How to Make Awesome LED RF Brooches on the Cheap #WearableWednesday #wearabletech #3dprinting
by Leslie Birch
This brooch project caught my attention, not only because it has a great video detailing the build, but also because it shows a smart fix for coming in on budget for a client. Designer Luis Guajardo Diaz wanted to create LED RF pins for Mujeres Influyentes, an event honoring women. After spending considerable time creating an original circuit design, Luis discovered the cost for the pin wasn’t going to make the cut. So, he found inexpensive bracelets with RF controlled LEDs and hacked them! A new pin base was created to match the new board shape using Autodesk Fusion 360. As for 3D printing, you could say it was an epic event just to make the 150 flower shaped brooches.
Four designs were made by students of UDD (Universidad del Desarrollo, Chile) for the tops and we 3D printed all of them over two weeks on 3 different locations; I printed the 150 cases on my printrbot metal within 5 days printing 2.x units/hour.
The finished flower pins were the perfect flourish for the special night and Luis was able to control their lights with the console that came with the original bracelets. He was able to match colors to what was going on in the program leaving the best for last—random color display. It looks like it was a spectacular evening and I’m so glad that Luis was able to pull it off. Sometimes it is better to not re-invent the wheel, especially when time and money are not on your side. If you would like to try making your first piece of LED jewelry, check out our FLORA Pixel Brooch. Make an organic shape with wire and code the Neopixels with your fave colors. It’s your jewelry, your way.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
Comments
Post a Comment