Last February, some first year Design for Technology Education Students at
Nottingham Trent University showed some of their latest creations using our own
Electro-Fashion range. As a part of their course, each student had to design, make a sewable electronic circuit and present the product as a practical application.
This week we are featuring a signalling LED jacket that has been designed to alert other road users when the jacket is being used for signalling when worn on a motorbike or moped. The jacket was designed with style in mind for a different class of user inspired by the 'Northern Soul' music that has seen a recent resurgence in popularity recently since its origins in the 1960's and 1980's. The idea behind the design that the wearer of the jacket doesn't need to do much to create the circuit and make the LED's light up. There are two touch pad contacts in the thumb and index finger holes in a built-in glove to complete the circuit. The rider does this simply by squeezing the contacts together to complete the soft switch.
The glove and lapel light circuit connect to the jacket via
Conductive hook and loop fastener. This helps the wearer concentrate on the road and driving their vehicle whilst effectively signalling to other road users.
In the design phase, the designer experimented with the limitations of the conductive thread and came to the conclusion that each 3V battery could sustain 7 LED's in the circuit without loosing brightness. The brightness of each LED was paramount to the design as the jacket is designed to be used mostly at night in dark areas on roads.
The designer then chose a parallel circuit with 13 LED's (7
blue, 4
white and 2
red), 2
battery cell holders and used
conductive thread to string the circuit together. The circuit design used in parallel as displayed below is showing the LED's and batteries in the design.
I would like to thank all of the Nottingham Trent Design for Technology Education Students for allowing us to use the photos for this blog and we wish them on their endeavours throughout their time at
Nottingham Trent University and beyond. We always love seeing examples of your work, and are always looking out for cool projects to feature in our
gallery.
©Kitronik Ltd – You may print this page & link to it, but must not copy the page or part thereof without Kitronik's prior written consent.
