Check out the latest learn guide from Erin St Blaine: add Adafruit n00ds to your masquerade mask and make your headwear glow. Adafruit’s n00ds are little spaghetti-noodles made of light. Hook one up to a coin cell battery and it will glow for hours. n00ds are similar in effect to EL wire, but work a lot better for small projects like masks or necklaces because they don’t require a noisy, bulky inverter to power them, and they’re much easier to solder with no teeny tiny filament wires to deal with.
These little n00ds come in a variety of colors and lengths. This guide uses the shorter 3v n00ds and walks you through simple setup and installation. If you’re ready for some next-level headwear, we also include instructions on how to sequence the n00ds using an Adafruit Feather PropMaker microcontroller and an LED driver breakout. Sequence the n00ds or vary their brightness using our included CircuitPython code. Our sample code even uses the PropMaker’s onboard accelerometer to trigger the sequence with a tilt of the head. Cool!
From the guide:
Carnival is approaching! In this guide, learn how to add LED n00ds to your favorite mask or head piece. n00ds are similar in appearance to EL wire, but don’t require bulky or noisy inverters and are a bit simpler to connect. A single 3v n00d runs for hours from a small coin cell battery. They are more flexible than EL wire and come in a variety of lovely colors. Go wild!
This guide will show three different builds:
Super Simple Inner Glow: Use a n00d and coin cell battery around the inside of your mask’s eye-holes to give your face an otherworldly glow.
Outlines and Details: Weave two or three n00ds through the details on your mask to highlight a shape and draw a lot of attention.
Sequenced Head Piece with Motion Reactivity: Seven n00ds adorn this glorious headpiece. Learn to sequence or dim the n00ds or have a responsive animation play across them when you tilt your head. This is a more advanced project with a lot of tricky soldering but the possibilities are endless.
Read more at LED Masquerade Masks with n00ds