implanted earphones

2

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  • Thanks Thomas, I was thinking of answering him but I knew someone would come by that is actually decent at using words. I'm horrible, your explanation is great.
  • @DirectorX

    Very nice project. I'm thinking about some new mods on myself and something like this would be a great one. But i have a few little questions. Of course you can take off the coil but the you can't turn off the magnets. My thought would be that in a regular town today there must be many signals and interferences that can affect your implants. Do you notice some predisposition for external influences or some other side effects? Maybe stress, headache, insomnia or mild hallucination?

    And what about the power consumption? This must exhaust any battery really quick. 
  • @Facesitting_Bull:  I have magnetic implants in my fingers, for the purpose of detecting electromagnetic fields, and after a while, it just becomes another sense like any other.  Just like with my sense of smell, most of the time I'm not directly thinking about my magnets; they just sit there, unobtrusively, waiting for a field to be picked up.
  • But that implants are in the fingers. Not one left and right of your brain with an induction coil around your neck. I can imagine there are some vulnerabilities.
    I'm generally fascinated of the idea but it appears unnecessarily risky to implant magnets when the same effect can be done by a magnet attached to a piercing at the same spot.
  • @Facesitting_Bull the brain doesn't really react to any magnetic fields you'd encounter in your daily life. power consumtion is expected to be higher than that of in-ear headphones of course, but it is within limits. my guess would be well within single-digit wattage.
  • @Facesittingbull: I haven't encountered any interference yet. I have been under power lines and haven't got any static when playing songs on my playlist. Radio probably would fuzz up, just like it does in a car. I haven't encountered a situation where my ears suddenly picked up a signal or anything. The sensitivity in the tragus is much less than it is in the fingertips, so even AC fields are hardly notable.

    And yes, power consumption sucks right now. I'm scheming up a second implant that will reduce that by a lot though. Until that happens, you are right about the piercing being easier and better.

    In the end I want to use this with a voiceless speech technology, and I want it all subdermal. I changed my mind about the transdermals, even though they would look cool.
  • More magnets reduce power consumption?
  • Voiceless speech as in subvocalization? Now THAT would be cool.
  • @Facesitting_Bull: No, this implant I'm talking about will be a coil implant moved closer to the magnet. That's going to be the real test as far as interference goes.

    On that note, does anyone know if a series of 3 coils can be used for a resonant coupling? I've seen one coil coupled with 2 coils, but I haven't seen a chain of couplings where coil A supplies B which supplies C. I wonder if this is possible with my setup?
  • BenBen
    edited July 2013
    You mean A gives the signal, B takes it and repeats it to C?
    I don't think so, since B does not create a field (well, it does, but you can consider that one non-existant)
    So, A could supply B and C, that would be more realistic.

    I made another coil, this one about one third the diameter which again highly improves the signal. My next test will be with thinner wire and more loops.

    May I ask where you intend to get your signal from? If it is completely subdermal, there needs to be some sort of wireless connection. It could be done via induction again, with quite some losses. (A gives signal to B, B is actually two coils, so one coil takes the signal and the second one produces a new field)
    Or was that what you meant?

    Edit: adding a picture of what setup I mean:
    image
  • "One cool thing: I plugged my ear with my finger that has the magnetic implant and music comes out of my fingertip. So cool."

    Is it possible that a magnet like this could be placed to resonate on larynx, like a vocal chord, and use the bodies natural resonance to amplify the sound?  I'm thinking of this as a method to allow mute people to speak via computer interface more naturally.

    To answer your question about a 3rd coil maybe this helps...I'm not well versed in the area but this seems to be a good research paper into it.  (figure 9 and beyond)
    http://edocs.soco.agilent.com/display/eesofapps/Wireless+Power+Transfer

    http://etrij.etri.re.kr/Cyber/Download/PublishedPaper/3404/etrij.aug2012.0527.pdf


    I'm seeing a major problem though...It seems like all the coils are placed parallel to each other, where in your system you probably don't have the space for this..not sure how this would effect your output.
  • Having read that, I must admit, that I apparently was wrong. You can use a coil to repeat a signal (I guess I always thought the coils as being connected to a load itself). And that more efficiently, than I had thought.
    As iexiak mentioned, this might be difficult to accomplish with the space problem, since those repeater coils should be aligned. Not entirely sure how the resonance coils would handle changing frequencies, either.
    Will do more reading on this.
  • iexiak good find. Thanks. That multiple coil thing could solve lots of problems. I'll play with it. I don't know if that would work for the vocal cords or not, but it would be awesome if it did. You should try it out.

    I know the coupling thing is delicate as far as aligning the coils just right. If chaining is possible I can see a way to use this to my advantage. <this is an idea, I know it presents more challenges>
    Multiple microphones pointed in different directions could send a signal into a coil. a receiving coil could be set up on my head so that looking in a certain direction would couple one coil and decouple others. This would be good for enhancing directional functions. Probably not very efficient on power, but it would be a cool feature.

    I'm wondering how flat spiral coils would work for coupling? Also, what do you guys think of this setup below? Too many amps?image
  • image

    Tesla head.

    I wish I could try it out, maybe if I ever meet a mute grinder I'll propose it!

    http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18521-more-is-merrier-for-wireless-power-supply.html#.UdNitpz3MrU

    MIT talks about powering multiple devices from one coil, though I don't know if it could be that accurate...It could be possible to put multiple magnets around the ear to achieve surround, or maybe just different sized magnets to achieve a wider sonic range..
  • edited July 2013
    Rich's video on "Headphone Implants":

  • So for the coil I'm liking this ferromagnetic ink is looking good. I know it isn't the best conductor, but it seems like it would be a good alternative to magnet wire. What do you guys think? I am concerned about the safety of the contents, especially if I go the tattoo route. I emailed the creator to see what he thinks.
  • How exactly would you want to tattoo a coil?
    Even if you get some conducting line tattoed, I don't see it acting as a coil. The power of a coil is depending on the number of loops (in this case at least). With only one loop you will not get a signal to your magnet...
  • I agree with Ben on this point.  I doubt that ferromagnetic ink could carry a sufficient current to generate a magnetic field strong enough to move the magnet.  Add to this the fact that skin makes a poor insulator at best, requiring you to provide an insulating layer between the ink and the skin to get the current to go where you want it to go without a huge amount of leakage current.

    The ideal placement of any type of coil would be concentric with the magnetic axis of your implant.  Take apart any $5 pair of earbuds and you'll see the coil arranged in just this way.  As you move away from this ideal position, the losses in the system increase proportional to the square of the distance between coil and magnet, assuming you keep the magnetic axes collinear.

    Now, I would assume that you want the electromagnet to be external to or as close to the surface of the skin as possible.  Given this constraint, I would recommend a small coil of traditional magnet wire located on or near the tragus.  A coil around the ear would also be feasible, but should have more turns of wire and/or greater drive current to compensate for the losses mentioned earlier.
  • using permanently magnetic ink as a magnet may work. tatooing electric conductors to make coils is not realistic at this point.
  • Couldn't the same procedure be done to the jaw bone to get the same effects? I'm not sure how much audio clarity you'd be sacrificing, but it's another thing to consider.
  • Is anyone still experimenting with this? I would like to get a magnet implanted, but am worried about the sound quality. Has anyone come up with a way to improve this?
  • @DirectorX can we get an update on how this has worked out long term?

    I am thinking of getting this done too, and would like an update.


    which should work fine with an implanted magnet (warning: the magnet that comes with it is not coated in anything bioproof).


  • @AmmonRa: I'm actually in the process of working with a ready-made kit like that as well. I have the parts and want to test externally first, and if all seems to sail smoothly then sometime towards the end of the year I can arrange for the implanted magnet.

    The only issue I'm facing right now is with my piercer and the type of magnets they works with. They only work with Samppa Von Cyborg's models, which I personally love and have in both hands right now. The only issue is size (and thus placement) vs my end goals here. they're saying they could probably have it placed like a vertical tragus piercing as opposed to directly on the tragus, but I'm not sure is having it placed that far down/away will cause the effect to be lost. I'm only looking for basic subtle auditory feedback. Plus some simple, no-need-for-quality audio from my phone for GPS when I'm driving (Illegal to have speakers in helmets here.) For external testing, I'm also going to try just taping it on my head behind my ear. I've seen folks get dermal anchors there, so if that seems to transmit better than the other placement, I'll try and see if I can have it placed there instead.

    (A side tangent that just occurred to me: A while back I remember seeing a device that was much like a low hanging necklace that would vibrate to the bass of whatever audio you pumped into it in attempt to give you that deep, chest-level rumble you get from live music. It might be interesting to explore maybe a chest or collarbone placement, too. It would certainly make for a new way to feel the music.)
  • Ok so I had a thought. Can any bone on the ehad be used for bone transduction? Say about 2 inches above the ear? if so why not have a magnet implanted there and build a hat such thatit has a coil directly over the implant to vibrate it. The hat could be connected via bluetooth to whatever music player you want or could have things built in like what I plan on doing with it. 
  • edited August 2014
    @drjaaz Why not just use a bone conduction transducer in the hat?
  • I didn't notice that I was tagged here so forgive the late response. I've been experimenting with Rochelle salts to make tiny speakers. It has been slow going, but I want to ditch the coil all together.

    The coil in the hat works much much better than around the neck.
  • Less pressure on the head and ideally this would provide more sensation so if you feed a sonar signal into each side your brain would better translate it rather than a straight audio signal. So you can listen to tunes, or use it for stimuli. 
  • Getting a tragus magnet implant in mid-March, @DirectorX. Can't wait to hear music on it.
  • I have my own magnets waiting to do the same. Just too damn busy atm to do it. 
  • Well, @drjaaz, I'm sorry to hear that your time is over-occupied. At the same time, it is nice to know I'm not alone! :-)
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