Speaking T-shirt

A t-shirt with conductive ink, that can make a sound when you push it.

This instructable focuses on making the box that you carry inside the t-shirt, not on the silk screening part.

Stuff needed:

Laser cut box from dxf file (below) from 4 mm plywood.

CR2023 Battery

ISD1820 Voice Record module

Conductive Velcro

BC547 tranistor

1 MOhm resistor

Renata 701106 Button cell holder 

3 male-female dupont jumper wires

some elastics

Tools needed:

Soldering Iron, Third hand, Solder, Hot glue, Scissors, Conductive thread, Marker, Needle, Silk Screened t-shirt with conductive ink, some pliers, textile glue. everything-glue

Make a design for a button that you can screen print

It consists of two parts, both connecting to a black circle of about 20 mm radius and 20 mm apart, located in the side area of the t-shirt. (This is where the sound box will be placed.)

You press your finger to connect the two parts and make electricity flow.

Create some round parts of conductive velcro, about 20mm, you can use a 10 euro cent coin for this

Glue the conductive velcro to the back of the black circles with textile glue, connect them by going back and forth with some conductive thread.

Glue the battery holder to the front of the box with some general purpose everything-glue

Cut the three jumper wires in half.

We now have six half jumper wires. Bend two of the male ones into little loops. The third one you don't need anymore.

Solder the wires that came with the speaker

One male and one female go together, the other ones separate.

Sodler the transistor to the resistor as shown in the picture. Then solder 1 female, and 1 male hook to this part (had to photoshop this a bit)

Glue it to the back so the sides will be touching the plus and minus of the battery holder.

We glue the little hooks above the holes, so we can later connect them with coductive threa

Connect the different female connectors to VCC, GND and P-E as shown in the picture. Insert the battery. Record a sound and play it back. Use P-E to play back, entire sound, or P-L to play only as long as you hold it.

Use some hot glue to put the speaker. Make sure the sides will still fit. Put some hot glue on top, and use this to give the long wires a nice smooth path

We have to do this to save some space. You can also do this by having the connectors still connected, and slowly bending them.

If everything works, got glue the connectors so they can't get off anymore.

Connect the velcro and put on the t-shirt. Impress your friends!