The Japanese company Kandeko gives us a lovely ad for its Smart X electro-conductive thread, in which we see a miniature city light up with tiny LEDs. While I would never have the patience to create something on this scale, the idea of electricity conducting thread is intriguing. Is it hard to work with? Can it shock you? What if it gets cut while the lights are on? How fire safe is it? I'd like to know more, but the product page is in Japanese. (via Laughing Squid)
Very cool! It will revolutionize embroidery, among other things, LOL!
ReplyDeleteFrom Google translate, it is apparently silver plated nylon--a kind of silver thread that can act as a wire.
ReplyDeleteI'm an engineer. Here's my guess at how they did this:
DC electricity requires a loop of current from the battery, through a wire to the device, then from the device through a wire back to the battery. So the device needs two connections to get power. As far as I can figure, the LED lights have a wire that goes to the LED and a wire that comes from the LED (thus, two connections).
The tricky ones are the 'lamp post' and the little moving vehicle. I figure the 'lamp posts get one connection from the thread, then the second connection is the 'lamp post' itself, which probably connects to the second wire under the cloth.
I haven't figured out how they did the moving vehicle yet.
I think the wire next to the moving vehicle is the trick. There's probably a little metal bar on the far side of that vehicle that we can't see, touching along the top of that wire as it runs, providing the second connection.
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