Secret of Nimh Sparkly LED Necklace

So, I have been making stuff.  I never stop making stuff.  I just haven't been posting about it all.  :)  Too busy traveling the world as a Mermaid, I think.

But this one is so much fun I want to share!

This necklace reminds me of the sparkly in the Secret of Nimh cartoon.  I mean, I've always wanted a Sparkly for my very own...  hasn't everyone?

I started with a neopixel.  I did a resin cast, embedding the neopixel inside.  Then I glued a small neopixel ring on the back of the hardened resin jewel and wired it up to the embedded pixel.  I love the neopixel rings, but  trouble is that they leave a dark spot in the middle, so adding a single neopixel in the center makes the whole thing glow more evenly.

I wired it all up to a beetle board.  These are super cute and teeny tiny, though they are a bit fiddly and sometimes I want to smash them with a shoe.

I tested lots of different LED code effects before I found this one on the FastLED forum and tweaked it so it gave me the look I wanted.. clouds, sparkles, fades, and the whole thing slowly cycles through the rainbow, giving me every color over the course of several minutes.   It runs on a small LiPo battery glued to the back of the beetle board.

I looked through my "steampunk junk" drawer and found the little pocket watch blank -- I probably got it at Michael's or a halloween store at some point.  I took off the back and the flip cover and used a dremel to rout out the inside metal tabs, and the whole necklace assembly fit perfectly right inside.  (I was tempted to leave the flip cover on, because a flip cover pocket watch necklace would be super cool too, but I decided it's better in it's constantly open state and who wants to walk around with a covered up LED necklace anyway?)

The new thing, the bit I'm proudest of, is the magnetic clasp / switch.  This has always been an issue for me with making LED necklaces.  Well, two issues -- one, where do you put the switch so it's not visible or rubbing against your neck, and two, how do you have an open-able clasp if the wires are going around your neck?  With this solution I fixed both problems in a most elegant way.

The magnetic clasp is a super simple solution, and much less expensive than buying an on/off switch.  I'm considering adding a non-wired magnetic clasp in there too, in case I want to wear this necklace when it's turned off... but.. why on earth would I want to do that?

Before you ask.. yes, I have considered making these for sale.  But, my MO for any type of thing I make seems to be this:

1. Make a whole bunch JUST FOR ME until I have way more than I can use
2. Make them for my friends as gifts / giveaways until my friends get sick of them too
3. Make them for sale, if I'm still excited about the process and if I can guarantee they won't break.

That's the issue with LED clothing, costumes, jewelry, etc... it breaks!  It breaks all the time.  I'm convinced that this is why it's taking so long for cool LED glow fur and costume bits to make it out to the retail stores.. I have to fix on my LED costume bits so often, and the fixes are usually pretty tricky and involve soldering irons and replacement wires and parts, that I just couldn't justify selling this stuff until I feel super confident it won't just fall apart.

Here's a picture of the guts.  I might add some kind of cover back there eventually but then there'll be issues with plugging it into the charger, so I've just left it techie-looking for now.  :)  And it's nice and smooth on my neck, and doesn't seem to want to spin around, so maybe I'll just leave it.

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Glimmer the Mermaid -- LED Mermaid Tail and accessories

I haven't posted in the last few months because I've been pouring all my energy into creating this.

I call her Glimmer the Mermaid.  :)

(She's even got her own Facebook Page so that makes her "real")

I made the LED swimmable mermaid seashells at the end of 2013, and wore them to the NC Merfest convention and they were a huge hit.  When I got home, I decided the shells needed a light-up tail to complement them.  The rabbit-hole opened up, and I dove right in.

The end result is absolutely stunning, and I am completely delighted with it.  This was the most learning-intensive and difficult and frustrating project I've attempted in.. well, since college, I think.  I have had to learn so much in so many different fields, and I've encountered so many amazing people and communities along the way.

This tail uses about 180 Adafruit Neopixels and an Arduino Micro to control them.  It's got a bluetooth feature -- I can control it with my android tablet and change the animations and brightness of the lights.  I plan to add audio sensors and possibly motion or color sensors as well (that'll be phase two, I think).

It is designed to be swimmable.  I'm doing the first full water test probably next week, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I used enough glue that nothing shorts or zaps me.  Nothing has so far,  and all the partial water tests I've done have worked fine.. but strapping a big battery and a bunch of electronics on, and then going for a swim, makes me a little nervous.

Mermaid in the bathtub!

But.  Swimming Mermaid LED Tail!!!

This is a neoprene tail painted with Jones Tones.  I used the same basic method for the tail as I used for my last neoprene Ariel Mermaid Tail, but I spared no expense this time.  I used a competitor monofin (which I like SO much better than the Rapid).  I made the scales larger and added lots of rhinestones and gems and lace.  When the lights are off, it almost comes across as "Mermaid Wedding" -- but I love the fanciness and I love how the predominantly white color scheme goes with the lights, whatever color they are.

The lights on the top part of the tail are individual neopixels cast in resin for diffusion and waterproofing.

 The lights on the bottom are neopixel strips encased in Dragonskin silicone.   This keeps them flexible (almost to a fault -- I have broken them a couple times already!) and very waterproof.

Also I made a glowing tiara with more of the resin cast neopixel "jewels".  Because Glimmer needed a glowing tiara.

All together, the outfit is just stunning.  I never want to take it off.  This tail is significantly heavier than my other tails have been (oof, abs!) but it should be close to neutrally buoyant in the water.  

I got to wear it to the A's Game season opening party at the Oakland Coliseum this past week. They put me by the sushi bar, HA! 

Glimmer was very well received.  Although, with that particular audience, most people seemed to be more excited about the light-up seashells than the fancy animated tail.  (Men.  What can you do?)

Once all the bugs are worked out and the swimmability tested, Glimmer will be available for all kinds of wet or dry events and appearances.  I'm also hoping to do a lot of photo shoots as the weather gets nicer.   I want to do sunset beach shoots, and underwater cave shoots, and fancy swimming pool shoots and snowscape shoots.  I just want to wear it everywhere.  :)  

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Update on my fancy Light-up Shoes

I've been modifying my light-up shoes and now they're extra-awesome.

I got some new velostat, which works a treat.  The velostat is a pressure sensitive material which basically gets turned into a sensor, so the shoes light up when I step down, instead of just being on all the time.  Yay for interactive stuff!!

I have to say, interactivity is my favorite thing about learning all this arduino voodoo.  I have made loads of web pages and done plenty of online imaging and making-of-pretty-things that appear on my computer screen in the "virtual world".  I've also made plenty of fashion and clothing from drawings or patterns in the "real world".  The thing that's floating my boat about arduino is the connection between the two.. I make a computer program and it changes something in the real world instead of just on-screen.  This, is magic.  

I can't wait to start adding accelerometers and motion sensors and stuff to my clothing.  I also want to make stuff that's remote controllable like my fairy lights.  The learning curve is pretty steep, but I'm finding myself in that exciting phase of discovery where every project opens up a whole new world and things are actually starting to make sense, instead of just respond when I poke at them.  I've got a very long way to go, but I'm having an absolute blast along the way.

So!  Here are my light-up shoes in new-and-improved action.  I used the firewalker code from Adafruit, and tweaked it so it works with the gemma chip I'm using.  I also figured out how to slow it way down - the code is written for a series of around 50 LEDs and I'm just using 5, so the animation went by too fast on the 5 LEDs.  I also tweaked the color a whole lot, but then ended up just changing it back to the original red-yellow-black-with-sparklies because, well, it's AWESOME.

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Light-up Shoes for Grown-ups. Well, for me anyway.

I have always wanted a pair of light-up shoes.  All the kids are wearing them.  They can stomp and their shoes light up with red or blue or sparkly and I've always been SO JEALOUS.

Tonight, I finished my very first set of light-up shoes.  I never, EVER want to take them off.  Yes, I am standing here, writing this, in light-up shoes.

It's very hard to photograph the outside of your own ankles.

I was inspired by this Firewalker Shoes Tutorial from Adafruit.  If you haven't ever poked around Adafruit, I highly recommend it - they have lots of light-up wearables tutorials and inspiration.  I want one of EVERYTHING.  

I don't like the Vans/Converse look so much so I decided to use a comfy pair of boots I had in the garage.  They are pretty cute and steampunk-y with buttons up the sides, but one of the buttons had come off and they'd been migrating to the back of the shoe closet.  I have a feeling they're never going to get forgotten about again.

I removed all the buttons and wired up 5 of Adafruit's neo-pixels to a brand-new Gemma.  This is the first time I'd used a Gemma, but I have a little experience with the neopixels thanks to my light-up unicorn horn project.  (What?  I haven't blogged about the light-up unicorn horn yet???  Here's a pic:

Rainbow Unicorn FTW!

I promise to go into detail about this project at some point.. maybe after the Halloween madness dies down)

I sewed the neopixels into the holes where the buttons had been, and sewed clear iridescent buttons onto the outside, and buttoned the shoes back up.  The iridescent buttons catch and diffuse the light from the neopixels and look just gorgeous.  They run off 3 AAA batteries, and the battery pack just slips nicely down inside the boots - I don't even notice it.

I originally wanted to add a velostat pad under the heel so the lights would react when I stepped down, like in the Firewalker tutorial, but the velostat I got was part of a bad batch and didn't work right.  I've ordered some more and will probably add this functionality in later on.

Regardless, I am absolutely DELIGHTED with how they turned out.  The Gemma uses a simplified (?) form of Arduino, and between the unicorn horn and this project, I'm starting to figure out how to tweak the code to get the lights to do cool things.  Each project is a little more exciting and a little fancier.

You know where this is all leading, right?  There will be a light-up swimming mermaid tail sometime in the not-too-distant future.  Oh, yes there will.

Video, which I couldn't embed for some reason, of the pretty lights

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