Smart Glove

• IDEALOGY

• I'm Sahil Rohilla, and I love to make weird stuff out of electronics! It is my passion. For this project, I'd like to take you through my process of creating Smart Glove, a functional cell phone that you wear on your hand. I see it as my first attempt at giving something back to the online communities of makers I've been learning from
• The idea came into my mind when one of my friends had to remove his gloves again and again to attend his phone calls in a touch screen phone in winter. So I thought why not to build something that we can wear every time and that can act as an alternate for our cellphone
• After 18 days of research and 2 prototypes I was finally able to build a calling glove that I named as smart glove. The dial pad is in our fingers like we used to count digits on our fingers in our childhood the speaker and the microphone are in thumb and little finger respectively. Though the model is still in testing process but is still working outstandingly
• Any of the processes involved in this project can easily be applied to any project in the realm of hacked electronics, DIY hardware, or digital fabrication. That said, I hope you enjoy learning about: Smart Glove.

- masking tape

- electrical tape

- shrink tubing

- surface-mount tactile switches (KSR251G)

- a used or new cell phone (I used ALCATEL 1010 Phone "Midnight Black")

- zap-a-gap epoxy (on Amazon)

- plastic-bond spray paint (I used 'Fusion for Plastic' by Krylon)

- 3in x 3in x .06in Acrylic Sheet Plastic (I used an old scrap, but easily available Amazon or Midland Plastics)

Tools Required for the project:

- Soldering iron

- Tweezers

- Small screwdriver

- Exacto knife or cutter

- 600, 600, and 1200 grit wet-or-dry sandpaper

- Heat gun

- De-soldering wick

- All-purpose cleaning agent

- Metal files and/or sanding sticks

NOTE : Before getting started, I'd

just like to mention that as this project involves chemicals and potentially dangerous tools, it is important to take appropriate safety measures (i.e. rubber gloves, respirators, safety glasses.) I'm safe. I'm set.

Once I decided on what exactly the project would be, I had to make a rough plan of action. First, I needed to decide whether to attempt to build a cell phone circuit from scratch, or to hack an existing cell phone to integrate into the glove.

Because I knew this was already going to be a pretty complex build, I decided to go the hack-a-phone route.

But hacking an existing phone would employ one of my favorite low-tech tricks for modifying electronics: button extensions. This technique is VERY simple and can be used to quickly make really weird and fun interactions with all kinds of electronic devices. Essentially, you just crack open the device, remove existing switches or button membranes, solder wires to the copper-clad leads, and solder your own buttons/switches to the other ends of the wires. Please see the "extension wire diagram".

This method of hacking an existing device would be the cornerstone of the Smart Glove project. I'd use this method for "extending" buttons from the phone's circuit board to my fingers, as well as for the microphone and speaker of the phone.

Flexwax is one of my favourite modelling tool as it dries so fast and also gives a glossy finish to the end product.

After making two sets of positive and negative part of the model I kept everything to set for an hour or so.

Finally I was able to get what I wanted. After a little sanding and rubbing the accurate measurement of my hand was achieved.

Now ti was the time for making the finger segments after designing a little models I was finnaly clear with the shape of the fingers.

A little sketching and measurements segments started forming shapes.

Time to make all the segments for the fingers after a lot of measurements and a lot more dedication the model started forming shape

The above picture depicts what all was the result of doing all those above stuffs. Finally after completing all these it was the time for the original build .

Next I made a paper prototype of the glove. This was a proof of concept for what the glove might look like and how its mechanics would function, but it was also used a reference for drawing the 3D model, later in the build.

It isn't completely necessary, but I thought it would be helpful to create a mannequin for mocking up a paper prototype of the glove. The quickest, cheapest, and easiest way I've found for making a quick plaster mould is this stuff called "flex wax". Melt it in a slow cooker, dip your hand a few times, and poof! Instant hand mould. I cast this in plaster of Paris.

For the first mock-up, I used a tailoring technique called "draping," where I essentially wrapped the mannequin in card-stock to get the basic shape of the glove. Then, I cut out sections to create discrete parts for each finger segment. I cut these apart and flattened them out to create a pattern.

Rather than making a different pattern for each finger, I used a photocopier to rescale the same pattern, then selected different sizes for each finger. The paper prototype didn't need to be perfect or look amazing, as it is really just the first step in creating the virtual model of the phone, which I'll get back to a bit later in this instructable.

The next step is selecting materials and components for the glove. I experimented with a few different fabrication techniques for the actual structure of the glove, including cutting sheet metal by hand, While I love working with metal, but in this case I

After doing a bit of research I discovered that the Mk. IV and Mk. V armor gloves from Iron Man 2 were actually 3D Printed.

This helped me decide that 3D-printing technology would be my best bet for achieving the futuristic look I was after, and would also simplify the process of integrating the circuit and components into the design. But I wasn’t able to find any 3d printing shop or any other means so I decided I would make something with my gym glove. As for components, I first needed to find a cell phone to hack. I asked everyone I knew to donate their old phones for the project (most people have at least two or three lying around) so I could begin taking them apart to find the perfect fit. The shape and functionality of the phone glove will depend directly on the phone you choose, so this is a crucial step!

I went through close to 100 phones, and wasn't quite happy with any of them. Then I stumbled onto a Phone named ALCATEL 1010, which was just perfect for the project. It was small, had tactile buttons, and had the perfect functionality for what I wanted this prototype to do.

I decided to re-use the torch from this phone (so as to five it a little nice look like ironman’s glove.) I'd also use the battery, speaker, and microphone.

Other components including surface-mount button switches, tiny extension springs, and micro-bolts were ordered from www.Amazon

All the yellow
coloured buttons are for the digits and the other three surface mounted buttons are for the call attending and call rejection etc

.

All the segments require the each switch so I cut the PCB into 15 segments.

Now using the flex

sheets I created the finger segments and also the fingers for the completion of my glove and I pasted the buttons like the above diagram using double sided tape.

The next step in creating the model, now that I had selected the CAD software’s drawing of each parts.I began by pasting the finger prototype withthe gym glove.

And voila here is the basic shape of my glove with non-functional key (till now)

Right now the fingers were either a little tight or a little loose so I had to modify the fingers a little bit. Also some other thing needed to be modified and fixed.

Here is the most difficult part of this whole project. Soldering the wires to the phone’s PCB.

Why it is the most difficult part is because if any of the two terminals in the PCB gets shorted the whole phone stops working. This thing really starts annoying as we cannot say by watching with the naked eyes whether the terminals are actually shorted or not these are really very small terminals and also located very close to each other.

I used 1 mm insulated copper wire for soldering with the PCB as they are very flexible and very free from getting shorted .

After all the wires were soldered to the components and held in place with plasti-dip, I used a multi-meter to make sure all of the buttons were working correctly. Better to know now rather than later if I have to re-wire a finger. All the buttons checked out, so I soldered the other ends of the wires to the phone's circuit board. So I wouldn't get mixed up, I first labeled each copper contact with it's corresponding number.

I started by putting little solder blobs on each contact, then sunk the tinned wire ends into the blobs:

I soldered another wire to the antennae contact, and soldered that to a small piece of copper foil. This bit will serve as the phone's antennae. I used some heat-shrink tube to tidy up the wires. Here's how the inside of the phone looked when the wiring was finished.

The last bit of wiring was hooking the battery back up to the cell-phone circuit. I used the same headphone wire for this, making sure to solder the POSITIVE and NEGATIVE wires to the correct leads. These are already labeled with a (+) and (-) on the board, so it wasn't hard to get it right.

After all the wiring and soldering, I put the laser-cut cover in place over the circuit.

After these extra components were soldered, I pulled measurements and geometry from them to add "housings" onto the structure of the glove.

Here is the final soldered product. I used zip ties for keeping the wired in place so that they do not get disconnected or roam here and there,

To make sure the model would fit my hand, I added a simple reference image of my hand to the CAD model. I traced my hand onto a piece of paper, and drew next to it a one-inch line so I could properly scale the image. Then, I adjusted the root dimensions of the parametric models until each part of the glove fit…. like a glove!

A benefit of designing the fingers this way is that the glove could be easily modified to fit hands of different sizes. I tried to simply the model so that anyone can easily edit it by putting in their own dimensions for the width and length of each finger segment.

Phase 8:

Wiring the glove

I got a pair of earphones that were of no use for me as they had a different type of jack that does not fit into my cell phone. Also I needed speaker and a microphone and both of these things were inbuilt in this.

So i opened it and soldered both microphone and the speaker with couple of wires in place.

Both the microphone and the speaker are soldered to the speaker wired that i got from the earphone itself.

As soldering microphone is very difficult task perform below operations.

Touch the solder to the soldering gun with some solder and wipe it off with a damp sponge periodically to keep the tip clean.

Match the wires with their respective connections on the XLR plug -- the pins on the connector should be numbered green to pin two, and ground to pin one.

Before soldering a connection, heat the pin that the wire will connect to in order to prevent the solder from falling off later.

Pull the wires through the eyelets on their respective pins and twist them together with pliers.

Heat each respective pin for a few seconds, then solder the wire in place by melting a small amount of solder over each connection and allow it to cool.

Attaching all the opened terminal wires

I began wiring the glove by selecting the type of wire. I tested a lot of different kinds of wire, and ended up settling on headphone wire. Yes, like the wire in your favourite pair of ear-buds. This wire is ideal for a few reasons: It is flexible, low profile, durable, and each strand of wire is individually insulated. It is a bit harder to solder because of the insulating coating, but is worth it in the end to have wires that aren't super bulky and that won't break on you.

Now that I had all the things for the project to be completed I made all the wires of the terminal buttons on the fingers and on the PCB connected using solder wires and the heat shrink tubing.

Luckily, the cell phone I used for this build came along with an external headset that contained more than enough wire for the entire glove.

I began by cutting lengths of wire and tinning the ends of each. This makes soldering them to components much easier. Like I said, soldering this wire can be tricky because of the insulative membrane, so here's a video of how I deal with it:

After tinning the wires, I soldered two wires to each switch:

I did the same for the microphone and speaker. Then, I placed the buttons, microphone, and speaker in the housings of the glove.

I used plasti-dip to secure the wires to the insides of the fingers. I temporarily held the wires down with pieces of electrical tape, and used a paint brush to apply the plasti-dip over them. The plast-dip keeps the wires neat and tidy, and protects and insulates them at the same time. I also used this stuff to secure the speaker in place inside the distal thumb segment.

As I secured the wires with plasti-dip, I began snapping the finger segments together

Likewise I have the buttons 1 2 3 on my index finger 4 5 6 on my middle finger 7 8 9 on my ring finger and * 0 # on my little finger. The dial and disconnect buttons are on the thumb itself. Now doing that I made an extension for my glove so that it fits to my hand very well and also I get a place to hide my phone in.

The above picture shows a little window right there. That window is actually made in order to see the screen of the phone. The screen show who is calling or what number are we calling. The rest of the components are either ordered online, or come from the cell phone I hacked apart. Now that I have all the parts of the glove it is time to make everything look pretty before final assembly.

Setting up the speaker in the thumb and speaker.

Now the only thing left to do was attach the last few components,and show a little more creativity. I mentioned the buttons under the masking tape with the help of fluid and also I covered the phone with black tape to make it look a little neat

also I made a little window through which I can see whatever comes on the screen neat.

And here is the final product that what I was talking about.

***Now that everything is snapped, soldered, bolted, and epoxied in place, it's time to take this thing on a test drive!***

It's alive!! Maybe if I make a gold-plated version I could try to sell it to Kanye West or something. Thanks so much for reading! I hope you found help and/or inspiration from this Instructable. For more information,or any other enquiry email me at sahilrohilla77@gmail.com or call at 8447481267 Cheers!