I made five small drivers for wearable LED strips running FastLED for Burning Man.

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I made five small drivers for wearable LED strips running FastLED for Burning Man. Two were still working at the end. Moral of the story - just wrap everything in plastic. But they worked well until the dust ate the switches.

Here’s my detailed write-up with schematics and board designs.
http://happyinmotion.com/?p=1551

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Thanks for sharing so much great info!

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Thanks for the details and your thoughts.

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For your LED fixtures, the green wrap stuff from Home Depot for cling-wrapping baggage works wonders.

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Cling-film seems like a good idea, I’ll try it. I was mostly thinking zip-loc bags with a cable tie keeping it snug around the cable. That’s what they used for the Straightedge sculpture and that seemed to work well for a week.

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It’s not very satisfying though; I feel a sealed switch would be nicer. They’re available, but they get expensive. Toggle switches with rubber covers are big and not cheap ($3) each.

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Yeah, and toggle switches are likely to get bumped if in a pocket.

All I want is an illuminated, sealed rocker switch that handles a couple of Amps, takes up less space than standard switches, and mounts to a PCB.

Any suggestions where to look, coz I have yet to find such a switch?

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@Jez_Weston these? http://www.digikey.com/Web%20Export/Supplier%20Content/arcolectric-1091/pdf/arcolectric-splashproof-dust-resistant-option-for-switches.pdf?redirected=1

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Sadly too huge. Or rather, that’s the standard size for rocker switches (30 mm high, 14 mm wide, 29 deep), which ends up taking up too much space for a wearable.

I’d like something as small as a slide switch, which go down to 10x5x10. I could just use a slide switch, but I’ve yet to find the combination of sealed, small, lit, and sufficient current capacity.

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For some of my projects, I went with wireless controls via phone, could work also in lieu of a switch. The RedBear BLE is super easy to interface with Arduino.

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If I’m after something in lieu of a switch, I could just use the Teensy’s capacitive sensing with a copper pad on the outside of the box. That’d be dust-proof.

However, I’d really like to have a hard switch that just cuts the power. That gives me no worries about sleep current and a hard reset each time it is used.