Iron a small piece of double-sided iron-on interfacing to a piece of woven conductive fabric.
I like this mini iron for better control with small pieces.
I like this mini iron for better control with small pieces.
Peel off the paper backing (or don't), and cut out the shapes necessary for your controller buttons - refer to your pattern! You'll have four directional buttons, two option buttons, and two round action buttons.
If you haven't already, peel the backing from the interfacing and then iron the pieces of conductive fabric to some grey fuzzy fabric. Don't place them too close to the edge of your fabric, or you won't have anything to grip onto with your embroidery hoop in the next steps.
Place the Flora on the fabric, and following the pattern use a water-soluble embroidery marker to sketch the traces that will connect the Flora pads to the conductive fabric buttons.
It's important that these traces are as far apart from each other as possible so they don't accidentally trigger each other's capacitive touch sensing. We've tested this particular pattern and it works great; we also made previous versions with traces closer together that did not work well, so keep that in mind if you're designing your own button layout.
It's important that these traces are as far apart from each other as possible so they don't accidentally trigger each other's capacitive touch sensing. We've tested this particular pattern and it works great; we also made previous versions with traces closer together that did not work well, so keep that in mind if you're designing your own button layout.
Embroider connections that follow the lines you just drew, wrapping several times around the Flora pads and into the conductive fabric, then knot, seal, and cut the thread at the back. For more information about working with conductive thread, check out our Conductive Thread guide.
Remove the circuit from the embroidery hoop and iron out any creases.
Remove the circuit from the embroidery hoop and iron out any creases.
Blot the blue traces with a damp paper towel to make it disappear.
