Project: Dance Costume that responds in real-time to on- & off- commands sent via bluetooth or ethernet. Simplified version of what is seen on America’s Got Talent.
I would like to know what Sparkfun items to purchase for an e-textile project (dance costume) that uses electroluminescent wire. I would like to do the following:
1: Wirelessly communicate turn-on and turn-off the EL wire over bluetooth and/or ethernet.
2: Upload code so that the dance costumes can be programmed to automatically respond (turn-on & turn-off) to the beat of the music. Please advise.
Questions:
1: How many separate circuits are available on the Lily Pad or recommended Sparkfun hardware?
2: How many separate strands of electroluminescent wire can be controlled by the Lily Pad or recommended Sparkfun hardware?
3: What is the output voltage of the each of the circuits on the Lily Pad or recommended Sparkfun hardware?.
Thanks
Wirelessly communicate turn-on and turn-off the EL wire over bluetooth and/or ethernet.
Just so you know, this could get pretty complicated really quick. I'd advise you to skip wireless at the beginning and focus on getting the effects you're looking for to work. Once you have things working OK over a wired connection, then you can start trying to make it work via wireless. Here's a couple of tutorials you might have a look at for wireless control once you're ready for it.
- [[Enginursday: Building a Wireless EL Wire Dance Suit, Part 1](https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2910)
- [[Enginursday: Building a Wireless EL Wire Dance Suit, Part 2](https://www.sparkfun.com/news/2963)
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Upload code so that the dance costumes can be programmed to automatically respond (turn-on & turn-off) to the beat of the music.
The code you're going to need to write on your own but we have some example code that should help get you started in the tutorials for the [[EL Escudo Dos](https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/el-sequencerescudo-dos-hookup-guide) and [[EL Sequencer](https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/el-sequencerescudo-dos-hookup-guide).
How many separate circuits are available on the Lily Pad or recommended Sparkfun hardware?
That depends on which LilyPad board you're using. The smallest LilyPad board has 4 I/O pins and the largest has 20.
How many separate strands of electroluminescent wire can be controlled by the Lily Pad or recommended Sparkfun hardware? What is the output voltage of the each of the circuits on the Lily Pad or recommended Sparkfun hardware?
Technically zero since EL wire requires hundreds of volts to operate and a LilyPad only outputs between 3.3 and 5 volts. You could somehow connect one or more [[EL Escudo Dos](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10878) boards to a lilypad and have those switch your EL wire but that might get a bit bulky. Each EL Escudo Dos can control up to 8 strands of EL wire. Unless you use some additional digital trickery, you could potentially have 20 channels or EL wire with a single [[LilyPad Arduino 328](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13342) connected to three [[EL Escudo Dos](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10878) boards but it might be easier to use multiple [[EL Sequencers](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12781) instead.
Sadly there’s really no way to do this with our products and have it be compact. You could prototype with our parts but if you need something small for the end product you’re probably going to want to design and create a custom board. If I were going to do a project like this, I’d use one or more EL Sequencer boards and connect an XBee to the ‘master’ EL Sequencer for wireless control and then ‘network’ the slave EL Sequencers to the master with I2C. It would be bulky, but with the right programming it would work. If you wanted the boards to react to sound, a [Sound Detector connected to the master EL Sequencer and some code would make that possible.](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12642)](SparkFun EL Sequencer - COM-12781 - SparkFun Electronics)](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10878)](LilyPad Arduino 328 Main Board - DEV-13342 - SparkFun Electronics)](https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10878)](EL Sequencer/Escudo Dos Hookup Guide - SparkFun Learn)](EL Sequencer/Escudo Dos Hookup Guide - SparkFun Learn)](Enginursday: Building a Wireless EL Wire Dance Suit, Part 2 - News - SparkFun Electronics)](Enginursday: Building a Wireless EL Wire Dance Suit, Part 1 - News - SparkFun Electronics)