I chose to pursue the jewelry prototype for this week's project, and set to work finding a way to integrate the circuits into the structure of the rings better, eliminating as much wire as possible and hopefully finding a ring that would allow a more diffused and interesting light effect. As luck would have it, I found a ring with clear plastic "crystals" laid out like a flower, which gave me the perfect opportunity for some pretty refracted light and a place to hide the LEDs themselves (of the smaller 3mm variety in order to fit). The crystals and flower motif, while a bit tacky in my eyes, actually fits well with my original role for the product as a fun jewelry item for young girls in elementary and middle school.
I had also bought another bracelet to coordinate with the new ring, but decided that no matter what you did to minimize wire and obtrusiveness, there would always have to be wires connecting the person's rings to their bracelet, so I decided to try to keep the entire system contained in the rings. In order to do this I needed a smaller battery, so I tried a 3V coin battery; unfortunately the voltage was not powerful enough to power all three super-bright LEDs that I had in position, (and it didn't really fit anywhere without sticking out noticeably) so I had to go back to the drawing board. I bought a second coin battery to up the power, but also decided to try hearing aid batteries after sleuthing out their voltage (1.4V, conspicuously missing form the packaging). By strapping 6 of these little guys together, I was able to power the string of LEDs through two or three rings with adequate brightness.
Additional photos and video documentation are below.
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