Well educated people usually get a well paid job and don't have to steal. And if a burglar would be smart, he wouldn't be robbing garages himself, but he would set something up to decrease his own risk. (hire someone else, setup online scamming, hacking a bank account, etc) Just breaking open a garage is really one of the most primitive ways to steal someone's property.
Half of prototyping is knowing when a design is a dead-end. Great explanation of your process. I guess the good news about burglars is that if there was a Venn diagram of "Can identify expensive scientific equipment" and "steals things from people's garages" the overlap is incredibly small.
You should market these as TIG finger pedals. Old 2 button TIG torches are awkward to operate and foot pedal doesn't work if you're like lying under your car or in standing position, so that thing somewhat nicely integrated into a TIG torch would be totally nice.
I can tell you it's very hard to push a wheel barrow with one arm so be on the lookout for a two armed man that may be carrying out small paid jobs like moving some bricks or getting rid of some lawn clippings. Probably called Barry or something. Bazza. Lives within walking distance...
An interesting point, that super white lithium grease is what’s used in a lot of manual paper towel dispensers because it works so well with those types of plastic. My father did property management work (janitorial mostly) for a college and he would occasionally replace the grease in the dispensers on campus to keep them moving smoothly and it’s something I learned myself for use in some of my own projects.
This format of video should be mandatory for capstone projects, masters and PhD dissertations as preamble for final product presentation. There is SO much knowledge and value in being able to follow the path of reasoning, trials, errors, obstacles (burgled!!). And the key I think is that it's not 'judged', it's so relaxed and conversational. It's just, "I wanted to achieve A, by doing B, but ended up with C. I'm kinda okay with C."
How would your singing be affected by one of these? I'm wondering if a pad of some sort that you could tilt your head to engage and manipulate might be a better solution.
@@sumduma55 might be tricky because somebody without legs uses their whole upper body to balance when sitting usually, it’s more difficult than it is for able bodied people. So making it a head movement thing could put them off balance potentially. Could be wrong, just throwing out thoughts
@@sumduma55 Was thinking about that while watching the video and quickly realized that the kind of motion used on a sustain pedal could quickly become uncomfortable as it often requires quick dampening between two notes on different cords
Every non-engineer executive or manager needs to watch your channel. Especially this episode. This is excellent in clearly explaining R&D work and how prototyping without fully defined requirements is necessary. So many requirements can only be determined through prototyping. Excellent video!!!
Every time you post a long form video I tell myself "Ah I'll watch some of it". Always end up sitting through the whole thing. This is the clear hallmark of an effective presenter
This channel imo has the highest content quality on youtube when it comes to interesting science projects. i usually don't bother to comment on anything but sometimes you just have to drop in to give credit where it is due. excelent work as always and great representation. a solid 5/7 would watch again.
As an amateur pianist, I do want to point out that (acoustic) piano pedals are not linear: they have a clear pickup point, where resistance suddenly increases and the transition of dampeners on the strings to off the strings happens, usually within only two or three centimeters of pedal movement. This has the benefit of enabling much faster pedalling (by limiting the effectively used range), and marking the half-pedal point. However, the original electronic pedal probably didn't emulate this, and given the short range of your sensor, it's probably not beneficial to do this and further shorten the effective range. Random tidbit: Grand and upright pianos have different dampener mechanisms (I think grands have gravity-return dampeners, which obviously wouldn't work for an upright), which leads to drastically different pedal feel between them: some uprights can have almost linear responses, while grand pianos tend to have very defined pickup points with sometimes annoyingly small effective ranges. As a result, half-pedal tends to be much easier to hit consistently on an upright than on a grand (but also has different effects, ...) Edit: Disclaimer: I play pretty much only acoustic pianos, so there may be some nuances to pedalling on electronic pianos that I am completely unaware of.
A feel similar to that can be re-created by slightly changing shape of the ramps from basic slope. From what you're saying it would probably be better to have it steeper at first (less force, more travel of jaw. Easier to hold.), then to 45 around half way (linear, but the transition can be felt), then flatter (more force, less travel) near the end. Or maybe just two slopes with the transition half way?
I've gotten into silicone casting and have been having a lot of problems with bubbles. I love how you barely mention your process and all of your castings look perfect.
@@Steve_Just_Steve I’d second this. Did it myself. A slab of acrylic and an old pressure cooker are all you need. Cut a ledge into the acrylic and make a seal using silicon, then plumb some sort of fitting for the vacuum hoses. It doesn’t need to be super precise if you’re not getting down to super lower vacuums, cause the vacuum will pull all the parts tight and prevent leaks.
I was wondering how you were going to glue those silicone parts together. Always fun to learn about a tool/product you didn't know existed but could come in handy in the future.
Disheartened to hear about the burglary, but glad to see it didn't get you down! I wasn't aware of anything that could adhere well to cured silicone, which got me to thinking: a video about adhesives (especially for plastics/difficult to bond materials) similar to your video regarding cleaning solvents/detergents, would be amazingly helpful to a wide range of viewers.
Hold on a second. This channel is still sub 1M!?!? What the...? I've been watching for several years by now, and always assumed that he is way over 1M even back then. I've never actually looked at the number. Heresy!!
I can't thumb up enough. Thanks for helping out someone who lost a "normal" ability. I'm not handicapped in any conventional way, but I ride a motorcycle and know I could be in half a heartbeat. Years ago I ended up in crutches while my foot healed. I took the time to "learn" what it would be like being handicapped. I still get chills when I see wet tile. But that effort made me extremely aware of the difficulties people face. I participate at work with evaluating our efforts to make our software highly usable by anyone. Besides, many of the enhancements we make for these folks, make us "normal" folks life so much easier.
That ramp design was pretty cool. I really like how the pressure distribution should be irrelevant. I wonder if this would be applicable for keyboard designs.
Thank you for breaking breaking down the most difficult part of design down into bites Pun intended. Showing the reality that the first, sometimes simplest idea convinces the builder he has found the ultimate solution. At least I have done that too many times. I will beat my original idea to death before I realize it wasn't such a great idea.
Some dude really broke into that shop and thought to himself "nah, expensive rubidium lasers and electron microscopy equipment - I’m just gonna steal a wheelbarrow and some cordless drills"
They thought what am I going to pawn for my next fix? Burglars aren't looking for some unique thing that is going to attract attention or hard to get rid of.
Anyone who's going to go around stealing out of garages is a fucking idiot so they probably didn't know what anything was besides the basic power tools.
well burglars are usually poor and have very little education meaning they cant get a job. Not too surprising they wouldnt know what is worth something in Ben's garage.
The fun in inventing something that currently doesn’t exist is the thousand things you learn along the way. I came up with a patented LASER optical delivery device in my back yard, and I’ve never had so much fun!
Another plus for the ramp design is you could change the shape of the ramp to create perceivable 'steps', or even give it a curve to change the felt spring rate.
You are an inspiration to me for gaining knowledge! You remind me so much of my hero/grandfather who was pursuant on precision in engineering, and inspired me as well. Thank you for sharing your videos with everyone publicly. I feel very grateful. :)
The first thing I would've try is to make something using a bicycle brake cable with, of course, a potentiometer and a spring at the end of it. For the mouth piece you can just 3D-print something, not quite sure exactly what would be best shape/mechanism, and also I'm not sure if the brake cable would have a bit too much friction to work well...
A PTFE lined bowden cable was my first thought as well, stiction should be acceptable. It could even be routed through a gooseneck pipe mounted to the keyboard. That would allow the user to position and "store" the mouthpiece relative hygienic in air.
Im only 13 minutes into the vid but i got a suggestion..... what about using the tongue. The lips and teeth anchor the device and the tongue operates a lever within the mouth cavity. the paddle could stay low and you lift the paddle to activate. that would allow for both rapid and incremental/analog positioning. Sorry to hear about the robbery, you're a great guy that just wants to teach. Thanks for the great content!
It's the little things in these projects, those little tips and tricks that can be used for so many other things I find most valuable. Excellent video thank you
Probably someone with a serious drug addiction. There's only one thing that matters. Explains why all they took were tools, too. You know you can sell them to a pawn shop, and all that other stuff, although you and me know it's really awesome or expensive, is just an unknown variable.
@@jhonbus That seems like an extremely prejudiced assumption to me. As a consequence of the pandemic lots of people have it really bad right now - aside from that there's a million possible reasons why you would need to resort to stealing. Glad to hear nothing irreplaceable was stolen, but I feel mostly sorry for the poor soul who was forced to resort to such extreme measures, no matter their reasons
The way you are able to step away from a design and come-up with something totally different is amazing. That is the hardest to do in a project like this for me. Really cool reason to look up to you Ben!
That’s a pretty cool solution you’ve come up with. I’d be interested to hear the feedback from the musician. And will there be further tweaks...? Anyhow, thanks for sharing! Oh yeah, forgot to send my condolences along for your tools. I’m glad you weren’t hurt, tools can usually be replaced. God bless!
Really love this insight into your brainstorming and trial and error process. Thanks for sharing Ben! This is a really cool device and seeing how you worked through ideas and challenged your own assumptions was enlightening.
Two things that came to mind watching this: 1, have you taken into account possible toxicity of the glue and grease? 2: Once hermetically sealed, won't crushing the device increase internal pressure and add back some of that pneumetic 'bounciness'?
Cool! Im learning from your design process... I have a tendency to stick to my first prototype (and make them work) when I create stuff so watching this guy go tru the painful process of trial and error while actually improving his final product teaches me a lot!
Amazing! I want something like this to control the pedal on a TIG welder. The thing about it is that it's much larger, so I'm not sure if there's a way to do that. Maybe have one small one that controls a motor that controls a larger one. Use one of those to simple control a powerful stepper motor that controls the pedal. Make it into a trigger control and put it on the TIG torch. Interesting.
For the pneumatic version, you could try using a MAP sensor from an old GM to read the pressure, they're a couple bucks at the junk yard. Maybe use an arduino to read it and flatten the response curve in software, have it drive a digital pot for the output, it'll probably be fine. Chewing on squishy things is fun
Are there any concerns about health safety with the silicone, and more importantly, the epoxy and the high temp pads? For something that goes into someone's mouth, I'd be a bit concerned about that, besides just waterproofing.
Epoxy is not a health concern. It crosslinks completely (after a while - maybe wait a week after it has cured until you declare it safe) and becomes pretty close to inert. Even if you break off and swallow a chunk, even if it's slightly contaminated, you can pretty much assume that nothing will come out of it. Silicone is not generally known for potential contamination during manufacturing, but if there was a contamination, it would potentially leech out. Eh, small risk i guess :D
@@JeffDriskill Many people have accidentally ingested small amounts of grease and lived to tell the tale, it's probably not good for you, but it's not highly toxic either. But since the silicone is slightly water permeable, it seems like it would potentially breed bacteria, especially as it accumulates damage. I think the device should simply be re-shelled regularly. Or maybe used in a protective sheath of some kind, like a piece of medical glove, a finger cot, a... pardon me, what's your first Google hit on "latex dry bulk disposable microphone cover"? :D
Breath controllers are pretty standard, but they are not very good for a pianist as a pedal replacement. Because you can continuously press down on the pedal for pretty long phrases - potentially indefinitely - but you can't really breathe out continuously, you have to breathe in once in a while. Also breath strength control is not so precise, you get expressive phrases, but you can't just hold the same exact airflow. Also i think they're digital and connected via MIDI.
Would be nice to see an update on how it performs in actual use by the player. Very cool to see the different iterations and realizing there are more boxes to tick than previously thought. Makes me appreciate a well designed product that just works and is intuitive.
@Applied Science , Could you explain how you went about finding safe adhesives/materials for interfacing with a mouth. I know smooth on makes a number of food safe materials. But It seems like adhesives and possible after tastes from compounds could be a problem. I know you have many years of developing human interfaces. But this one certainly seems to add additional problems.
Very interesting! I'm going to have to get some Silpoxy. Pen springs are just one of those packrat things that come in handy when prototyping. Thanks for the tutorial Ben!
Sorry you got burglarized during the holidays and no worries about the lack of videos! I'm just glad you're okay and they didn't steal anything exotic. I found your struggle to find the right lubricant very interesting and useful in the future if I ever use the same silicone for a project.
Yes, I admire that guy's brains! But if he has access to so much technology and brains, shouldn't he make himself some sort of burglar alarm? Maybe an "idiot sensor" that would capture the burglar, put him in a big box, fill the rest of the box with his styrofoam peanut dispenser he has in his shop, then ship the criminal to the police automatically? :-) Still, I envy his brains and his workshop!
I like the way from hydraulics, to angular potentiometers, to better angular potentiometers (less needed angle to activate), to even better angular potentiometers (praising them so much) and finally a button (linear potentiometer. But with some cool mechanics to solve the problem) :D But the final product looks good. Very interesting video, showing the whole design process!
We'll soon have some good demos done with the new optics toys! It's also amazingly convenient for mechanical fixturing and adjusting of all sorts assemblies.
Wow, I tried to make a sorta round silicon cap one time, I 3d printed the outer shell just like a short piece of pipe, to be able to smooth it out flat later. The inner piece was like a half-bowl. I put them both together and then tried injecting the silicon from above, but it ended up being a huge mess. Your design is way more straightforward and actually works lol.
It's a good GUESS that it's likely nontoxic, even if the materials don't come with FDA or equivalent approval, the reactions used in manufacturing aren't known for toxic side products. I'd say the poisoning risk is pretty much zero, even if it turns out that something in the surface layers isn't entirely kosher. Also biting all the way through and ingesting grease wouldn't be great, but it seems a little too inert to be really dangerous. Now that you got me thinking and Ben mentioned that silicone actually has quite a bit of water permeability, i'm wondering about hygienic situation though, what the replacement regimen on the outer cover should be.
linear-output Halls output a voltage, not a variable resistance, so it may or may not work properly as he mentioned not knowing exactly how the "inside" circuit is constructed.
Something you might try if you ever get another request like this is a leaf spring in a parabolic shape, with an led & photosensor focused on the internal surface. By changing the spacing of the spring's ends, you get both a different focal spot, and a different restorative force from the spring. I think it was in relation to some game console that I first heard about this technique.
It also was the first thing that worried me. Lithium grease is not the best choice for the device in mouth. I would also avoid MoS2 etc. In fact silicone grease is wide used in food production machines, but pity its not working here well.
My first idea would've been using the pneumatic mouth peace with a pressure sensor attached, but that would still not solve the problem of the feedback. I am really surprised to see your elegant solution. Now my question is: why not use some keyboard switches? Wooting two HE offers analogue switches (just an example, no affiliation). Maybe someone would like a clicky response. :) anyway, keep up the good work and I appreciate you show and explain the thought and design process. This helps so much more than just showing the final result.
The best thing I can think of that has full feedback is Hydraulics, like what's on a vehicle. Or at least partially hydraulic. I cannot wait to finish watching the video & see what you came up with.
Or some item that looks like a nice power tool but is actually a smoke bomb. So it gets stolen and then 5 minutes after the thief leaves with the loot, there's suddenly a huge amount of stinky smoke. Another idea is a radio jammer that activates if stolen, if such a device is legal to own but not operate.
@@NiHaoMike64 As much fun as thinking about setting traps is, i wonder if they in turn make for legal pitfalls for the property owner. What if the burglar trips because he's frightened by a smoke bomb and injures his ankle? Might sue the property owner.
For rapid silicone molding, you should try the Silicone Fast-Setting Casting Compound on Mcmaster (8595K12). It's a 2 part putty that cures in minutes... so it's super convenient for this kind a quick prototyping. I use that all the time for medical devices prototyping. I'm usually machining the molds out of Delrin, but 3D printing also works.
Yeah, a lot of comments here talking about how valuable that scientific gear supposedly is, but stolen goods are only worth what you can easily sell them for.
I'm really interested about the Lubrication of resin parts.. It surprised me that lithium grease worked the best for you. Formlabs tests show that the layer orientation of the parts play a big role on the friction of the parts.Can be reduced up 43% if i remember right. Lithium grease, as far as i know, isn't supposed to be used for plastic parts.It supposed to "eat" the plastic by time. So far i tried everything except lithium grease. The best for me, BY FAR was PTFE, spray and especially tape. I'll give lithium grease a try. Great Job.
18:58... Yup the Sil-Poxy is great stuff. I needed a flexible adhesive to stick a PCB to a plastic Polyethylene container. Sticks solid the best adhesive I've found.
@@mckenziekeith7434 It doesn't strictly HAVE to be all passive if you can find a purely resistive way of interfacing, such as via two LDRs - but that is prone to issues too. Passive is the best solution for sure. I think you don't even have to use that particular input - you can use MIDI IN on the instrument and just feed it CC64 on all channels or on a channel mask or channel selector.
There are actually digi pots with a floating output. Also first thing that came to mind is a LDR. For a one time project these are still easy to get. Any non-linearities can be calibrated out. But to be very honest, there is quite an extensive amount of information about how these sustain-pedals work and what voltages are involved. Usually it's just 5V, which can also easily be changes with some kind of isolation circuit if you want to be fully isolated from the circuit. Nice video! Sorry to hear about the trouble around Christmas
@@AppliedScience I will have a look. Used it a while ago for a project we had to develop something for similar reasons. But the downside is that you always need a extra voltage source, or use a very low power device to "steal" a few micro amps from the original 5V
I hate to hear that about your shop being burgled. Even when it's just stuff, it's still a violation and the emotional hit of "someone was in my shop/garage/car/house" sucks. I cannot abide a thief. Now, before anyone might say to think of the other guy who might be so down that he saw no other option, I call that victim-blaming. I've never turned away a person who, coming to me, asked for help. I have had my offers of help rejected far more often than not!I've had to ask for help, been turned down but kept trying until I found it.
Very nice! You could try it with your first approche with the balloon-like mouthpiece and rig a psi sensor at the other end and translate the analog value from the psi sensor. The air pressure will be the spring. It will have less travel than your last approch but this one can be made very small and may be more confortable in the mouth. all the rest is just muscle memory that will have to be developped for the right pressure the player will have to apply to replicate the pressing of the pedal.
You mean there are burglars that won't appreciate a scanning electron microscope or plasma sputter chamber?
Prob thought it was an old tv
Sounds like they weren’t fans of the channel so at least its not a someone targeting him specifically from the channel
Don't forget that oscilloscope 😳
Well educated people usually get a well paid job and don't have to steal.
And if a burglar would be smart, he wouldn't be robbing garages himself, but he would set something up to decrease his own risk. (hire someone else, setup online scamming, hacking a bank account, etc) Just breaking open a garage is really one of the most primitive ways to steal someone's property.
@@sasjadevries sure, but I'm surprised Applied Science did not booby-trap his shop with all that stuff inside
Half of prototyping is knowing when a design is a dead-end. Great explanation of your process.
I guess the good news about burglars is that if there was a Venn diagram of "Can identify expensive scientific equipment" and "steals things from people's garages" the overlap is incredibly small.
Maybe he didn't want to be the only guy at the pawn shop trying to hock a homemade SEM
When your equipment requires so much education to sell that it's not even worth stealing
How much for a 10-gram baggy of sourcemeter? Asking for a friend.
Tweaker only after what they can pawn... Pawn shop wouldn't know what to do with most of his stuff.
What about the bong, sorry the molecular pump?? Did the pump survive?
This makes me very sad that some idiot is trying to smoke weed with that
@@nomadpilot6442 it probably didn't get touched and if it did could you imagine inhaling oil mist?
You should market these as TIG finger pedals.
Old 2 button TIG torches are awkward to operate and foot pedal doesn't work if you're like lying under your car or in standing position, so that thing somewhat nicely integrated into a TIG torch would be totally nice.
Sorry to hear about your Christmas “anti-present”. It’s awesome how you were so light hearted about it!
He needs to design an "anti-burglar" system to prevent these "anti-present" and "anti-pleasant" situations.
Where were Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci on Christmas Eve?
I can tell you it's very hard to push a wheel barrow with one arm so be on the lookout for a two armed man that may be carrying out small paid jobs like moving some bricks or getting rid of some lawn clippings. Probably called Barry or something. Bazza. Lives within walking distance...
I appreciate the honesty, or at least directness, of calling a product "Sorta-Clear"
"is it clear? "
"nah- sorta clear though! "
"but how clear is that? "
"40...it is about 40 clear "
@@olik136 Pretty sure he said 40 refers to the rigidity or durability of the silicone
well be careful kids if you get sued a lawyer might pick your products name
@@DrakeOola it's a joke
@@vintyprod its sorta funny
An interesting point, that super white lithium grease is what’s used in a lot of manual paper towel dispensers because it works so well with those types of plastic. My father did property management work (janitorial mostly) for a college and he would occasionally replace the grease in the dispensers on campus to keep them moving smoothly and it’s something I learned myself for use in some of my own projects.
This format of video should be mandatory for capstone projects, masters and PhD dissertations as preamble for final product presentation.
There is SO much knowledge and value in being able to follow the path of reasoning, trials, errors, obstacles (burgled!!).
And the key I think is that it's not 'judged', it's so relaxed and conversational. It's just, "I wanted to achieve A, by doing B, but ended up with C. I'm kinda okay with C."
As a pianist, and someone with a working jaw, I really appreciate this!!
How would your singing be affected by one of these?
I'm wondering if a pad of some sort that you could tilt your head to engage and manipulate might be a better solution.
@@sumduma55 might be tricky because somebody without legs uses their whole upper body to balance when sitting usually, it’s more difficult than it is for able bodied people. So making it a head movement thing could put them off balance potentially.
Could be wrong, just throwing out thoughts
@@sumduma55 Was thinking about that while watching the video and quickly realized that the kind of motion used on a sustain pedal could quickly become uncomfortable as it often requires quick dampening between two notes on different cords
Every non-engineer executive or manager needs to watch your channel. Especially this episode. This is excellent in clearly explaining R&D work and how prototyping without fully defined requirements is necessary. So many requirements can only be determined through prototyping. Excellent video!!!
Every time you post a long form video I tell myself "Ah I'll watch some of it". Always end up sitting through the whole thing. This is the clear hallmark of an effective presenter
That's awesome. Everything: you helping disabled person, design process and showing it to us
"you might be thinking" yes that's exactly what I was thinking.
There are "mouthpiece pads" at music shops sold for woodwind insturments. That's what musicians use against bite damage.
You can tune the useful rotational range of a pot with silver conductive paint. It works with composite or wire wound.
That's a great idea!
This channel imo has the highest content quality on youtube when it comes to interesting science projects. i usually don't bother to comment on anything but sometimes you just have to drop in to give credit where it is due. excelent work as always and great representation. a solid 5/7 would watch again.
As an amateur pianist, I do want to point out that (acoustic) piano pedals are not linear: they have a clear pickup point, where resistance suddenly increases and the transition of dampeners on the strings to off the strings happens, usually within only two or three centimeters of pedal movement. This has the benefit of enabling much faster pedalling (by limiting the effectively used range), and marking the half-pedal point. However, the original electronic pedal probably didn't emulate this, and given the short range of your sensor, it's probably not beneficial to do this and further shorten the effective range.
Random tidbit: Grand and upright pianos have different dampener mechanisms (I think grands have gravity-return dampeners, which obviously wouldn't work for an upright), which leads to drastically different pedal feel between them: some uprights can have almost linear responses, while grand pianos tend to have very defined pickup points with sometimes annoyingly small effective ranges. As a result, half-pedal tends to be much easier to hit consistently on an upright than on a grand (but also has different effects, ...)
Edit: Disclaimer: I play pretty much only acoustic pianos, so there may be some nuances to pedalling on electronic pianos that I am completely unaware of.
A feel similar to that can be re-created by slightly changing shape of the ramps from basic slope. From what you're saying it would probably be better to have it steeper at first (less force, more travel of jaw. Easier to hold.), then to 45 around half way (linear, but the transition can be felt), then flatter (more force, less travel) near the end. Or maybe just two slopes with the transition half way?
I've gotten into silicone casting and have been having a lot of problems with bubbles. I love how you barely mention your process and all of your castings look perfect.
I think he's shown it the past and he did mention how to prevent bubbles.
@@Steve_Just_Steve Yes, the solution is to just buy a vacuum chamber but Ben's so blasé about it it kills me.
@@DanieleGiorgino Or make one. Or I think you can find a cheap old pressure cooker and use it as pressure pot, but I know what you meant.
@@Steve_Just_Steve I’d second this. Did it myself. A slab of acrylic and an old pressure cooker are all you need. Cut a ledge into the acrylic and make a seal using silicon, then plumb some sort of fitting for the vacuum hoses. It doesn’t need to be super precise if you’re not getting down to super lower vacuums, cause the vacuum will pull all the parts tight and prevent leaks.
I guess the burglar didn't recognize a turbomolecular pump when he saw one.
To be honest, i think he barely understood the difference between screwdriver and a hammer...
Burglars are not know for their intellect.
You're so right about how the best solution looks simple but required all the steps to get there and a process that was not simple.
I can't believe you were robbed by the grinch
Many thieves watch the obituaries to see when a whole family will be at a funeral.
Like its not bad enough you've just lost a loved one.... 😡
My brother in law was not there!
So sorry to hear about the burglary (on Christmas, no less!) but happy to hear you're almost back. Fantastic video as always!
I was wondering how you were going to glue those silicone parts together. Always fun to learn about a tool/product you didn't know existed but could come in handy in the future.
Disheartened to hear about the burglary, but glad to see it didn't get you down! I wasn't aware of anything that could adhere well to cured silicone, which got me to thinking: a video about adhesives (especially for plastics/difficult to bond materials) similar to your video regarding cleaning solvents/detergents, would be amazingly helpful to a wide range of viewers.
"building and trying is faster than trying to estimate what it is you want to achieve" -- there's some true hacker spirit right there.
I love how you show what you're thinking while you were building and all the tips and tricks. You are an excellent prototyper!
Congrats on reaching 700k!
Hold on a second. This channel is still sub 1M!?!? What the...? I've been watching for several years by now, and always assumed that he is way over 1M even back then. I've never actually looked at the number. Heresy!!
How can the best channel on youtube only have 700k subs. I send shares to all my geeky friends!! Do your best fellow science nerds :)
I can't thumb up enough. Thanks for helping out someone who lost a "normal" ability. I'm not handicapped in any conventional way, but I ride a motorcycle and know I could be in half a heartbeat. Years ago I ended up in crutches while my foot healed. I took the time to "learn" what it would be like being handicapped. I still get chills when I see wet tile. But that effort made me extremely aware of the difficulties people face. I participate at work with evaluating our efforts to make our software highly usable by anyone. Besides, many of the enhancements we make for these folks, make us "normal" folks life so much easier.
That ramp design was pretty cool. I really like how the pressure distribution should be irrelevant. I wonder if this would be applicable for keyboard designs.
spacebars already have a mechanism to achieve that, but it's different
I'd imagine using such a stabilization method would be incompatible with everything too
Guitar hero frets yo.
Thank you for breaking breaking down the most difficult part of design down into bites Pun intended. Showing the reality that the first, sometimes simplest idea convinces the builder he has found the ultimate solution. At least I have done that too many times. I will beat my original idea to death before I realize it wasn't such a great idea.
Some dude really broke into that shop and thought to himself "nah, expensive rubidium lasers and electron microscopy equipment - I’m just gonna steal a wheelbarrow and some cordless drills"
They thought what am I going to pawn for my next fix?
Burglars aren't looking for some unique thing that is going to attract attention or hard to get rid of.
Anyone who's going to go around stealing out of garages is a fucking idiot so they probably didn't know what anything was besides the basic power tools.
I wonder what the street price of an electron microscope is...
I think Jim is closest, power tools can be sold with litre suspicion. Electron microscopes tend to have to small of a sales pool to blend in.
well burglars are usually poor and have very little education meaning they cant get a job. Not too surprising they wouldnt know what is worth something in Ben's garage.
The fun in inventing something that currently doesn’t exist is the thousand things you learn along the way. I came up with a patented LASER optical delivery device in my back yard, and I’ve never had so much fun!
Another plus for the ramp design is you could change the shape of the ramp to create perceivable 'steps', or even give it a curve to change the felt spring rate.
You are an inspiration to me for gaining knowledge! You remind me so much of my hero/grandfather who was pursuant on precision in engineering, and inspired me as well. Thank you for sharing your videos with everyone publicly. I feel very grateful. :)
The first thing I would've try is to make something using a bicycle brake cable with, of course, a potentiometer and a spring at the end of it.
For the mouth piece you can just 3D-print something, not quite sure exactly what would be best shape/mechanism, and also I'm not sure if the brake cable would have a bit too much friction to work well...
A PTFE lined bowden cable was my first thought as well, stiction should be acceptable. It could even be routed through a gooseneck pipe mounted to the keyboard. That would allow the user to position and "store" the mouthpiece relative hygienic in air.
Im only 13 minutes into the vid but i got a suggestion..... what about using the tongue. The lips and teeth anchor the device and the tongue operates a lever within the mouth cavity. the paddle could stay low and you lift the paddle to activate. that would allow for both rapid and incremental/analog positioning.
Sorry to hear about the robbery, you're a great guy that just wants to teach. Thanks for the great content!
most of that is incredible, but the most incredible is that you 'found' what you were looking for on digikey.
har! exactly. only search Digikey when you already know what you are searching for...
Kind of insane - fortunately they don't carry the cheap knockoffs too, as far as I know.
It's the little things in these projects, those little tips and tricks that can be used for so many other things I find most valuable. Excellent video thank you
Next up in Prototyping with Applied Science: Home security system
Home human disposal unit.
Trunk Monkey Theft Retrieval System:
ua-cam.com/video/zin26ezvgO0/v-deo.html
Yeah I want to see this guy do some high tech 'Home Alone' traps
I really appreciate you talking through your thoughts during the design process
Imagine what a complete shit you'd need to be to burglarize someone's lab on Christmas Day and steal their tools.
Especially Ben's, he seems like such a nice guy :(
Probably someone with a serious drug addiction. There's only one thing that matters. Explains why all they took were tools, too. You know you can sell them to a pawn shop, and all that other stuff, although you and me know it's really awesome or expensive, is just an unknown variable.
someone else got their presents though, slightly used, without invoice, but working
@@jhonbus That seems like an extremely prejudiced assumption to me.
As a consequence of the pandemic lots of people have it really bad right now - aside from that there's a million possible reasons why you would need to resort to stealing.
Glad to hear nothing irreplaceable was stolen, but I feel mostly sorry for the poor soul who was forced to resort to such extreme measures, no matter their reasons
@@horrorhotel46290 Not sure why that's a prejudiced assumption. It seems to me you two are pretty much in agreement with one another
The way you are able to step away from a design and come-up with something totally different is amazing. That is the hardest to do in a project like this for me. Really cool reason to look up to you Ben!
That’s a pretty cool solution you’ve come up with. I’d be interested to hear the feedback from the musician. And will there be further tweaks...? Anyhow, thanks for sharing!
Oh yeah, forgot to send my condolences along for your tools. I’m glad you weren’t hurt, tools can usually be replaced. God bless!
Really love this insight into your brainstorming and trial and error process. Thanks for sharing Ben! This is a really cool device and seeing how you worked through ideas and challenged your own assumptions was enlightening.
Two things that came to mind watching this: 1, have you taken into account possible toxicity of the glue and grease? 2: Once hermetically sealed, won't crushing the device increase internal pressure and add back some of that pneumetic 'bounciness'?
I would also add: how many volts does the piano send into that potentiometer? Is there a risk of electrical shock?
1: It looks like the tube with the wire in it will equalize the pressure.
Cool! Im learning from your design process... I have a tendency to stick to my first prototype (and make them work) when I create stuff so watching this guy go tru the painful process of trial and error while actually improving his final product teaches me a lot!
This is basically what I do at work, and it's really cool (and educational) to see someone go through the same process! This was great!
Amazing! I want something like this to control the pedal on a TIG welder. The thing about it is that it's much larger, so I'm not sure if there's a way to do that. Maybe have one small one that controls a motor that controls a larger one. Use one of those to simple control a powerful stepper motor that controls the pedal. Make it into a trigger control and put it on the TIG torch. Interesting.
I'm adding this to a list of HIDs for an OS version of that "Xbox Adaptive Controller" system. Amazing Project (As Always lol)
You can also sandwich some conductive foam between to metal contacts and create a variable resistance source.
That design is so simple yet so effective, and sad to hear that your shop was robbed
For the pneumatic version, you could try using a MAP sensor from an old GM to read the pressure, they're a couple bucks at the junk yard. Maybe use an arduino to read it and flatten the response curve in software, have it drive a digital pot for the output, it'll probably be fine. Chewing on squishy things is fun
Are there any concerns about health safety with the silicone, and more importantly, the epoxy and the high temp pads?
For something that goes into someone's mouth, I'd be a bit concerned about that, besides just waterproofing.
Epoxy is not a health concern. It crosslinks completely (after a while - maybe wait a week after it has cured until you declare it safe) and becomes pretty close to inert. Even if you break off and swallow a chunk, even if it's slightly contaminated, you can pretty much assume that nothing will come out of it.
Silicone is not generally known for potential contamination during manufacturing, but if there was a contamination, it would potentially leech out. Eh, small risk i guess :D
...and if the silicone fails what about that lithium grease?
@@JeffDriskill You'll taste it immediately, lol. Highly caustic.
@@JeffDriskill Many people have accidentally ingested small amounts of grease and lived to tell the tale, it's probably not good for you, but it's not highly toxic either. But since the silicone is slightly water permeable, it seems like it would potentially breed bacteria, especially as it accumulates damage. I think the device should simply be re-shelled regularly. Or maybe used in a protective sheath of some kind, like a piece of medical glove, a finger cot, a... pardon me, what's your first Google hit on "latex dry bulk disposable microphone cover"? :D
@@jorje58965 The silicone glue is for sure a complete misnomer, it's a weld, not a glue.
easily the best and most information that I've found on UA-cam. I only wish you had more videos! Hat off to you Sir Ben. Seriously.
Yamaha used to have breath controllers ( introduced back with the DX7 )
Breath controllers are pretty standard, but they are not very good for a pianist as a pedal replacement. Because you can continuously press down on the pedal for pretty long phrases - potentially indefinitely - but you can't really breathe out continuously, you have to breathe in once in a while. Also breath strength control is not so precise, you get expressive phrases, but you can't just hold the same exact airflow.
Also i think they're digital and connected via MIDI.
Great point!
Would be nice to see an update on how it performs in actual use by the player.
Very cool to see the different iterations and realizing there are more boxes to tick than previously thought. Makes me appreciate a well designed product that just works and is intuitive.
Very cool! Thank you for sharing. I'm curious, have you ensured that all of the exposed surfaces of the sensor are made of non-toxic materials?
These 45° potentiometers are used in gaming controllers for both the joysticks and the triggers.
Thanks for the interesting videos!
@Applied Science , Could you explain how you went about finding safe adhesives/materials for interfacing with a mouth. I know smooth on makes a number of food safe materials. But It seems like adhesives and possible after tastes from compounds could be a problem. I know you have many years of developing human interfaces. But this one certainly seems to add additional problems.
agreed. I was hoping to hear the words "biocompatible" or at least "non-toxic" - though, to be honest, most Silicones are...
Very interesting!
I'm going to have to get some Silpoxy.
Pen springs are just one of those packrat things that come in handy when prototyping.
Thanks for the tutorial Ben!
Been rough without a video these past few months
I am sure being burglarized on Christmas supersedes your feelings of perceived loss for something that is given to you for free.
@@jong2359 He was joking, no need to be so edgy about it.
Sorry you got burglarized during the holidays and no worries about the lack of videos! I'm just glad you're okay and they didn't steal anything exotic.
I found your struggle to find the right lubricant very interesting and useful in the future if I ever use the same silicone for a project.
Can your next project be a homemade security system?
Perhaps with some energetic yet safe chemical reactions as the alarm? (Like firecrackers but substantially less likely to start a fire?)
@@NiHaoMike64 or maybe active denial system using mid-power microwaves like those on US military?
@@wahyutriwibowo1803 High power laser beam with OpenCV based eye tracking.
@@anonymousarmadillo6589 High-power Infrasound speaker for some artificial spooky feeling
Time for a LockPickingLawyer colab
Your ingenuity never ceases to amaze me.
Yes, I admire that guy's brains! But if he has access to so much technology and brains, shouldn't he make himself some sort of burglar alarm? Maybe an "idiot sensor" that would capture the burglar, put him in a big box, fill the rest of the box with his styrofoam peanut dispenser he has in his shop, then ship the criminal to the police automatically? :-)
Still, I envy his brains and his workshop!
Gotta wonder what kind of burglar would fail to second guess themselves after a quick glance at the contents of your garage!
@@pleaseyourselfsir gosh, bring your political bullshit somewhere else.
@@fischX Thank you! 😎
Well, the idea of being a burglar, and the idea of being a deep thinker don't really mesh well in my head, so I'd say probably the normal kind.
Ben you are such a good teacher and brilliant mind, thanks for keeping me curious
I had to look up "lubricious". Turns out there are two definitions, one of which is not in any way applicable in this context.
I googled. I laughed.
I like the way from hydraulics, to angular potentiometers, to better angular potentiometers (less needed angle to activate), to even better angular potentiometers (praising them so much) and finally a button (linear potentiometer. But with some cool mechanics to solve the problem) :D
But the final product looks good. Very interesting video, showing the whole design process!
COOL!
wow , is interesting to see that you tried different methods and prototype to make a functional concept, and also explore new stuff along the way
As a laser guy, I can't stop looking at your breadboard.
Next christmas, I will take that instead of tools - I now know it is worth more.
We'll soon have some good demos done with the new optics toys! It's also amazingly convenient for mechanical fixturing and adjusting of all sorts assemblies.
@@AppliedScience My go-to phrase is "Hand me a 3/16" ball driver."
Wow, I tried to make a sorta round silicon cap one time, I 3d printed the outer shell just like a short piece of pipe, to be able to smooth it out flat later. The inner piece was like a half-bowl. I put them both together and then tried injecting the silicon from above, but it ended up being a huge mess. Your design is way more straightforward and actually works lol.
Probably waring a gum shield might be a solution for puncturing the silicone
Impressive design, great to follow the evolution of the design 👍
Thanks for sharing your knowledge to all of us 👍😊
You can't use elastic hoses in a hydraulic system. 😁
Nice video, once again I learned a lot!
Sorry to hear about the burglary.
But everything is elastic.
@@Steve_Just_Steve everything is elastic, but some are more elastic than others...
@@Peter_A1466 Was just joshin' ya.
@Anifco67 changed it 😁
Really enjoy watching the evolutionary process behind an engineering build, and all the tips and tricks, this video has taught me so much!
Is the final product completely non-toxic?
It's a good GUESS that it's likely nontoxic, even if the materials don't come with FDA or equivalent approval, the reactions used in manufacturing aren't known for toxic side products. I'd say the poisoning risk is pretty much zero, even if it turns out that something in the surface layers isn't entirely kosher.
Also biting all the way through and ingesting grease wouldn't be great, but it seems a little too inert to be really dangerous.
Now that you got me thinking and Ben mentioned that silicone actually has quite a bit of water permeability, i'm wondering about hygienic situation though, what the replacement regimen on the outer cover should be.
That reinforced silicone is likely cured with something pretty nasty. Good (excellent) proto version though!
This was my concern as well. This is something that would be in the pianist's mouth A LOT.
@@gth042 Actually, it is FDA compliant for contact with food.
@@AppliedScience Sweet, fiber reinforced too. Handy for ...things :)
Love that you're uploading again! This project was fascinating. Watching the design flow had me interested the whole time
A hall effect sensor with a rotating/sliding magnet should be able to work as a potentiometer with low friction.
linear-output Halls output a voltage, not a variable resistance, so it may or may not work properly as he mentioned not knowing exactly how the "inside" circuit is constructed.
Something you might try if you ever get another request like this is a leaf spring in a parabolic shape, with an led & photosensor focused on the internal surface. By changing the spacing of the spring's ends, you get both a different focal spot, and a different restorative force from the spring. I think it was in relation to some game console that I first heard about this technique.
This is something I can really sink my teeth in to!
Boooooo!
Me like pun
Nice project. I use those pots as low-cost extensometers. They are great because they are disposable when things go wrong!
I assume a elabrate alarm system will be added or mods to one already there to raise hell if somebody comes in. It is sad this happens.
i loved the detail of you thinking, and the value of time in research
lithium grease in someone's mouth....? also is the smooth on food safe?
Yes. There are food grade lubes over there. I would try then before go to the lithium.
It also was the first thing that worried me. Lithium grease is not the best choice for the device in mouth. I would also avoid MoS2 etc. In fact silicone grease is wide used in food production machines, but pity its not working here well.
My first idea would've been using the pneumatic mouth peace with a pressure sensor attached, but that would still not solve the problem of the feedback. I am really surprised to see your elegant solution. Now my question is: why not use some keyboard switches? Wooting two HE offers analogue switches (just an example, no affiliation). Maybe someone would like a clicky response. :) anyway, keep up the good work and I appreciate you show and explain the thought and design process. This helps so much more than just showing the final result.
Ironic that the answer to a bite sensor was "Teeth" :-)
The best thing I can think of that has full feedback is Hydraulics, like what's on a vehicle.
Or at least partially hydraulic.
I cannot wait to finish watching the video & see what you came up with.
You use the SpaceX design philosophy! You need an alarm. With a gamma ray emitter.
Or some item that looks like a nice power tool but is actually a smoke bomb. So it gets stolen and then 5 minutes after the thief leaves with the loot, there's suddenly a huge amount of stinky smoke.
Another idea is a radio jammer that activates if stolen, if such a device is legal to own but not operate.
@@NiHaoMike64 As much fun as thinking about setting traps is, i wonder if they in turn make for legal pitfalls for the property owner. What if the burglar trips because he's frightened by a smoke bomb and injures his ankle? Might sue the property owner.
Another great build and explained really well. Love to see a quick clip of it at work with it’s new owner. 👍
For rapid silicone molding, you should try the Silicone Fast-Setting Casting Compound on Mcmaster (8595K12). It's a 2 part putty that cures in minutes... so it's super convenient for this kind a quick prototyping. I use that all the time for medical devices prototyping. I'm usually machining the molds out of Delrin, but 3D printing also works.
Sounds like they took stuff they felt they could easily sell, really.
Yeah, a lot of comments here talking about how valuable that scientific gear supposedly is, but stolen goods are only worth what you can easily sell them for.
I'm really interested about the Lubrication of resin parts..
It surprised me that lithium grease worked the best for you.
Formlabs tests show that the layer orientation of the parts play a big role on the friction of the parts.Can be reduced up 43% if i remember right.
Lithium grease, as far as i know, isn't supposed to be used for plastic parts.It supposed to "eat" the plastic by time.
So far i tried everything except lithium grease.
The best for me, BY FAR was PTFE, spray and especially tape.
I'll give lithium grease a try.
Great Job.
I think the final design is like abstract art where everyone thinks they can do it, but as an art teacher said "well then why didn't you do it?"
18:58... Yup the Sil-Poxy is great stuff. I needed a flexible adhesive to stick a PCB to a plastic Polyethylene container. Sticks solid the best adhesive I've found.
Surprised you didn't use a hall sensor.
Watch the video again. He explains that it has to be all passive in order to mimic the existing pedal. Hall sensor is a powered circuit.
@@mckenziekeith7434 It doesn't strictly HAVE to be all passive if you can find a purely resistive way of interfacing, such as via two LDRs - but that is prone to issues too. Passive is the best solution for sure.
I think you don't even have to use that particular input - you can use MIDI IN on the instrument and just feed it CC64 on all channels or on a channel mask or channel selector.
There are actually digi pots with a floating output.
Also first thing that came to mind is a LDR. For a one time project these are still easy to get.
Any non-linearities can be calibrated out.
But to be very honest, there is quite an extensive amount of information about how these sustain-pedals work and what voltages are involved. Usually it's just 5V, which can also easily be changes with some kind of isolation circuit if you want to be fully isolated from the circuit.
Nice video! Sorry to hear about the trouble around Christmas
Could you tell me the part number of a digital potentiometer that has a floating output? Is it really galvanically isolated? Thanks
@@AppliedScience I will have a look. Used it a while ago for a project we had to develop something for similar reasons.
But the downside is that you always need a extra voltage source, or use a very low power device to "steal" a few micro amps from the original 5V
I hate to hear that about your shop being burgled. Even when it's just stuff, it's still a violation and the emotional hit of "someone was in my shop/garage/car/house" sucks.
I cannot abide a thief.
Now, before anyone might say to think of the other guy who might be so down that he saw no other option, I call that victim-blaming.
I've never turned away a person who, coming to me, asked for help. I have had my offers of help rejected far more often than not!I've had to ask for help, been turned down but kept trying until I found it.
Very nice! You could try it with your first approche with the balloon-like mouthpiece and rig a psi sensor at the other end and translate the analog value from the psi sensor. The air pressure will be the spring. It will have less travel than your last approch but this one can be made very small and may be more confortable in the mouth. all the rest is just muscle memory that will have to be developped for the right pressure the player will have to apply to replicate the pressing of the pedal.
Within a two week period they stole most of my mechanics tools in my garage and then the tools I had at my sons cottage which I was renovating.