Show HN: Making a flexible "neon" t-shirt with LED filaments

72 points by scottbez1 5 hours ago on hackernews | 14 comments

[OP] scottbez1 | 5 hours ago

Author here, happy to answer any questions!

Have you thought about ways to make the lights detachable so you can wash the garment? Or is the trade off at a point where redoing it is easier overall?

: [OP] scottbez1 | 5 hours ago
It’s maybe plausible to gently wash it with the filaments still attached? I did actually use connectors so the shirt could be detached from the drive electronics, though I’d be a bit worried whether the stitches would survive and corrosion on the solder joints. Adhesive/waterproof heat shrink could maybe help?
The other option is maybe attach the filaments to an embroidery style patch instead of the shirt itself and then attach it with Velcro to the shirt?

bigwheels | 2 hours ago

Just want to say- this is a really neat idea and project!

p.s. thanks for the additional sourcing details

: [OP] scottbez1 | 2 hours ago
AliExpress and Adafruit, e.g. https://www.adafruit.com/product/5867

ipsum2 | an hour ago

I wonder if white thread would've been more invisible, the black thread seems more obvious against the LEDs? Being nitpicky, its a cool project for a single night.

[OP] scottbez1 | an hour ago

Or color matched. Hadn’t even thought of that to be honest

d3Xt3r | an hour ago

There's actually a specific transparent thread you can use for this, it's called a monofilament polyester (aka "MonoPoly") thread, in clear or "invisible" variant. Would be perfect for this project.

: embedding-shape | 46 minutes ago
I was gonna say maybe fishing line would work, but I think maybe some fishing line is some sort of monofilament polyester?

4d4m | 5 hours ago

The pwm animation/flicker/ramp up was a REALLY nice touch

Razengan | 2 hours ago

Reminds me of a Japanese tech demo on YouTube I can't find right now, of projecting a flexible hologram on to a t-shirt with invisible markers.

danilafe | 2 hours ago

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

buredoranna | 45 minutes ago

This is great, because the one problem I have with the cyberpunk dystopian future we live in, is the disappointing lack of neon.

IshKebab | 24 minutes ago

Ooo this is cool, I didn't know these exist. I once half made something like this with EL wire but I stopped after getting an electric shock from some EL tape. Turns out the edges are not at all insulated and you need high voltages to drive them. I'm not wearing that. 24V sounds much nicer.