powering a LED through the human skin

[Rich Grise]

I'm waiting for the TV screen on the backside of my eyelids.

Hell, just drill a hole in the back of your skull and plug right
into your occipital lobe! ;-)

Cheers!
RIch

 

[Rich Grise, Plainclothes Hippie]

Peter,
Thank you.
Some good points.
Many artists wear silver body paint, so non toxic. Well it might look
daft, but people have tatoos as art, so that is a matter of opinion.

Hey, there you go! Just use conductive ink, and tattoo wires onto your
skin!

Good Luck!
Rich

(BTW, we snip and bottom-post, usually.)

 

[Dave (from the UK)]

I am trying to solve a problem of having wires going up to an MP3
player to the earpiece. I also didn't want the weight of batteries,
e.g. via a Bluetooth or other wireless head set. I did an experiment
where I used conductive paint to mark out some tracks on my skin to
replace wires. The conductive paint is very flexible (I put it on my
hand which flexed a lot ) and there seemed to be enough current to
drive a LED throught my hand.
Image here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sensecam/267793137/

Might be useful applications like powering ear pieces, military apps,
body sensors, health monitoring, jewels, art etc.
I'm only doing experiments with AM analog signals at present, not
digital but may in future.
I also did some experiments with powering a crystal earpiece throught
the skin (no conductive paint, just skin resistance)
My question is, has this been done before (i.e .power not just signals)
? (I know about the IBM Zimmerman expt ). It's seems obvious but a
google search reveals nothing.


Lyn

It has been done by electromagnetic coupling - better than paint.

--
Dave (from the UK)

Please note my email address changes periodically to avoid spam.
It is always of the form: [email protected]
Hitting reply will work for a few months only - later set it manually.

http://witm.sourceforge.net/ (Web based Mathematica front end)

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

There's always your "favorite" DVDS but then - well we won't go where they'd
have to mount those......

It would give a whole new meaning to "Go pound sand", wouldn't it?
;-)


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

 

[Lyn]

Gosh, but I'm a lady, as my photo link in my original post indicates
and never had a tatoo....yet ;-)

But I could - for the benefit of science!

Does it hurt?


Lyn

 

[[email protected]]

I'm thinking there must be a way to do this with bioluminescent dyes.

UV LEDs are getting reasonably priced. How about something like a funny
earring that holds a UV LED, then make your mark on the body with UV
sensitive paint. Shoulder should be easy targets.

You can put the UV leds in a belt, then do art on the stomach or back.

 

[Chris Jones]

Thank you, these are all constructive replies.

Newreaders may well like an almost invisible auto prompt.
Children love face paint.
Invisible ink sounds good.
BTW the silver paint wore off me after about 12 hours, not mutilation!


I used silver paint with resistance 0.02 to 0.05 ohms/sq/mil.
www.rswww.com


Might be useful for medical electronics where people who have a few
heart electrodes wired on them 24/7. It might be more comfortable than
wires everywhere.



Lyn

If you could afford a bucketfull of the stuff then you could make yourself
taser-proof. On the other hand, the paint fumes would probably be fairly
incapacitating by themselves.

Chris

 

[Mr. Radio]

It would give a whole new meaning to "Go pound sand", wouldn't it?
;-)


--
Service to my country? Been there, Done that, and I've got my DD214 to
prove it.
Member of DAV #85.

Michael A. Terrell
Central Florida

You got it!

 

[Rich Grise, Plainclothes Hippie]

Gosh, but I'm a lady, as my photo link in my original post indicates and
never had a tatoo....yet ;-)

But I could - for the benefit of science!

Does it hurt?

OK- caught me - I didn't even look at the page. Now I have, and that paint
is hideous!

And no, I do NOT recommend tattos, for a couple of reasons - first, I
think it's a form of self-mutilation, which I find abhorrent, and also,
from what I've heard, yes, they're terribly painful - just like having
an ink-laden needle puncturing your skin about 10 times a second. ("just
like", hell, it _IS_ an ink-laden needle puncturing your skin 10 times
a second!)

Good Luck!
Rich
[and please learn to bottom-post. As you can see, top-posting breaks
the natural flow of the conversation.]

 

[Walter Harley]

Thanks for the patent reminder, I posted here as i'm not planning on
patenting it, I'm doing it just for fun & research.
My last patent on this same subject covered most of the idea:

http://tinyurl.com/2vgx6

Hmm. Keith Relf's later work might constitute prior art.

 

[Robert Adsett]

OK- caught me - I didn't even look at the page. Now I have, and that paint
is hideous!

And no, I do NOT recommend tattos, for a couple of reasons - first, I
think it's a form of self-mutilation, which I find abhorrent, and also,
from what I've heard, yes, they're terribly painful - just like having
an ink-laden needle puncturing your skin about 10 times a second. ("just
like", hell, it _IS_ an ink-laden needle puncturing your skin 10 times
a second!)

Are tatoos continuous? I would have thought they were interrupted
leading to an increas in resistance even if you were tempted.

Robert

 

[jasen]

Peter,
Thank you.
Some good points.
Many artists wear silver body paint, so non toxic.

but is the non-toxic stuff conductive?

possibly a barrier layer could be placed between the conductive and the skin?

 

[Rich Grise, Plainclothes Hippie]

Are tatoos continuous? I would have thought they were interrupted leading
to an increas in resistance even if you were tempted.

Actually, the tattoo thing was a joke. Put an electrode as deep as a
tattoo, and your whole body becomes a conductor.

Do you think the Star Trek gang got the term "Borg" from "cyborg"? Ick!
Who wants to turn themselves into some kind of machine? I much prefer
real life!

Cheers!
RIch

 

[Lyn]

First of all, thank you for all your replies, I like them all and also
the Tin Oxide invisible ink, sounds fun.
Secondly, my apologies for messing up top and bottom posting, I first
posted on Usenet in 1994, but have just started to use Google Groups
for posting, which is taking control of the formatting. Ok it's not
Googles error, it must be mine, so I'll try and sort it out.

Thirdly, I'm off to start another post here on some more of my skin
experiments....
Lyn

 

[Don Klipstein]

I think your idea is good and can make you good money if
you are fast enough. 1-2 mA is not a lot, but with some more
experiments you may be able to achieve 10 mA or so. Then, you
may try sticking very thin enammeled wire to the skin (say, 0.06
or something, it is flexible enough to last for the evening
and will only take some glue - and will carry more than 10 mA...).
You will probably have to zig-zag bend the wire before sticking
so it will withstand the skin expansions etc...

I do prefer wire over paint, but I also want to mention that there are
plenty of LEDs now that get bright enough to use as indicator lamps with
current in the .5-2 mA range.

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

 

[Rich Grise]

First of all, thank you for all your replies, I like them all and also the
Tin Oxide invisible ink, sounds fun. Secondly, my apologies for messing
up top and bottom posting, I first posted on Usenet in 1994, but have just
started to use Google Groups for posting, which is taking control of the
formatting. Ok it's not Googles error, it must be mine, so I'll try and
sort it out.

Nothing to it - control-end before you start to type.

Then, of course, go back up and snip the stuff that you're not actually
replying to. (you can do this with your mouse or your cursor control keys.)

Cheers!
Rich

 

[Barry & Nikki]

I guess with this idea the sales of glow in the dark vibrators will
diminish. All of a sudden you can have the real deal glowing and maybe a
little tingle as well.

 

[Mr. C]

Be very careful when applying voltages to the skin on a long-term
basis. I know from my work in the pain control business that there
should NEVER be any DC component of voltage applied to the skin. If
there is a DC component, it will cause skin irritation. If you did
want to run wires of any kind, just be sure they are insulated from
the surface of the skin.