Here’s a fun way to make your clothes more interactive– you can turn a zipper into a switch for activating lights, sounds, and more using stainless steel conductive thread.
The switch works like a momentary pushbutton. As the zipper pull travels along the teeth, two pads of conductive thread are bridged, momentarily creating an electrical connection.
This connection can be sensed by a microcontroller like FLORA or GEMMA with an activated interal pullup resistor, or be used in place of a push button in circuits like the TV-B-Gone or audio FX boards.
The zipper switch is not delivering current, and should not be used to drive LEDs– it’s a very weak connection that is only made momentarily and not suitable for more than a few milliamps of current.
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