catears

This repository contains everything you need to build your own brightly lit cat ear hairband with widely adopted electronics.

Why?

This project got inspired by the satirical "Safety cat ears required" signs you might see in some hackspaces or at chaos events. Half joking I once said I will actually build "real" safety cat ears. This repository is the result of that.

Build your own ones - Step by step!

Item List

You will need the following items:

• Part 1 & 2 from the models folder printed with any 3D printer
• An enclosure for the microcontroller, I am using this model
• 1x ESP8266 (I am using a "Wemos D1 Mini")
• 1x a few centimeters of a WS2811 LED strip
• A bunch of cables to solder everything together (preferably flexible cable)
  • Either use a 3 core sealed cable or wrap 3 wires with a cable sleeve
• A button with 2 wires attached
• A Micro-USB to USB cable (can be pretty short)
• A USB power source (e.g. a power bank)
• Optional: A connector to solder between microcontroller and cat ears (e.g. JST SM 3 Pin)
• Some glue or tape to connect the 3D printed parts

Further, access to the following tools is needed:

• A soldering station/kit
• A computer with docker for the initial setup

Alternative Hardware

You totally can use other hardware components - some notes on swapping parts:

Microcontroller

Every microcontroller supported by ESPHome should work. At least 1 GPIO pin should be accessible. Using a different microcontroller requires adopting the ESPHome config.

LED strip

Looks best with a silicon diffusor on top - strips are available with a pre-applied one. Search for "COB" or "FCOB" LED strips with the WS2811 chip set.

You can use any other LED strip supported by ESPHome and the neopixel integration. However, using a different chip set requires to adopt the ESPHome config accordingly.

The 3D models are designed to accomodate a 12mm wide LED strip with a 2.65mm wide silicon diffusor on top.

Fitting the 3D printed Hairband

You can scale the hairband according to your needs. I seem to have a pretty big head, so the supplied model already is pretty large. It is roughly 20% larger than the "usual" cat ear hairbands in my hackspace.

To scale the models import them into your favorite slicer and scale the x/y axis for the same amount (do not touch the z axis/height).

Putting it together

See the manual.