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How can you make any dress a light up dress? An easy method is fiber optics and lots of hot glue.
The first step is to plan out your project. One tutorial can’t cover every option, but I will cover a feminine and a masculine look. I recommend reading the tutorial to the end before deciding on your plan. When you plan your look consider if you will modify the clothing itself or make a detachable lights set. The light up portion of my dress is a Velcro skirt that goes on top while the suspenders and bow tie have lights hot glued to them. Consider where you want the ends of your fiber optics, which is where the light will shine, and where you want the fiber optic cables to run to, which is where your LEDs and wiring will go.
Once you plan out where you want your LEDs and how the optical fibers will be distributed it’s time to start producing your look by connecting your LEDs to the fiber optics. I bought 1.5mm optical fiber on Amazon for this project which came in a roll. The cables retained the circular shape so I had to straighten them for the skirt. Fiber optics can take any form you want them to but sharp turns can diffuse the light and make them dimmer, and heating the cables to desired shape can make them brittle. After shaping cables its easy to light them up. Using a 5mm RGB common cathode I was able to attach 8 strands to each light. To do so gather the strands in a small, tight bundle with the ends on one side closely gathered, and use electrical tape to keep them together. The bundle can be attached to the led with shrink wrap, and the connection should be secured with hot glue inside of the bundle and along the edges of the shrink wrap.
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
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Python for Microcontrollers – Adafruit Daily — Python on Microcontrollers Newsletter: CircuitPython 2025 Wraps, Focus on Using Python, Open Source and More! #CircuitPython #Python #micropython @ThePSF @Raspberry_Pi
EYE on NPI – Adafruit Daily — EYE on NPI Maxim’s Himalaya uSLIC Step-Down Power Module #EyeOnNPI @maximintegrated @digikey
Every Wednesday is Wearable Wednesday here at Adafruit! We’re bringing you the blinkiest, most fashionable, innovative, and useful wearables from around the web and in our own original projects featuring our wearable Arduino-compatible platform, FLORA. Be sure to post up your wearables projects in the forums or send us a link and you might be featured here on Wearable Wednesday!