If you’ve been puzzled over a discreet, durable way to sew wiring into your clothing, then puzzle no more: [Plusea] has put together a writeup detailing how to make a USB cable partly out of stretchy cotton fabric. Although the design as detailed doesn’t give much practical use for the invention, we can think of several very effective ways of exploiting this toy. Imagine, for example, placing a USB battery pack into one pocket of a jacket, a portable digital audio recorder in the other, and a lavalier microphone in the lining, thus enabling dozens of hours of covert audio surveillance.
4 thoughts on “Make A Stretchy Fabric USB Cable”
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Or make stun-clothing…combine it with your standard, run of the mill “USB Shock Therapy device” ( http://asia.cnet.com/crave/2006/01/03/taiyo-buzztrainer-usb-shock-therapy-device/) and maybe a remote…. that’ll get your friend/dog/wife/kid out of *your* chair/hat/boxers/wetsuit/gloves, etc.
I’m sure the EMI characteristics are just fantastic!
For dozens of hours of covert audio surveillance just get a slim voice recorder and put it in your pants pocket.
The USB wire-shirt concept is a bit too abstract for me, how about a Taser/stun-gun proof shirt/pants? Electricity follows the path of least resistance and metal has much less resistance than skin. A tight metal mesh woven into the fabric would render you immune to most stun weapons.
I amazed my family when i filed the sink with water, placed my arm in the water along with 2 electrodes attached to my stun-gun, and hit the switch. The electricity ran through the water and the metal bottom of the sink instead of my arm.
yeah forget those data lines–i’ve screwed around with noncompliant usb cables (wrong impedance, bad shielding, etc) in even less spectacular ways and still managed to make it fail.
might be okay for audio though, if you find one of those devices that likes multiplexing microphone/speaker/headphone/charging/antenna/coke dispenser all in one usb plug. Then you can charge it too, with the spectacular I2R losses through that high conductivity conductive nylon.
WAIT HOLY SMOKES this actually worked for data transfer? Someone explain to me why my custom made, shielded, carefully braided (but not impedance controlled) 6″ USB cable extension didn’t work. . . GRRRRRR!!!!