Santa Cap
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A Santa cap is perhaps one of the easiest wearable blinky-flashy items because the cap has ample space to hold the controller while also offering a highly visible display piece. Here's a video of the finished cap in action: SANTA CAP VIDEO
Materials in this build:
- Inexpensive felt Santa Cap purchased via eBay
- HeadBlinker wireless controller with 9-volt battery
- 12 RGB LEDs, wired in parallel so that all red, all green and all blue on on their own circuits. This requires only 3 channels to control all the leds, reducing some current draw and helping the battery to run a bit longer. A 9v should last about an hour. Rechargeable LiPo batteries last 3-5 hours.
- 12 RGB led carriers.
Assembly:
- Assemble the HeadBlinker controller, attach battery to bottom with double-stick foam tape. The tape also acts as an insulator so you don't short out the solder pads.
- Solder the LEDs to the led carriers.
- Solder the carriers into a strip long enough to fit around the cap's white headband. Connect the strip to the controller and test.
- Poke holes for the Leds in the white fur headband; poke through from behind, tucking the connection wire down near the bottom of the headband.
- Drop the controller into the inside of the cap. When wearing, the top will be flopped over to the side and gravity will keep the controller in. You can also see that the fur headband has been tack-sewed from the inside to make sure the wires stay tucked down behind the fur.
