Secret Writing Lamp - Shuuuush

I love to read at night, but even more - I love to record my ideas when they strike!

Usually, it's in the middle of the night, 3am maybe? 😨 Turning on the lamp beside the bed is too bright for reading or writing when it's very late, or if I've woken up from sleeping. I wanted to make a stealth solution.

A personal secret writing lamp just might help!

What is it?

This is a small LED that is placed on the thumb so that when you hold open your notebook, you can direct the light onto the page you are writing on or reading.

Is it hard to make?

The good news? You don't need any electronics knowledge for this Instructable, and you only need basic sewing skills to make this fun secret writing lamp.

It should only take an hour or two from start to finish! Let's get making...

To make the secret writing lamp you'll need a few items:

1. Conductive fabric or tape - (or you can buy a sewable battery holder)
2. Conductive thread
3. Coin cell battery 3V
4. Needle (a large eye needle works better with conductive thread*), needle threader, and thread
5. LED - I'm using prewired...
6. Neoprene, scuba fabric or similar 'stretch' and comfortable fabric, we need:
7. piece one: 18cm (or longer depending on your wrist size) x 4 cm for a wrist strap
8. piece two: 20cm long x 3cm wide - but I tapered mine to be wider at the bottom, around 5-6cm
9. piece three: around 10cm x 4.5cm this is for the battery so it can be smaller
10. Optional: you may want elastic, 2.5cm wide is a good width to feel comfortable on your wrist, this will make it so it could fit others too.

*sometimes conductive threads can fray. They can be more difficult to thread through a needle so a top tip is to use a needle threader and a wide-eye needle. This will make your life much easier

Let's get started!

We want this to be comfortable because we will wear it at night, so I choose neoprene fabric. It's soft, has some thickness to it, and is easy to sew too.

1. I've wrapped my neoprene around my wrist and it's comfortable about 18cm or so long.
2. Cut it to fit your wrist - and a little more because we will need to sew it together.
3. I've cut it down to 4cm wide, but you can choose any width you want.
4. If you hold the two ends together, you should be able to easily slide it over your hand and onto your wrist.
5. We can also use elastic if you want to allow it to slide easier and fit other people.

Now let's cut the thumb piece of fabric too:

1. Holding neoprene in place on your thumb, cut a piece so that it reaches to your wrist - and so that it can be folded over the top of the thumb too. See the photos. This piece is around 20cm long x 3cm wide - I tapered mine to be wider at the bottom, around 5-6cm.

With the pieces cut, let's sew the thumb piece to the wrist piece.

This is our first sewing step, and it only requires a simple stitch across the fabric to attach them together. This will be on the inside of our strap so we won't see it.

1. You'll want to take your wrist piece, and try it in place to see where it will fit best to be comfortable for your thumb piece.
2. When you have decided on the placement, sew across the two pieces to join them.
3. Start at one end and sew all the way along to the other end.
4. Be sure to tie a knot on both sides so it is secure and won't come out.

With the thumb piece attached, let's sew the top of the thumb piece.

Now that the two pieces are attached, (the wrist and the thumb) we want to sew the top of the thumb piece over so that we create a little pocket for our thumb tip to fit into.

1. Fold the top of the thumb fabric away from you, so it is folded underneath. This may be around 4 or 5 cm.
2. Sew the edge together. I've started at the bottom, tied a knot, and then sewn up along the edge.
3. When you get near the top, start to sew a little closer to the top - you want it to be a slight curve to fit the form of the finger (see images).
4. Cut the edge of the curved area to remove the fabric - see photos.
5. Continue sewing along the other side and also curve at the top near where the top of the thumb will be.
6. Secure the ends with a knot.
7. Trim the thread.
8. Turn it inside out so that the sewing is on the inside of the thumb part.

With our thumbpiece sewn, let's start adding the electronics!

Before we jump into sewing the LED in place, let's learn a little about the LED.

What is an LED?

An LED is a Light Emitting Diode. This emits light when current flows through it. This is an electronic component that will need a power source to work. In our example, a 3V battery will light it up. If we had a power source larger than 3V, for example, a 5V power source, we would need to add a resistor to the electronic circuit. The resistor would limit the current flowing to the light - because 5V would be too much power and it would blow it up! (It just makes a small pop sound and goes dark fast, most people working with LEDs will have blown one at some point.)

Let's start by sewing the LED in place.

I've decided to go for the small but strong 1206-size LED, you might want to opt for a larger one.

1. Hold the LED in place for where you would want the light directed from. I hold my notebook open and write with my thumb facing the page, so I want a 'downlight' type of light.
2. Create a small hole in the thumbpiece where your light will poke out from.
3. Or I managed to push the LED through my sewing stitches (at the top of the thumb). You might be able to do the same.
4. Once the LED is poking out from the thumbpiece, lay the wires down the length of the thumb fabric.
5. Stitch these wires in place using thread. I started at the top and worked my way down.
6. When at the bottom, I wanted to be sure that the wire wouldn't pull out - so I stitched some curves into the wire piece, see the photos for what I mean.
7. After securing the wires with your sewing, tie a knot to be sure it will stay in place.

With the LED secured at the tip of the thumb, we can now sew our battery holder to give it power! We are almost there!

Previously, I mentioned that we have a current that will flow through the LED and it will light up. We need a power source to make that happen.

What's behind the electronics?

For this electric circuit, we will be using a coin cell battery. We need the battery to be able to connect to the LED. We also need to be sure we connect it the correct way around. For the electronics to work, we have to make a complete circuit. Think of it as a circle. If the circle is whole, it's a circle other wise it's just a piece of a circle.

This means:

• connecting the power of the battery +
• to the power side of the led (red wire)
• through the LED
• out the ground side of the LED (black wire)
• ending and completing the circuit by connecting to the ground side of our battery -

With a few of the principles explained, let's sew the battery holder.

Sewing the battery holder

We want to wear this at night, so I don't want any hard electronic pieces. For this reason, we will be sewing our own battery holder!

BUT if you prefer to use a sewable battery holder, you would use it in this step.

If you are using a battery holder:

1. Sew with conductive thread from the - side of the holder to the black wire of your LED. Make sure you sew around it several times to have a secure connection.
2. Sew with conductive thread on the + side of the holder to the red wire of your LED.
3. Sew with thread the corners of the holder to the neoprene to secure it in place.

If you are making the battery holder from pieces of conductive fabric:

We will need our conductive fabric, conductive thread, and a piece of neoprene to sew the battery holder. We will sew the ground side first:

1. Measure out a small piece of conductive fabric. I've made mine into a - shape for the ground connection. This will fit behind the battery and it will be the first piece we sew.
2. Taking the black ground wire from the led, slightly wrap it around a pencil, or using your fingers, make it into a loop or shape that we can sew around.
3. Place it on your - piece of cut conductive fabric.
4. We will now use the conductive thread to sew this wire to the conductive fabric. I am going to sew mine underneath the fabric so the fabric surface will touch the battery - side.
5. Sew into place.

Now that we have sewn the ground side, let's sew the positive side:

Let's sew the other half of our battery holder.

1. Measure out a small piece of conductive fabric. I've made mine into a circle shape for the power connection. This will fit on top of the battery.
2. Taking the red power wire from the led, slightly wrap it around a pencil, or using your fingers, make it into a loop or shape that we can sew around.
3. Place it on your circle piece of cut conductive fabric.

IMPORTANT: Make sure the power and ground conductive fabric will be covered by the battery when the battery is in place. You DO NOT want the conductive fabric from positive and negative to touch when the battery is inside. This will cause a short, which means the power and ground are connected to each other. It is dangerous - though we are only using 3V so we won't get hurt.

I tested my battery and initial wiring by touching the red wire of the LED to the positive side of the battery. It lights up so we know that we have the wires correct.

Then we can sew the red power wire in place:

1. We will now use the conductive thread to sew the red power wire to the conductive fabric. I am going to sew mine underneath the fabric so the fabric surface will touch the battery - side.
2. Sew this into place.

If you want to test that you have sewn it correctly, place your battery on the ground conductive fabric, then close the 'pocket'.

Note: You might have to trim down your conductive fabric if it is larger than the battery.

Cool hey?

~ Now let's sew the holder in place and finish up this personal reading lamp!

With our wires ready to go and the rest of the personal reading lamp done, we need to sew the battery holder in place.

1. Fold the battery holder in place.
2. Using thread, sew it to the wrist strap.
3. Sew the other side of the wrist strap.

You should now have finished sewing the wrist and thumb piece. Only one last thing to do....

With the sewing complete, it's time to pop in the battery and now we can write at night. WOOP WOOP well done!

I hope you've enjoyed this Instructable and please have a look at my other 'ibles!

--------- thanks ----------

To see more of my projects and wearables, visit http://christinefarion.com, follow me on Instagram, and Twitter is useful if you have any questions or comments!