This recent article has some careful measurements confirming many of the things we already know about building robust connectivity into e-textiles: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5419786/ They explore the use of TPU and Silicone (NB: they annoyingly misspell Silicone in many places as “silicon”).…
Ethics
Safer Power Options for Wearables
Many of our consultants who are physically disabled are unable to dress or undress without aid. This suggests that Lithium batteries shouldn’t be built into their wearables as there isn’t an easy way to mitigate against the rare occasion in…
Safer USB connections via Galvanic Isolation
Many designs I have seen for wearable sensing and actuation employ non-insulated conductors near or on the skin of the wearer. This puts people at risk from the dangers of faults in the protections provided by the devices the wearable…
Neoprene
Here is a source of antimicrobial neoprene: http://www.warco.com/sheet-rubber/neoprene/anti-microbial-neoprene/ Although there have been many announced attempts to replace neoprene in recent years, the only active ones I can find which are latex based are Yulex from the US and NaturalPrene TM…
Gold for PCBs and Connectors
Gold is considered a conflict mineral and it is interesting to consider how to minimize its use. Unfortunately it has become one of the most popular materials to plate PCBs with for SMT soldering. This article compares various options including…
Tantalum Capacitors
Tantalum is primarily used in electronics to build power supply decoupling capacitors. It is considered a conflict mineral so it is a good idea to minimize their use or insist on careful sourcing. Unfortunately, there is currently a worldwide shortage…
Availability of Microcontroller
Although Microchip has an unusually long commitment to making old micro controllers available, the integrators of them into boards we might use such as the Teensy 2.0 are not required to follow suit. The first FlexAbility microcontroller boards are based…
Plurifunctionality
Identifying and embracing opportunities for plurifunctional design is one of the most important practices to achieve sustainability. A component of a design can be said to be plurifunctional if a single material or assembly provides multiple functions concurrently. The term…
FlexAbility Kit is Open
The FlexAbility Kit is Open in the following ways: It describes accessible materials, assemblies, designs and processes without trade secrecy or undue constraints on your ability to use them. In the design and curation of kit elements we strive to…
Introduction to Ethics
We want our making for others to express care and we want to teach others how to do this. Doing the “right thing” is not a question of automatically following a set of preordained rules because the long term implications…