Embroidered Potentiometers

Craft & Design Yarncraft

Becky Stern is a Content Creator at Autodesk/Instructables, and part time faculty at New York’s School of Visual Arts Products of Design grad program. Making and sharing are her two biggest passions, and she's created hundreds of free online DIY tutorials and videos, mostly about technology and its intersection with crafts. Find her @bekathwia on YouTube/Twitter/Instagram.

View more articles by Becky Stern

@bekathwia

March 29th, 2010

Hannah Perner-Wilson writes about her embroidered potentiometers:

Made using the zig-zag stitch on the sewing machine to sew/embroider a conductive and a resistive trace side by side. Then any conductive object can be used to bridge the contact between the traces and measure the position/distance from measuring point through the change in resistance.

In the example video bellow a metal tea-spoon is used as a “conductive wiper finger”.

Syuzi Pakhchyan describes this method in her book Fashioning Technology, by example of a linear slider potentiometer using a magnet to keep the conductive wiper finger in place.

In the Maker Shed:

9780596514372-2T

Fashioning Technology

Ready to take your craft projects to the next level? With “smart” materials, unorthodox assembly techniques, and the right tools, you can create accessories, housewares, and toys that light up, make sounds, and more.