Felt and Electronics

I have been experimenting with felt and sewn circuits. I started with regular felt but it wasn’t strong enough for the battery and light so back felt is 3mm and any layers on top are regular thin felt.
3mm felt: 250/2/2 passes
regular felt: 200/2/2 passes
The thinner layer still could look a little better so I would love recommendations for felt setting other people have used and gotten good results.
Just used conductive thread and lights on back. 3mm felt worked great to support the sewing, battery and lights behind it.

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Ooooh! That’s just too cute! What a great idea! :sunglasses::+1:

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Hate to just dido but it realy is just too cute!

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It never ceases to amaze me the creative things we can do with this tool.
What a fun project. How are you planning to use this? I can see STEAM classes making this a project. Also wearable pins or pendents.

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Looks like this post contains settings also - does it need to move?

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Yep! (Thanks for catching another one.) :slightly_smiling_face:

Coincidentally, in case folks are wondering why the forum janitors are shifting their posts…we’re required for legal reasons on the forum to shift any posts with settings information in them to the Beyond the Manual section. (It’s outlined in the Forum Guidelines in the Welcome banner at the top of the screen.)

It helps to keep the settings information from getting lost too, by keeping them in one place.

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Cute and innovative.

What an adorable project! Can’t wait to see what else you make. And welcome to the forum!

I originally just made it as a pin for my laptop bag but I do intend on making a bunch for the STEM teacher at the middle school. She’s always asking me for new electronics ideas.

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I bet these would look super cool with candle flicker leds. They have the flicker function built in and require no additional electronics or processor. Might make it seem even more alive.

In any case, nice work, creative.

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Adorable. Terrifying, but also adorable!

As for settings, there are some felt options on this Google Sheet

Can’t wait to see what you do next!

Too cool - I just know exactly the fish you’re portraying!

I can’t help with the settings, but this is awesome. Angler’s scare the bejesus out of me, but this one is cute!

Conductive thread? Why did I never think about this? Cool.

I have been using these settings for polyester felt.

.055"
250/20 1 pass

.026"
250/15 1 pass

It cuts well, but it does shrink back from the cut edge a bit so the kerf is much bigger than with some other materials. If you are layering felt on felt, no big deal, but if you are cutting felt to match another object you need to expand the felt object so the cut version isn’t too small. I haven’t determined this amount exactly but I think it is around .010".

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Welcome to the forum. Love this creation.

Welcome to the forum! An amazing design, Who knew that a deep sea horror could be made cute,

Wow! Love it! Can you explain more about your wiring for this? I’m getting an idea for a lit costume… AND MY DRAGON-FORGE IS FINALLY ARRIVING TOMORROW!!!:partying_face:

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Puffette is always wanting to welcome other dragons!

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Nice project.

I have done several different weights of polyster felt. The squares I get at Target come in a lot of different colors. It is stiff and works for construction well. The lighter felt from Joann’s in 12x9 sheets is thinner and is ok for overlays but is not quite stiff enough for a good throwie or something like that. There are different weights. Then you can get into the felt by the yard fabric, which you might be using. That is a different weight too.

You want to go as fast as possible as your first setting, then up the power to compensate. I find that a 750-800 speed works well with a 45% or more power with one pass is great.

Make sure your focus height is set well to get that beam at the right intersection. I’ve adjusted it a bit for a tighter kerf since the lighter felt really doesn’t have a smooth surface, so put the focus slightly lower than surface.

I use a spray adehesive on cardboard so that the felt sticks but is removed easily. This prevents flashback too on the back. Lots of test circles for each project, but it does work great with little or no char.

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