Lit Constable Hat

I thought it would be fun to add LEDs to my brother's Constable hat so it appeared to look like the light bar on a police cruiser.

There are a lot of wearable electronic materials available. I ordered LEDs, Arduino and battery box from AdaFruit and so far have been happy with the products/support. To complete this build I used 30 ga wrapping wire and plastic canvas to hold it all together.

I made sure the plastic canvas was a good fit and then used its grid to align the LEDs and wire. The wrapping wire was easy to thread through the canvas and electronics. I didn't strip the wire anywhere and used the soldering iron to heat the plastic coating a little when soldering the connections. In some places I didn't get a good contact the first time but by applying more heat I was able to get all the connections secure. I even soldered a few of the LEDs while the circuit was energized so I could confirm a good contact.

The LEDs were visible behind the hat material but barely. I used the soldering iron to burn holes in the hat surface near the LEDs. Now the light jumps right out as it should.

If you see this hat coming towards you, remember to pull off to the side of the sidewalk! Thanks for looking...

There are many ways to code LEDs flashing. Here is my source code if you are interested.