One year before Halloween I decided I wanted to construct an unique costume. I decided I would take a lab coat costume, and add a bunch of LEDs to it. Of course it had to be flashy as well, to make it stand out even more.

The jacket consists of two columns of LEDs that run down the front of the jacket. Each column has 8 rows of 4 LEDs each, wired in series. There are also two rows of 6 LEDs on the top of shoulder as well.

All the channels come to a controller board in the front pocket. The controller is a circuit I designed using a 555 timer and a decade counter. This creates a chase sequence using all the channels, giving the jacket a cool LED effect. The jacket is powered by 8 AAs that I keep in my pants pocket.

UPDATE!!! LED Lab Coat 2.0!

This Halloween (2009) I decided to rebuild the lab coat controller. Now it is Microprocessor powered. I used a Arduino Pro Mini as its brain. I will post a full scematic, source code and a video soon.