Light-up Book: Australian Piano Hinge Accordion

Two of my favorite hobbies are making books and tinkering with electronics! As a result, I often spend time imagining ways I might integrate LEDs and sensors into traditional bookbinding projects. Most recently, I wondered whether there might be an easy way to create a book that features lights on all of its pages, without the hassle of moving a battery around. I'd played with paper circuitry in the past, and figured out ways to add lights to some of my bookcovers, but I wanted to come up with an idea that would be easy to replicate without programming expertise. More importantly, the structure had to use one discrete, but accessible power source.

After a bit of experimentation, I discovered that the book structure known as the "Flat-Style Australian Reverse Piano Hinge" binding, or the "Australian Piano Hinge" for short, was perfect for electrification. Alisa Golden shares general instructions for making this book structure without electronics on her Making Handmade Books blog. I'll show you how I modified the design to create a light display on each page!

Why would you want to do this? For starters, it's a great way to add interactivity and visual interest to your books.

For this Instructable, I'm going to be making a 4" W X 4" H book with seven light-up pages. Once you get the idea, you can modify your book's size and number of pages as you see fit.

Useful Tools

Scotch tape

Glue stick

Pencil

Scissors

Pen knife

Bone folder or embossing tool

24" Metal Ruler

Self-healing cutting mat

1" Brass Metal Strip (optional)

Computer and printer

Supplies for Circuitry

Chibitronics Conductive Fabric Tape, Nylon Maker Tape, or a high quality Copper Tape

Chibitronics Circuit Stickers (or size 1206 surface mounted LEDs)

CR2032 Lithium Battery

Supplies for Book

(Tip: Paper and boards bend more easily in one direction than another. If you fold with the grain, you are folding the paper in the way that it wants to fold. If you fold against the grain, you will feel more resistance. In bookbinding, it's best practice to keep all of your paper oriented to align with the spine and folded with the grain.)

2 pieces of binder's board or mat board cut to 4" W X 4" H (grain should run in the same direction as the spine)

2 pieces of cardstock cut to 4" W x 6" H (grained long) for inner covers

2 pieces of cardstock cut to 6" W x 4" H (grained short) for outer covers

8 pieces of textweight paper cut to 12" W x 4" H (grained short) for circuitry and your art/ text.

8 pieces of cardstock cut to 15/16" W X 4" H (grained long) for stubs

2 pieces of cardstock cut to 3 7/8" W X 3 7/8" H (grain direction same as the spine) for cover inserts

1 piece of card weight paper, such as Canson Mi-Teintes, cut to 18" W X 2" H (grained short) for the accordion spine.

1 piece of cardstock cut to 3 7/8" H x 3" W for the spine protector

1 paper battery holder template (see Chibitronics' tutorial and printable template)

The spine of this light-up book is made by constructing an accordion that will later have conductive traces adhered to it.

Precision is key when making your folds, if you want a visually pleasing and well-functioning book.

Carefully fold the 18" W X 2" H strip of card weight paper into halves, then fold those halves into halves, and repeat the process until you're left with an accordion with folds about an inch wide. (Watch my short video to see how I did this.)

Ideally, you should end up with a neatly folded accordion with seven one-inch mountain folds.

Optional: If you have a 1" brass bar, you can use that and a bone folder to score and fold one-inch sections.

To make the paths that will carry electrical current from the battery to each page of the book, I recommend using a conductive fabric tape such as this one by Chibitronics, or a conductive nylon tape such as Maker Tape. An advantage of using a conductive fabric or nylon tape instead of copper tape is that the fabric will not crack at the hinges over time.

If you don't have a conductive fabric tape, use a high quality copper tape. The best one I've found is sourced by The Imagination Toolbox; I like the size it comes in and the heft of the copper.

Measure out two strips of conductive fabric tape (or copper tape) that are approximately the same length as your accordion (18").

Peel off the paper backing as you work, not all at the same time. If you do it all at once, you run the risk of your tape curling and sticking to itself. Starting about an inch from one end of the accordion, position the tapes parallel to one another in the center of the accordion, so that they are no more than 1/8" of an inch apart. The last inch of tape will hang off of the opposite end; if possible, leave the paper backing on that part. (See video)

The covers of this book are designed to conceal your battery, once we get to that step, so they will be constructed without glue.

Ensure that the paper grain lines up with the spine of the book. It's helpful to lightly mark the direction of the grain with a pencil to help keep track.

To make the outside covers (shown in blue) center a 4" W x 4" H piece of board on top of a 6" W X 4" H piece of cardstock. Trim all four corners off the paper, about 1/8" from the board, and fold the flaps snuggly against the right and left sides of the board. Do this for both covers and then set the front covers aside.

To make the inside covers (shown in black) center the boards on top of a 4" W x 6" H piece of cardstock. Repeat the process you used for the front covers, but fold the flaps snuggly against the top and bottom of each board.

The last step is to pick up each blue cover and insert the side tabs into the gaps created by the black covers. (See video)

Print and prepare a paper battery holder. You will find directions and a printable template at the Chibitronics website. You may use conductive fabric tape, conductive nylon tape, or copper tape for this. I opted for copper tape since it's easier to reposition.

Next, place the accordion so that the end with the excess conductive tape is to your left. Glue down the left-most flap of the accordion to the center of one of the 3 7/8" W X 3 7/8" H cover inserts. Remove the paper backing from the two overhanging pieces of conductive tape and adhere them to the paper.

Glue down the right-most flap of the accordion to the remaining cover insert.

Tape the battery holder down so that the conducitve tape overlaps the tracks you placed on the accordion. (See video)

Fold seven 12" W x 4" H pages into thirds.

Trim 1/4" off of the left panel of each trifold.

Open up each trifold, keeping the trimmed ends to the left.

Use a pen knife and a steel ruler to cut a 2" slot in the center of the left-most fold of each trifold.

Insert the mountain folds of your accordion hinge through each of the slots cut into the trifolded pages.

Secure the pages by inserting a 1" W X 4" H stub into the gaps of the mountain peaks. (See video)

Once your pages are secured, it's time to start thinking about where you want your lights to be. Do you want them to illuminate a word, as I've done in my sample books? Or, do you want to write a story and light up a hand-drawn illustration?

The type of circuit that you will be constructing is called a parallel circuit. As you've noticed, the positive and negative traces run parallel down the length of the book's spine. You'll be creating the rest of the circuit by adding more conductive fabric tape, nylon tape, or copper tape, and at least one LED to the center pages of each trifold. Then, you'll be adding your content to the page that folds over it. Using trifolded pages will help insulate your circuit, so don't unfold them all at once if you wish to avoid a short circuit.

I like using Chibi Lights, or Circuit Stickers, made by a company called Chibitronics. They are small, flat, and have built-in resisters, which is useful for mixing and matching colors. They are also easy to use, because it's easy to determine which side is positive and which side is negative.

When I don't have access to Circuit Stickers I use surface mounted LEDs, some of which have little built-in chips that make them blink. I encourage you to play around and see what works best for you.

Once you figure out where you want your lights, you need to extend the conductive traces from the accordion hinge on the center pages of your trifolds by adding more Maker Tape or copper tape. Ensure that the extensions firmly overlap the traces you laid down earlier. There shouldn't be more than an 1/8" gap between the positive and negative traces.

Carefully press a Circuit Sticker with the negative pointy end touching the negative trace and the larger end touching the positive one. If using a surface mounted LED, you'll also need to ensure that you are using the correct polarity.

Once your LED is lit, you can close the last page of the trifold and place your text or artwork onto the outside of it.

Repeat this for each of the pages of your book.

Once you're finished working on the inside of your light-up book, you may want to add some artwork to your cover and insert a spine guard. The spine guard will cover the accordion hinge and and help sturdy your book. It may be easily removed whenever you want to spread out the pages of your book to display it.

The spine guard needs to be about three times the width of your book and slightly shorter. A piece of textweight paper cut to 3" W X 3 7/8" H will work perfectly.

Center your finished book on top of the paper you've cut for your spine guard and make two folds in it to the left and right of the book. Insert the spine guard between the front covers and the spine.

My favorite thing about this book structure is that it entices an audience to walk around and interact with it, especially when the lighting is low.

A book like this can be used as a table display at a party, a nightlight for a child, a catchy advertisement, a provocative invitation, or a holiday decoration!

When it's not in use, you can easily slip off the spine protector and front cover to remove the battery, or devise a switch to turn it off!

If you end up making one of these, I hope you'll share a picture with me!

Thanks for viewing my Instructable!