Here's a diagram of the jacket's circuit. You'll chain eight pixels together around the collar and attach the GPS to 3.3v, TX, RX, and ground. A 3xAAA battery holder hides in a pocket and extends through a seam to plug into the JST port on the Flora.
Make the connections in your circuit with conductive thread.
Follow our guide on conductive thread so you can stitch up your circuit like a pro!
Start by stitching the ground bus from GND on Flora to the (-) pads on each pixel.

Next stitch the power bus from VBATT to all of the (+) pads on your pixels.
Then connect up the short data connections between each pixel. Be sure to seal the knots with clear nail polish or Fray Check.
Attach the GPS next! You can sew it directly to your garment or make it snappy with our Flora with Snaps tutorial. Connect 3.3v on the Flora to 3.3v, GND to GND, and RX->TX and TX->RX.
You can hide the conductive thread traces just under the top layer of fabric, just make sure the stitches aren't so long that they can move and come into contact with each other. You can see that the thread periodically appears on the outside of the garment to anchor the stitched lines.

You can optionally sew a coincell battery holder on the inside of the garment, connecting + to BAT on the GPS and - to GND. This will help the GPS get a fix on your position faster, since it can keep track of its last known position even when the device is off.
The battery holder is hidden in a pocket, with the JST connector poking out through a seam to connect to the Flora. If your pocket is far away from your circuit, Use one of our handy JST battery extension cables.

This guide was first published on Jan 09, 2013. It was last updated on Mar 29, 2024.

This page (Build it) was last updated on Jan 08, 2013.

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