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

Show HN: Making a flexible "neon" t-shirt with LED filaments(scottbezek.blogspot.com)

94 points by scottbez1 7 hours ago | 18 comments

khaki54 28 minutes ago |

One of my kids had something like this built into a Halloween costume that their mom procured from Amazon. One of the filaments was blinking out within a day so I started running the length of the filament to figure out where the bad connection was. Unexpectedly it shocked the hell out of me. I put a meter on it and it was 240V. I couldn't believe I got such a nasty poke from 2 AA batteries.

scottbez1 7 hours ago |

Author here, happy to answer any questions!

bigwheels 4 hours ago | |

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

p.s. thanks for the additional sourcing details

scottbez1 4 hours ago | | |

AliExpress and Adafruit, e.g. https://www.adafruit.com/product/5867

ipsum2 3 hours 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.

d3Xt3r 3 hours 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.

scottbez1 3 hours ago | | |

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

verdverm 7 hours ago | |

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?

scottbez1 7 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?

mlmonkey 1 hour ago |

Is "LED Filament" the same as "EL Wire" ?

ThrowawayTestr 1 hour ago | |

No, those are more similar to old fluorescent bulbs.

4d4m 7 hours ago |

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

IshKebab 2 hours 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.

danilafe 4 hours ago |

Beautiful! Thank you for sharing.

buredoranna 2 hours ago |

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

Razengan 4 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.