These are FAR from complete. What is working is the bare minimum. Waveforms, timing and jitter are implemented. A usage timer shuts down after 90 minutes. That's about it. I haven't even created a schematic yet, but intend to make a PCB so these can be made easily. I still need to implement the LCD menu so that everything can be configured. This works with ERM or LRA vibrators. I'm currently redesigning the gloves a little bit as well.
Do they work? I don't know. I got my mother-in-law to wear them for 20 minutes before she got 'bored' with them. She did seem good after even a 20 minute treatment but she had just come back from rehab so that could explain the results as well. There's a chance she might wear them this weekend so I'll certainly report any results.
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Possibly. My mother-in-law only wore them once so far, but talking to my wife tonight it seems she might have worn them as long as 45 minutes (I put them on her then immediately ran out on an errand). Since then, she has had significant cognitive improvements. Again, not enough where I would say for certain it's the gloves. I intend to try again this Sunday, hoping for two 90 minute treatments. I'll let you know how it goes. Currently, she hasn't walked without a walker in years. She doesn't really have tremors, but is mainly having issues with balance, getting stuck and mental challenges. She is burning through her savings paying for near round the clock help. She has stopped going to bed and lives and sleeps in her recliner chair. She hasn't been outside in years.
Wow. I hope they work for her. Looks to be a very tidy and well designed implementation. I know you have built in great flexibility. Vanilla seems to be working well for me. I would start there for your mother in law
Thank you for your efforts! I’ll be following your progress closely and am willing to donate to assist. My wife has PD and we are very excited about the possibly benefits of the gloves.
Thanks for sharing. I'm interested to see how you built the fingertips of the gloves. Do you have a close up of the finger tips where the vibration mechanisms come into contact with the fingers and how the velcro attachment there works to cinch down onto the fingertips?
I used wrist braces as the base, the kind used for carpal tunnel. They tighten with velcro straps so my velcro attachments were easy to add. I believe I got them on Amazon. I'll post a link if I find them.
As for the fingertips, I made one glove by trial and error, but while making the other glove I took pictures with the intention of creating step-by-step directions, including measurements. I'll post the pictures to Github and later work on the narration. However, the pictures should be self explanatory. I mostly used a roll of velcro that sticks to itself, used for things like holding wrapped cords. I also used elastic strips, as well as a lot of hot glue. The problem is, it seems the velcro is absorbing a lot of the vibration. I have a design change in mind, hoping to implement it soon. I'll post the pictures anyway, and will post the new design when done.
It will be interesting to see what you have implemented. I have ended up with "tass wannabe" holders, and I'm not sure how you can control resting contact pressure without doing that. It may not be essential for achieving any effect at all, but my experience is the closer I can get to Tass paremeters the better the results.
And if you look at his one trial report, and his observation of the failure of the only previous human trial, "focus" and "delicacy" appear key. To risk another analogy, that doesn’t have the legs to go very far
It's like having 4 grand pianos in a hall, one in each corner. And on each piano you tap a note - the white key 2 to the left of the 2 black keys next to the lock. We would need to slow things down a bit from neuron speed. Say press and hold the note for 1 second. We're in 6/8 time. The notes are played in turn. Each piano plays one note and only one note per bar. After every note there is a half note rest.
We have to listen and work out the order in which the pianos played and the note they played.
In targeting FA2 pacinian corpuscle, tass is using his index finger to play a clear light single note.
By contrast, the ERM design is like playing the note with your forearm, or by sitting on the keys. You'll get a message across but it's not so clear
And using an lra or audio exciter without a fixed reference point, controlled resting pressure, and low amplitude is like using your finger to play the note wearing welding gloves
Thanks again for your insights! It appears you have read much more than me about the tactors. Do you have any advice specifically on making better tactors? I've seen pictures of the ultra expensive piezo tactors but pictures and video of Tass's gloves look almost exactly like mine, leading me to believe he might be using some kind of ERM/LRA. I've re-thought my design. I believe too much vibration is lost into the velcro holders that go on the fingertips. In addition to making the vibration feel weaker at the fingertips, it also lets vibration leak from finger to finger. My plan was to cut a hole in the velcro a little bit bigger than the LRA, mount the LRA on a thin elastic sheet and attach that sheet to the velcro. This should isolate the LRA much more.
The key is to be able to generate a fairly focused vibration by squashing and unsquashing the skin in an action perpendicular to the skin
He sets a range of 30 to 100 micron for peak to peak amplitude, which is seriously tiny. And a resting skin indentation of 500 micron. So the only graph I have seen from him shows the lower limit of that range. A sine wave varying between 485 microns and 515 microns. I'll try to post that graph next
This is a picture from one of the supplementary papers to one of the studies. His description of the design is "The C-MF tactor (Engineering Acoustics, Inc.) had been specially designed for use on the fingers. The
C-MF had a smaller contactor than the C-2 to optimize the impedance transfer between the actuator
and finger. The C-MF housing is specially shaped to allow accurate and consistent finger mounting
"Do you have any advice specifically on making better tactors". I provided lots of background but didn't really answer that. Probably the best thing would be to explain what I have done in the Mk4 glove. I'll do that on my "Glove answers" thread to try to keep everything together. After a nightmare few days with the 3d printer, I think I'm ready to produce the glove set.
I have seen peter tass in a video saying some people walk or even jog wearing the gloves. Clearly a rowing machine or bench press are out of the question. I think you'd have to pass on rugby training and cricket nets too
As an update to the effectiveness... My mother in law did almost an hour of treatment before she wanted to take them off, and wouldn't do a second treatment. This time I saw little if any improvement, although she did seem to be having a particularly good day while eating. I really would like to know one way or another if they work but it looks like that will be difficult.
This is the peter tass graph of his suggested vCR targeting FA2 PC'sPersonally I can't feel anything at that amplitude, so I am currently at the other end of the range - ie 100 microns peak to peak (the thickness of a piece of copier paper)
I think this is an area for customisation. We do not all have the same skin elasticity. My wife's skin is much softer and more elastic than mine.
So I can customise both skin indentation at rest and vibration amplitude on a finger by finger basis.
I am currently at the heavy end of the scale. 500 microns indentation at rest and 100 micrns peak to peak
I suspect the exciters I am using are a bit more compliant than the C2 which would be another justification for more resting indentation and amplitude
The one illustrated above is for a custom Engineering Acoustics lra produced for peter tass. There are DIY solutions like mine, but they will be specific to a device. pgodefroy uses a teax exciter, which looks similar to, but not identical to, the dayton exciter I use. If you want to try the dayton I can let you have stl files
Ok. The product code is DAEX-13-4SM. They are 8 euros from sound imports in Italy, which is where I buy them. I'm sure you'll find them in the USA easily enough. I just need to get the stl files to you. I'll see whether I can attach them in a PM. Otherwise I may have to try to learn what this git-hub malarkey is all about
My replacement solder station has arrived. I'm assembling for the Mk4 glove - with luck, the last, subject to some cabling improvements. I have just had to reprint one of the plastic screws as it was too loose a fit. The other 10 have been fine.
Fit the disc to the locator tool and put the lid over that. Remove the backing paper on the exciter, fit the lid (without the screws) and push the locator tool to seat the disc on the sticky pad. When you replace the tool with the screw it should be in the middle of the hole. If you remove the exciter, it has to go in the same way round. Reversed, the contact screw will be 1 or 2 mm off centre
I put a 15mm metal washer in the base and cover that with a 20mm strip of 3M VHB tape , with the backing plastic still on. The tape is about 1.5mm thick. With the tape under the exciter, and the contact screw fully in, the top of the contact screw should sit about 1mm below the top of the box. One full turn of the screw is just short of 1mm (0.9mm?)
use the edge of the lid as a straight edge and adjust the screw until the lid just causes the exciter to compress slightly. Then unscrew a half turn to give you the 0.5mm skin indentation Tass specifies.
Before that, get the screw top level with the box top as described, with a wired-up exciter in the box. Now Dr Tass suggests a peak to peak range of 0.03mm to 0.1mm vibration amplitude. 0.1mm peak to peak is 0.05mm midpoint (resting or "off") to peak. So, you need to turn the screw in by 0.05mm. That's 1/20 of a full screw turn. 1/10 of a half screw turn. So about 4 minutes on a clock face. Then rest the edge of the lid over the screw and turn up the volume until the screw buzzes the lid. That volume setting (10 o'clock on my amplifier) is your theoretical maximum volume. There are reasons why I might vary that a bit. But that's your basic set-up
Minor glitch on commissioning. Some of the contact screws vibrate loose when energised. I have printed some slightly tighter fitting ones to eliminate the problem. Just waiting on the seamstress now. Hopefully this weekend, although we are due to be meeting friends...
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