Wearable Video Coat

July 12, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 13 Comments

[David Forbes] is no stranger to the weird and esoteric, so he created a color LED TV built into a lab coat. He plans on bringing it to Burning Man next month.

The RGB LEDs are mounted narrow flex boards, providing a 160×120 pixel NTSC display. Video processing is taken care of by an Xilinx FPGA that takes the YCrCb video feed from a video iPod and converts it into four separate RGB streams for the front, back, and the two sides. The requisite controls for brightness and color are on the shoulders.

Of course, the build wouldn’t be over-the-top without the ability to plug a Nintendo into a lab coat, so there’s an NTSC input on an RCA jack. Everything is powered by two 11.1 V, 5Ah radio-control LiPo battery packs that should power this for a while.

Check out a video of the LED lab coat below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtSm8Oom2n4&w=470]

Hackaday Links: October 31, 2010

October 31, 2010 by Mike Szczys 8 Comments

Happy Halloween to one and all. Let’s celebrate the holiday with some related links.

[Brandon] carved the Hackaday logo into his Jack-‘o-Lantern. But that’s not all, inspired by EMSL’s Jack-‘o-Lantern, as well as our own offering, he added LEDs. Three of them occupy the flesh behind the eyes and nose, fading in and out thanks to some pulse-width modulation that an Arduino provides.

Mad Scientist Blinken Costume

[Bill Porter] is getting down with the LEDs by making a Mad Scientist costume. The accent jewelry is an LED matrix necklace that he made himself to go along with 76 of them sewn into the coat. Also joining the party is over one hundred feet of wire and two Arduinos.

Dole Out Candy Via Twitter/Phone

Apparently [Noel Portugal] will be too busy hacking together his next project to dish out candy on Halloween. To make up for his double-booked schedule he built an automated candy dispenser. Just tweet your request and the bucket will open a hatch from which candy will fall. There’s also an option to activate it with a voice call, or just slap that red button until your blood sugar reaches an adequate level.

Star Wars Pumpkins

[Charles Gantt] carved Yoda’s mug into his pumpkin and backlit it with green LEDs. Someone else paired two together for a Death Star shoots Alderon scene [via Reddit]. If those aren’t enough for you there’s a Star Wars top 10 collection out there somewhere.

Now go start working on next year’s props!

Dazzling Coat Sure To Be In Demand With Pimps Everywhere

September 30, 2010 by Mike Szczys 37 Comments

This is the newest addition to [Arren Parker’s] Burning Man wardrobe. The full-length lighted faux-fur coats is completely his creation. He started with a pattern that he acquired from Ebay, adding side pockets and changing the hood to a collar. From there he added the 256 RGB LEDs that make it shimmer so appealingly.

For this to work, he designed and ordered 300 tiny PCBs on which a connector socket and the LED are soldered. These are driven by a set of six TLC5940 pulse-width modulation chips, and ultimately by an Arduino. The effect is spectacular (see for yourself after the break), and we’re sure it’ll be a hit at burning man. Continue reading “Dazzling Coat Sure To Be In Demand With Pimps Everywhere” →

LED Suit Lights Up The Night

September 1, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 30 Comments

When the tipline popped up with this LED suit, part two, by [Marc DeVidts] we were expecing a simple led version of the previously known EL coat.

Well we were right and wrong in the same instance. Correct in that like predictions, the outcome is stonking great. Wrong in that this suit far outpaces EL in abilities we weren’t expecting. Namely to start off, an iPhone app over WiFi dictates to some 200 Arduino multiplexed RGB LED modules to dance randomly or follow patterns; an accelerometer and microphone are also implanted to further some effects. And finally if the suit isn’t enough to make you giddy, his PCB and enclosure milling surely will. Catch a video of the entire setup after the break.

Continue reading “LED Suit Lights Up The Night” →

Out Now: EL Coat, Coming Soon: EL Hat

August 10, 2010 by Jakob Griffith 41 Comments

[Render] says his coat is simply “enhanced with EL wire”, but we know the truth. He’s secretly an alien that can’t block out all of his glowing green skin with a the black coat. No? Fine,

You can put away the sewing machine, [Render] simply used a needle and fishing line to attach ~50-70 foot of electroluminescent wire to the outside of a coat he picked up at a local clothing shop. Solder and program in an inverter and controller board thanks to SparkFun, and you’re ready to go.

Just double check all your connections, high voltage directly on your person is not fun. Trust us.