Nice! Thanks. My wife and I made a hat for our 3-month old daughter in March using a Lilypad and conductive thread (video here), but we found the conductive thread tough to work with and a bit flaky connectivity. I'm eager to try the Flora and steel thread for our next wearable project.
The thread is multiple fibers twisted together to create a flexible strand, whereas thin guitar strings are a solid piece of wire (not nearly as flexible). But still probably conductive! =]
It's made of stainless steel fibers, so it can be soldered but you need a special flux. However the sewn connection is quite strong, if you're inclined towards soldering to begin with, just use regular wire! =]
Do you have any information (code snippets, circuit designs, power supply info, recommended type of conductive thread/wire, etc.) on how to make the 6x6 led matrix shown at 3:50 in the video?
I'd like to know more about your project because I am starting a similar project, i.e. bike turn signal. Also, the video did not explain the pros and cons of 1-ply, 2-ply, and 3-ply. Since the GPS Flora contains the 2-ply and 1-ply, I'd be interested to know which one I should use for my projects.
When an non knitted individual yarn is stretched the resistance decreases, while stretching a knitted yarn increases the resistance. There are many references explaining why a knitted yarn behaves so but I can’t find a reference to explain why the individual yarn behaves in an opposite way. This is possibly due to the fact that the cross section of the individual yarn decreases on stretching making the conductive components to become packed together. I would appreciate if somebody can direct me to a reference for this.
I don't know what you did with the silver thread to make it black and non-conductive, but it's not the thread you got from me (members.shaw.ca/ubik/thread). I have samples here that were sewn almost a decade ago and used and stored under less than ideal conditions - a big sweaty pile of fencing lames - and they still look pretty much as they did when sewn, and still show under 5 ohms/sq, which is not far removed from resistance when new. And from my experience, stainless thread is a pain in the *** to work with. Can you machine sew with it?