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Creating bioproof, flexible wiring for the body
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Displaying comments 61 - 90 of 111
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growing diamonds from a gas phase involves focussing a microwave beam onto your substrate using a parabolid-shaped metallic egg.
for any electronics inside the implant, this is equivalent to any electronics put in a microwave oven and have it run for hours.
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The microwave is for creating a plasma. I have seen plasmas around room temperature, though. (don't know for sure but don't think there were microwaves involved)But yeah, this would still mostly qualify for stuff like tiny magnets, that would have to be magnetized after. (or maybe not, still that would be the way I tried)
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Hi guys, sorry to jump in with this so late, have been gone for a while. As mentioned berfore, am a tattoo artist and piercer. This is a note to useing titanium in implants as I think mentioned erlier on in the thread: Do not use it uncoated, about 4% of all people have an allergie to it... I found this through piercing practice, so useing it under the skin could have bad concequences. People with other metal allergies such as nickel, cobalt and chrome allergies stand at a high risk of allergy to titanium.
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Thanks for that. That is good to know.Okay, so, since it is impossible to thread one of those inductive heads through the body, the design for a conductive wire would have to be two-fold:1: have one of those connectors that ThomasEGI mentioned here, with the silicon and dummy connection. This will connect2. the inductive head he mentioned here. That way, you can thread the thread with a guide wire, get to the other side, then quickly make an electrical connection.Anyone see any problems with that setup? I want to know before I go and build this, and realize I did something completely foolish (again).Also: I still need a decent supplier of coating. The one on the wiki is outside of my price range, unfortunately. I'm looking for something more in line with the pricing of sugru, but, you know, less bulky.
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ThomasEGI: is there any reason why we couldn't use something like a small commercial inductor for the cables, rather than making our own coils? Assuming I could find small ones, of course.
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most commercial inductors are made to provide good induction without "leaking" the magnetic field. so they are designed to have the magnetic field flow inside the part itself. there are smd inductors that would fit, but from the mechanical assembly they would go in a spot where the permanent magnets should go.
additionally, we can add multiple coils with different winding count, so we can compensate for voltage loss by semiconductors by using the plug as trafo to boost voltage at the same time.
last but not least it increases design flexibility and dependency on parts. getting insulated wires is really easy and, compared to premade coils, we can wind the wires in a way they reduce EMI based problems.
winding a wire up a stick isn't difficult at all. can be done in a few minutes.
so yeah. plenty of reason :)
i'll add all required parts on my next order from my electronic suplier and five id a dry run. so we get some numbers on efficiency and first options for improvement.
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on the other hand. there do seem to be a couple of smd inductors that might work with a different arrangement of the parts. i'll add those to my shopping cart and play with them,too.
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Let me know how it goes. I'm a fast learner, but there's only so much you can learn by just trawling the internet for info.
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Found this last night, have not read through it yet, but seemed very relevant.
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That was from a while back, I remember seeing it when the article was first published. I wonder how many of us are io9ers? Or follow any Gawker media outlet for that matter. Here is something extremely relevant to this thread from Gizmodo.
http://gizmodo.com/5969917/these-wires-can-stretch-800-percent-thanks-to-conductive-metal-goo
I think it would be quite hard to bioproof these though unless the elastic polymer is already by chance biosafe. I tried to access the original paper but the journal decided it would like 50 dollars for a 24 hour period which I think is quite ridiculous. Anyone have access to the Wiley journal through their school or some such?
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I jumped to the end of the thread on this one, so please excuse me if this has already been brought up. An elastic wire that conducts electricity already exists. It's called nerve tissue. Could something like this be accomplished through the use of nerve transplants? A lot of obstacles would have to be overcome, but it would be something more compatible with the body. If actual nerve transplants are not feasible, how about coming up with some other biological conductive tissue?
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nerves aren't exactly elastic. that's why they can ripp off. besides they only forward tiny short pulses. that's not really useable for transmitting worthwhile ammounts of energy. the point is, tissue by itself is pretty conductive, but to transmit power or data, you have to build an insulation layer around your conductor, so it will not electrocute you. so far, using regular coated wires seems to be pretty much the best options we have. a good way to connect these together is still neccessary.
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Has anyone considered this: a long thread of the variety of silicone used for the CPU's of some computers, coated in bioproof silicone (assuming the data silicone isn't already bioproof). If my thinking is on track, one could make a bioproof wire network which can transfer data and potentially power to and from devices all across the body. You could use hubs at major intersections, also made from this combination, which would essentially be silicone microprocessors, to manage the flow of data. Perhaps a HUD connected to the hubs via bluetooth or similar wireless data system going to a pair of glasses?
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@Cyberdoc i'm not aware of any silicone use in cpu's or data processing. maybe you mixed up silicon and silicone? silicon is the thing used in semiconductors. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon
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Yes, Thank you for the clarification. That aside, is this a valid option, or am I going in the wrong direction?
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I've been reading the article, much appreciated. Out of curiosity, can silicon transmit data in it's liquid form? If it can, one could simply pipe it through silicone tubes (measured at most in millimeters, probably smaller) and make something akin to the vascular system, with liquid silicon conducting data too and from various implants. Depending on the flexibility of solid silicon, this may or may not be necessary to ensure regular movement of the body.
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You would have to come up with heat shielding of some sort if it has to be kept in liquid form, due to the extreme heat required.
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you are pretty much going the wrong direction with silicon. it's good for building semiconductors, and that's not something to do at home. liquid silicon will be even less useful, besides beeing pretty unrealistic in practice. regular wires made from conductive materials (usualy metals such as copper or aluminum) are ways better suited for transmitting power and data. you may want to learn about how electronics and semiconductors in general: http://openbookproject.net/electricCircuits/ i can recommend the first 3 volumes there to get a good idea about how stuff works.
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Thank you, It's true that I have somewhat limited knowledge of electronics. So, silicon would be better suited for a fixed item, like the actual implant, rather than the wiring? I had also considered wireless communication between implants, which would negate the need for any subcutaneous wires. Depending on the implant's function, that may present a security problem though. I'll read up on the subject and see if there is anything that might be more feasible for implant communication.
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@Cyberdoc, silicon isn't really a conductor. It's actually somewhat in-between a conductor and an insulator, hence the term "semiconductor." In order to make silicon conduct electricity, certain substances need to be added to it in a highly controlled vacuum. That's how the transisters are formed on the surface to make the chips work. That would be totally impractical for a flexible wiring application. Even if you managed to pull it off, the resulting material would be rigid, not flexible. What you'd need is a material that is highly conductive yet flexible. It would have to be completely encased in an insulating material which is also flexible. If such a wire is eventually engineered, it would still need to be implanted using traditional methods. creating such a wire in vitro would bring about a whole new set of challenges and appears to be beyond currently available technology.
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I don't believe I mentioned any sort of in vitro procedure, and I was at that point thinking of silicon more as a material to be used in implants which wouldn't have to flex. I understand that such an implant is not currently practical let alone feasible for any of us in the diy community, and that the discussion of subcutaneous wiring is the subject here, not the implants said wiring might connect. I was essentially doing the forum version of thinking out loud. With all that out of the way, I just want to say I really don't want to be "that guy who insists on pressing his idea even after it has been proven false."
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And thank you all for the links, they were very helpful.
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I just started reading this thread and towards the bottom of page 1 Tiak mentioned break away connections. A question that I have about a possible break away connection would be, can it be bio-proofed? Do you really want to have a lead that goes nowhere? Say you have an implant that is being rejected and you get it removed. If you do not have a spare handy to replace it do you want to leave the connector in place for possible future implantation or would you want to remove itand have to run it again?If you leave it in, would it be possible to cap the end like you would with an unconnected cable in a house?
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So i was finally able to get my hands on the paper that i was looking for regarding the recent creation of "Ultrastrechable Fibers With Metallic Conductivity"(thanks again Glims).They already demonstrate its usability in earphones and chargers so i was thinking it would be perfect for grinder applications, provided that the elastomer was bio-compatible. The paper says it uses Kraton G1643 M which according to Kraton's website "should not be used in any devices or materials intended for implantation in the human body" http://docs.kraton.com/pdfDocuments/2009091315483520364233.PDFSo it seems like we are out of luck there. Though it seems that it could be repeatable with any other elastomer.They use the following as the conductor:eutectic gallium indium (EGaIn, 75% Ga, 25% In by weight, melting point 15.7 ° C [1,2]),Hopefully a bioinert elastomer can be found, the rest i might think we could do ourselves.The paper is available in Glims community library in the research articles section of the wiki. http://collaborate.biohack.me/Research_Articles
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this may be a little crazy but... what about something along the lines of a slide ball joint with a shroud as a connector at the joints? they can be made with enough lee way to make up for the bend it would basically act as your normal joint would and your wire length wouldn't have to change or bend, they would obviously have to be really small but it could work.
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What about using a strand of metallized aramid fiber, like kevlar, laminated with another bioproof material. I'm not sure if aramid fibers are bioproof, but it might be possible to use kevlar as the exterior sheath as well.Another idea. Why stick with a round wire? It seems like a ribbon cable would be well suited to traversing a joint.
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if you use a bioproofing shell , you can use whatever wires you have on your shelf to begin with. and that's probably the best idea to begin with. the connectors are still ways more difficult than the wires itself.
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@ThomasEgiConnectors for a ribbon cable would be fairly easy. Just use compression unions with gold contacts for both the cable and the receiving points. Kind of like the connection between the keyboard keys and the circuit that converts the signal into PS2/USB data.
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@TheGreyKnight body liquids are super agressive. you can't just take a gold-plated connector. single scretch somewhere and your body will find a starting point to corode everything away. the connectors need to be made from bioinert materials throughout. any non-bioinert material would have to be sealed off entirely.
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I meant solid gold contacts, not gold plating. That a problem?
Displaying comments 61 - 90 of 111