This is the second gown. I learned allot from the first one ( it has burnt holes in it now) and this one is made of cotton. I’m hoping it can resist the heat more than nylon and 10% spandex. But this fabric doesn’t move quite as easily so I”m trying to figure out how to make it move more than a few centimeters! More photos of the circuit coming soon.
Crispy Gown: I yelled at the gown too much
So the first night gown has been destroyed. Yes, it is now fried. The flexinol burnt right through it when I was running tests and… well, didn’t realize it was still on pumping 30volts through the dress for too long.
I found that using conductive fabric and thread was not effective in creating a solid connection with the flexinol. It would work but only shortly and mostly not at all. So I had to use real wiring in the gown (not very wearables-like, I know). But I used thin wire and this has been more effective getting a good flow of voltage to the flexinol.
The second photo shows where I”ve sewn the microphone from the front of the garment to the back (this gown is now fried however), the first photo shows the wires under the garment (and yes, that is a wad of flexinol I was playing with and behold! Another burn! – The wad of flexinol (.001 diameter) cannot handle 30volts).
The bottom left photo shows the conductive fabric that was sewn into the first dress.
And I”ve included a photo of the relays I may have to use. I am thinking I may have to have a smaller relay, switched by the lilypad, to turn on another relay. The larger 2nd relay can handle having 30volts pumped through it while the smaller one cannot. I learned this by buying and destroying about 8 reed relays.
I had to reconfigure some circuitry for the sound activated night gown. I will have to use 20-30volts of power through the garment to get the flexinol to all react at one as opposed to it slowly moving across the circuit which would mean you would need to continue yelling into the microphone for about 30 seconds. With 20+volts it will happen instantly. I’ve included a new sketch of the circuit.
This circuit will work with three 9volt batteries. For display however, I will be plugging the dress into the wall so I don’t have to keep changing the batteries.
Using interfacing to attach flexinol to fabric
For the past few days I’ve been experimenting with different ways of attaching or inserting the flexinol to fabric. I’ve included images using one sided interfacing and ironing the flexinol to the fabric. This seemed like it would work well and I wouldn’t have to worry about thread showing through the garment. But the interfacing restricted the flexinol too much and there was not enough movement of the fabric when the flexinol was powered. I’m using .015″ diameter wire so a thicker wire might work better with interfacing. I finally decided that sewing the flexinol to the fabric loosely was the best method of attaching the flexinol. This enabled the fabric to twist the fabric pretty well.
I pinned the flexinol to the gown before sewing it with the sewing machine.
Sewing flexinol into garment
I sewed along the left and right inside of the curved nitinol
3 rows of flexinol sewn
Front of night gown
Back of the night gown
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