DIY wearable electronic: multilayer e-textile circuit board

Instructables member Lynne Bruning has been very busy the last 2 days designing unique concepts on how to ‘hide’ or integrate conductive thread into needle work materials like wool, fusible fibers, fabric tubes and fabric patches fused together.

You have to check out all of them as they are very inspirational and as Lynne states in one of the comments: Options are the designer’s candy store!

Personally I like the idea of the layered fabric as it opens the creative flood gates to make complex, multilayer printed circuit board designs out of 100% textile material.

The starting point is a first layer of fabric on which a iron-on adhesive is applied. Next step is to place conductive thread as needed for the electronic layout. After this step, iron a second layer of fabric onto the open adhesive of the first fabric patch and voila – the first single layer e-textile PCB is ready.

It is easy now to imagine that the step above can be repeated as often as wished and so creating lay over layer of conductive lines inside. Taking out now a needle loaded with conductive thread one can create ‘solder pads’ or connection points to place components on either side of the multi (or single) layer e-textile board.

Selecting water repellent fabrics for the different layer give the benefit of having a water resistant e-textile circuit board that can withstand sweating or rainfall easily.

A fabulous, excellent idea of creating e-textile infrastructure on which all the sewable components can be put on. Click over to Lynne’s highly inspirational Instructables and keep in mind: Options are the designer’s candy store!

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