making a neoprene holder for coin cell battery

"threading" conductive fabric through the neoprene


making contact with coin cell battery


testing with an LED


hooking up contact points


holding the halves together while testing

One of the coolest items we got, at the gaffta workshop on Soft Circuits, was a nifty little battery holder made from neoprene and conductive fabric. As a result of this workshop, I'm now completely addicted to soft circuits. So the other night I tried to make one of these battery holders myself.

I found diagrams online, which were very helpful.

The trickiest part was figuring out how to make the gap I was seeing in diagrams. I cut two slots in the neoprene and "threaded" the conductive fabric through them. Thinking about the circuit helped me understand the structure. The battery needs to touch one part of the fabric and yet be isolated from the other end of it.

Testing with direct contact of an LED worked great. At each step, I stopped and checked the circuit. I also tested with jumper cables.

I can't help but think that if my physics labs had been this much fun, I'd have done a lot better in my physics classes.