A felted DIP socket #Wearables @kobakant

The How to Get What You Want blog has shown a number of unique and innovative ways to incorporate electronics into wearables. But what if you have a small chip to use? How does that work?

When using microcontroller for embroidery circuit projects, sometimes you do not want to directly solder them on the embroidery, as you need to take it out to change the program on it. For this, sockets are convenient, but they are also bulky on the fabric. I used 5mm felt, that is as thick as the DIP socket to embed the socket inside and extend the socket connection to conductive thread for embroidery. It is still a bit thick, but better than having bare socket on an embroidered fabric surface.

These sockets do not hold the IC well and sometimes an IC falls out as you use the fabric as garment… I will need to fasten the IC by embroidering over it after the final program is on it.

Read about the full process in the blog post here.