Bluetooth LE bone conductive implant.

24

Comments

  • you should add a magnetic shield between the coil and the rest of the device. otherwise you'll get all sorts of weird currents occurring in the battery and it'll go bad quickly.
    http://www.mouser.com/new/wurth-electronics/wurth-flexible-ferrite-sheet/

     I think your plan to coat and implant this at grindfest is unrealistically ambitious, but I wish you luck. Please stay cautious though. Nobody's put a DIY powered implant in their head before.
  • I do have a shield with the coil already, I'm using the one that came inside the receiver that I took apart. Why i s grind fest so ambitious? I will have it done by then why wait any longer than that?

    I'm stoked to be the first, I hope everyone will see that yes DIY powered implants are possible and not terribly scary. 
  • Cause there's more to making implants then, coat, shove in face, hope for the best. You need to eliminate all corners and anything that's even a little rough. You need to make sure your coating is PERFECT. You need to make sure it can be properly cleaned and you need to have a firm grasp of where it's going into and how you're making it stay there. 
  • plenty of reasons, safety testing being the biggest one. if you are the first, it's even more important, because you want to set a good example.
  • I have a few of them that I am testing and making sure everything is working in tip top shape, and they are. I have access to a autoclave so things should be very clean, and my coating will almost be more of a case. I'm thinking it will be around a mm thick at its thinnest point. The only issue I am worried about is the procedure its self. I think I've though through everything pretty well, I know its important to do right being the first and all. and I'm pretty confident that I've got this.
  • is the pinching of skin between the charger and implant going to cause any problems or is the battery long enough that it won't have to be an every day charge?
  • its depends on how much I use it in the day, I think I will get about 2 or 3 days. It will run 8 hours at full volume.
  • That's not bad at all probably comparable to an external Bluetooth then. Have you been able to test the volume as in do you need full or will say half work to hear just fine?( I know it kinda depends on the person)
  • Should be able to use very low volume. BCE's tend to be very good at low volumes even in noisy environments.
  • edited August 2015
    yeah I have tested volume, I can head it at a pretty low volume when just pressed up on my head, I can only imagine it will sound even better once implanted because it wont have to go through my squishy skin and hair.
  • edited August 2015
    Very nice that definitely makes it a lot more viable to keep from damaging skin since you don't need to charge all the time constantly pinching.

    Can't wait to see how it goes because I'd love one!

    I may try to replicate you work too ;)
  • edited September 2015
    BEFORE GRIND FEST:

    AT / AFTER GRIND FEST:

    AWESOME THINGS:

    Electronics still worked! The headset, and charging still worked on it.

    ISSUES:
    The transducer got glued in place. I think this can be fixed by putting a thin flexible coat over the transducer before putting on the final hard coating over the entire thing.

    Bubbles in the coating, I know I can fix this by just making my own small vacuum chamber to take all of the bubbles out.

    not smooth right out of the mold. This isnt even that large of an issues, the only thing is that it will take some more time on polishing it all up. I will fix this by 3D printing a mold and coating it in silicone, the print will give it a better shape, and the silicone will give it the smooth surface that I am looking for.

    UPGRADES:
    I am thinking about using a halifax sensor instead of the read switch, this will give me a slightly smaller area, and maybe a better read.

    A smaller coil, I think I will work on ordering a custom size coil, this will cut down on the footprint of the device and just be over all better.
  • Ben, I'm going to order a lapidary grinder as well. We should be able to make a perfect surface.
  • You'd be better off buying grit powders and doing it by hand then buying the grinder. Those things (good ones) can be cost easily a grand. And hand polishing is easier to control, especially for something that's made of resin and you intend on implanting. Also I worry that use of a grinder, rather than making the coating good from the get go, will make lots of imperfections in the resin that'll cause problems. what would be easier is the enxt time you cast the part, do it in a tight mold so you can fill all voids and it'll leave you with a nice perfectly flat surface. That's how they do it for soft lithography, no reason it won't work for this. Just need a metal mold

  • For getting rid of your bubbles, you can also use a sonicator. It does a great job of mixing your coating as well.
  • turn... camera.. 90... degrees. Also that lip on the top edge has to go and the whole thing looks too thick to fit in your face. not bad for a prototype though and now that you've got something you can refine it down.
  • Once I got it or if the mold and found it wasn't working I stepped messing with it, I was going to sand the edges off and Polish the entire thing up. This would have also made it a little bit more thin of a coating on the tip and bottom making it thinner over all.

    As of now I thing I'm going to work on a custom transducer, this way I can get it as thin as possible.

    And yes a new good test, I can see how the resin is going to work and stuff over time now.
  • edited September 2015
    Hey Ben, you said you have a parts list? Could ya post those up or send them to me? I wanna get going on one as well and see if we can solve the resin-block issue.

    Also, I thought of a neat idea involving this and a bottlenose. You could have a piezo sensor on a findertip and have the bottlenose send the taps (in Morse code or something?) via bluetooth to the implant, and then have your pocket computer decode the taps automatically and have this implant speak to you.
    I dunno the applications for this, cheating at cards maybe? But seems like a cool way to surreptitiously communicate.
  • yeah! here you go :)

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MLUz6jzzOYGI8erWWbhAwM5fnFJQf9nJdbpsgwCGJTs/edit?usp=sharing

    everyone is allowed to comment on that sheet and I hope it answers any question that anyone might have for what where or how I get some parts.

    Happy hacking :)
  • Here is a link to the files for the case that goes over the charger, and the mold for you to make the implant nice and round edges, I would say do a silicone coating over the print to ensure you have a smooth coating an hopefully have minimal sanding and afterwork.

  • I have more of the same resin on the way. I'm going to do further testing on it. I hear you chironex regarding the surface. Its a very hard substance though and I think we could move up to such a high grit that it would be polished glass. Rather than a wet lapidary grinder, I've found some great drummel accessories that pro's use on gems that get up to rather insanely high grit. I think it's worth a shot. We can compare the results to a simple mold version.

    Glims - I don't think the sonicator will work on this stuff. It needs a vaccum. It's SO thick after mixing that I doubt sonication would be enough to free any bubbles. I'll give it a shot with the test batch.
  • That makes sense. I agree, vacuum really is the way to go here.

    How well will the components withstand heat? The be all end all for dealing with the curing process is usually a vacuum oven. Granted, they are pricey, but you can find a few on ebay for around 5 hundred.

    Beyond just ease of curing (I know you've seen how iffy things can be if there is no vacuum) with a thicker coating like this, you are going to end up getting trace amounts of the solvent trapped in the polymer matrix, no matter how careful you are. Depending on what they are using to keep it liquid, there could be some irritation issues after implantation. 

  • Current findings:

    1) bone transducers are a bitch to make smaller

    2) I need a new coating. One that isn't quite so hard, even if I get it to not touch the magnet and have an air gap, this current stuff is so tuff that it drastically limits the volume.

    3) a hall effect sensor is a better way to go, instead of the reed switch
  • Ben, ive made some polished discs of the resin and I'm going to do a test implant on myself in order to look at acute response. I played with a different version of the resin that was really soft after curing. You could do something like a passivated stainless plate above the air gap that isn't covered in resin.
  • I have another idea. I have some stuff on it's way. I'll let you know after I test it.
  • @cassox I coated some magnets in the stuff I had a grindfest and I'm going to be doing some tests to make sure my coating is good, and then implant them, if you dont want to test on your self I can be the ginny-pig, or we will have 2 human tests to make sure its good/bad.
  • If either of you guys would be willing to do it, after testing could I ship my edison project off to one of you and get it coated?

    Finding it hellish trying to find a coating that is both within budget (everywhere has insane minimum orders) and safe
  • @garethnelsonuk I would be willing to coat your edison. I just have to do the testing on my self first. I dont want to start promising something that doesnt really work. After my stuff is healed up I should be able to see small issues if any in the process or skin after words. Once I have it in for a while we will see if its really implant safe or not.
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