What is it? A PCB to create textile wearables with APA102 LED strips. Since different length strips can be attached to this board it can be used to create different shapes. There is no soldering required at all which makes it easy to put together. The board contains a LIPO charger, so the battery can stay connected within the textile and be charged by an USB cable. The chip on board is the ATtiny84a, and is fully compatible with the Arduino IDE. The chip is preloaded with the Micronucleus bootloader to make uploading new sketches easier. The basic sketch on the board contains 4 LED patterns.

Why did you make it? I Created some fabric wearables during the summer of 2017. First wearable was created with a LilyPad 328 and separate LED's, took about 2 weeks to complete, and required a lot of soldering. Second design was using a LilyPad ATTINY85 with WS2812b LED strips, actually still required some work and soldering, but the result was astonishing. The RGB LED's allowed colors to blend! I decided to make these wearables with children, but I didn't want them to solder, and I had to bring the assembly time down to minutes instead of days. Created some concepts with the ATSAMD21G18A and custom WS2812b LED strips, and I went to the libraries in Stockton to teach children how to use it. The workshop was a great success with children between 5 to 87 years old, and now a lot of people attending Burning Man are asking for a PCB they can use for their products. Now it is time to create a more affordable solution based on the ATtiny84a, using standard APA102 strips. The ATtiny84a run at 5V, compared to 3.3V on the prototype with the ATSAMD21G18A, which will result in better data communication to the strips. The PWM on these APA102 are higher than the WS2812b, and that makes it perfect when used in motion (for example dancing at EDM parties, or a night run).

What makes it special? There is nothing like this out there yet and people seem to like it. All the drawings and schematics are available on Hackaday.io. The board uses Micronucleus bootloader, but unlike the Digispark, it uses the ATtineCore with LTO to make more efficient sketches. You don not have to use it for a textile wearable, you can even wear the board as a necklace!

The boards are entirely manufactured by hand, using a stencil and reflow oven. Boards are fully tested before shipped out.

Programming is not required, a sketch is already loaded.

What is included? The board is available as a single board only, or with a fabric kit. The Fabric kit contains the following:

• 12" x 24" piece of netting (good for 1 star/butterfly/heart)

• 12" x 12" piece of black velt

• 12" x 12" piece of nuFoam (good for 1 star/butterfly/heart)

• 1 black zipper (15CM)

What is not included Unfortunately I am not able to ship these boards with a LIPO battery (yet). These boards are fully compatible with Adafruit LIPO batteries. The 1200mAh battery is recommended for larger wearables, the 350mAh for smaller wearables like the hearth or the necklace. The actual APA102 strips are sold separate on Tindie, which makes it easier to combine different sizes. Please click here to order the needed strips. Feel free to find your own strips as well, but make sure you get the correct pin-out (see in my log on Hackaday.io for more information).