I placed my lights in a vertical serpentine pattern. My layout was not ideal, but in this case the layout doesn't matter too much since I planned on creating an LED map that will reorient the software to use whatever layout I desire, no matter the physical order of the LEDs.
I created three separate lining panels, each out of two layers of fusible interfacing. Fusible interfacing is a material that has a heat-activated glue on one side, made for ironing on to fabric to strengthen or stiffen it. You can find it at any fabric store by the yard, and also online. It comes in various weights and stiffnesses. I used the lightweight variety since I'm not looking to add stiffness.
I made the pattern by opening up the bottom lining of the coat and laying the interfacing inside on top of the fabric, then tracing the seam lines onto the interfacing with a sharpie. It doesn't need to be exact, but you do want it to lay flat in there without bunching. Leave a little extra at the side seams for seam allowance.
Cut two pieces of interfacing for each section. It's best to fold the interfacing over onto itself and cut both sections at once. This will ensure that you have two mirror-image pattern pieces, one with the sticky side on the top and one with the sticky side on the bottom. We'll be fusing the two sticky sides together.
Pin the lights onto the sticky side of one of your interfacing pieces in a grid pattern. Again, this doesn't need to be super exact, but the more even you can get the spacing, the better it will look.
When you get to the end of a panel, cut the light strip, leaving yourself as much wire as possible to make it easy to solder on your connector. I like to use the "sacrificial pixel" method -- I lose one pixel by cutting this way but end up with twice as much wire on each side for soldering.
The IN end of my lights used a female connector, so for the OUT end I used a male connector. It really helps to be consistent with things like this.
This connection goes over my shoulder seam, so I added extra wire to my connector to be sure it will reach. Cover all the solder joints with heat shrink filled with hot glue to strengthen them.
Once all the soldering was done and I was happy with the placement of the wires, I moved all the pins to the other side of the panel, pinning the wires from the back side so the pins didn't get trapped inside when I fused the two interfacing pieces together.
Place the second piece of interfacing with the fusible side also facing inwards. You should have the sticky sides together with the lights trapped in between, and the pins on the outside holding things in place.
Use your iron or a heat press to fuse the two panels together. This is a little tricky with a standard iron since you really need to press into the cracks between the lights, but it's possible using the iron's tip judiciously. Gentle ironing doesn't hurt the lights at all -- they're really tough - but I wouldn't advise leaving a super hot iron pressing hard for any length of time. The interfacing fuses within 10-15 seconds, and the lights are fine under the iron for that much time.
Be sure to press all around the edges so the lights stay put. Remove the pins and press again from the other side.
It's easier to do the LED mapping on the panels before they are installed in the coat, so let's do that part next.
Page last edited August 02, 2024
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