for 1080p backlit color displays showing full-motion video. Fabric, on the other hand, is soft and flexible. Are you talking about some kind of flexible video display? Maybe an array of LED's for showing low-resolution animations?
I guess I was getting ahead of myself. I was looking for something like this
But it seems the technology isn't out there yet.
richikennedy:
Audio & Interactivity
Booklet compiled by Mark Anderson
Based heavily on the works of Mike McRoberts' Arduino Starters Kit Manual:
A complete Beginners Guide to the Arduino.
I've been using this book and its a nice easy intro....
I'm having a hard time finding this. Would you be able to link me something?
gpsmikey:
You might also want to check out a couple of books "Beginning C for Arduino, Second Edition" - it covers setting up the build environment on your computer and basic C programming. Also, the book "Practical Arduino - cool Projects for Open Source Hardware" has a bunch of basic ideas in there you can build on.
Yes this does seem like a good investment. I may stick with free resources for now (I'm even going to start learning on an arduino emulator first. I have some stuff to learn about electronics as well.
In your opinion, how long would it take an intelligent and quick learner like myself to learn the essentials of it if I spent 8 hours a day on it? Not looking to be a master arduino programmer, and I plan on linking several pre-written code pieces from github and the like, but I will need to know how to debug it. I have some programmer family, but don't want to bug them too much or rely on them too heavily.
If you're going to wear live electronics in a casual way, remember tha even quite small batteries can dump a lot of current.
Provide an easy to reach battery isolator (simple pull string or whatever).
It could very nasty zipped into a sweater that's going to catch fire in 3-2-1- aargh!
This sounds dramatic, but is real, and has potential to cause problems!
You can get crude video using LED strips. It looks like the highest common density is 144 LEDs per meter, about 7mm pitch. Each meter costs around $17 and LED strips typically come on 5-meter reels. I don't know how closely together you can pack the strips but from the picture I saw they look about 10mm wide.
To make a 500mm wide by 600mm high array to fill the back of a jacket you need 60 strips 500mm long or about 30 meters (6 reels). That's about $500 for the LED strips and you need something fast to drive them. Video is probably more than a basic Arduino can handle. An ARM-based Arduino-like board like the Teensy might do it.
