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Fun (unrelated) oscilloscope story happened to me recently. I was having some problems with fingers of my hand going numb so the orthopedic surgeon sent me for a procedure she said would be "unfortunately pretty unpleasant" called a "nerve conduction study" with an eminent London professor to try to diagnose the problem.
When the day came the dude showed up with a laptop attached to a small box and a number of leads. I said to him[1] "hey there, I'm an engineer, would you mind telling me how this study works" and he (delighted) explained to me that although his title was a professor of neurology he was actually a biomedical engineer and the procedure was hooking me up to an oscilloscope and sending currents down the various nerves of my arm to see whether (or not) they were detectable on the oscilloscope and therefore being conducted properly down the nerves. So I spent 30mins or so having various electric shocks applied to my arm and looking at the pictures on the (very fancy) oscilloscope while shooting the breeze about medical imaging and machine learning with this professor.
The procedure was mildly unpleasant but super-interesting as a result.
[1] Sort of as a coping strategy because I expected it to be painful.
The biomedical equivalent of poking you with a multimeter conductivity tester that goes "beep".
I had a nerve conduction test on my arm, it was pretty neat! I didn't find it uncomfortable, just a bit of a tingle.
My issue was a combination of a previous shoulder injury and bad sleeping position and bad sitting at desk position (resting forearm on the edge) that would result in numbness in my hand and fingers.
I'm more conscious of how I sit and sleep now (as much as you can be "conscious" of how you sleep!) and I started indoor rock climbing which has really transformed my upper body in terms of arm, shoulder and back strength and mobility. Funny, I don't look any different, but I can hold onto and hang off things well good. :P
This sounds like Electromyography (EMG). A pretty common technique in Neurology to diagnose problems in nerves and muscles.
> nerve conduction study
Never again! I will deal with whatever life throws at me (including my tingling fingers), before I go through that again. The doctors were so scared of the way I looked when they were done (white as a sheet and listless), that they had me lie down in a side room for about an hour, before they would let me leave. That was my own private version of hell.
You mention below "almost completely resolved by physiotherapy exercises", and that is where I'm at now, thankfully. In the future, I'll exhaust this resource before ever doing more invasive studies.
Is your problem resolved? Did you find the cause? I've found that when I bike long distances that no matter what the weather is I have to wear thick padded gloves so that I don't end up with numb fingers for days afterwards.
I had the same experience for the same symptoms. The long and short of it was that I should stop leaning on my elbows on the desk, because that can damage the nerves that run across your elbow. Made a conscious effort to avoid doing that for a while and the damage fixes itself.
I hope you have the same problem I did, was an easy fix.
Histidine helps remyelinate the nervous system. If holes appear in the myelin sheath electrical signals wont get past the holes.
Lack of B6 can cause peripheral neuropathy which has symptoms like you describe. Can be linked to diabetes, some metals and B6 deficiency.
I was one of the Kickstarter backers of this, with my purchase/commitment happening on October 19, 2013.
Gabe (the guy making the oscilloscope watch) sent updates every few days for the first month or so, then roughly monthly into 2014, then a few times in 2015, then a pause, and then a few updates in late 2018 and early 2019. After that, it was radio silence for over four years until July 30th of this year, announcing that the devices were actually going to ship.
To say I never expected to actually get the watch after, say, 2015 would understate things considerably. In fairness, I still have yet to actually receive it.
I am one of the early KS backers also, and have had mine since about a year I guess. He has been persistent, that is for sure.
And I'm glad to see its shipping. Mine is a curio now, I don't really need it - but its fun to use for debugging occasionally.
Maybe there's still hope for the Vessyl...
FWIW you lost our given inflation. Technically, he could have invested all the funds, grown it by 20% per year in the SPY and returned you still a $100 watch for your $100, pocketing the difference
How is this legal?
I bought into Star Citizen on Kickstarter in 2013, then went to jail for 10 years. Got out and it's still not done...
Geez, first cable modems [1], now oscilloscope watches.
Wow that is some next level kickstarted disappointment
Is that the first thing you checked when you got out?
Time to commit another crime, next time you're out of jail it should be finally completed. Or at least, in a playable state.
Maybe check on it in another 10 years.
What did you do to go to jail?
Don't know the story about this one and I'm sure the creator is relieved to actually being able to finish it.
I've "kickstarted" a few projects that didn't go anywhere (yet?), and the toil it can be for the creator can be really bad. Of course you don't want to rip your customers but if you are doing this on your spare time and when a project drags over a decade over projected timeline sucks, having it constantly in the back of your mind.
I can feel burdened by my own personal projects that don't get anywhere and those are only for me and I haven't spend anyone else's money either.
Not quite 10 years, but my Ultimate Hacking Keyboard took quite a bit longer than first estimates.
Super happy with how it ended up turning out and the runners of the project kept us updated Monthly without fail with actual, candid updates.
I still love my UHKs and use them every day.
I wasn't aware of the Ultimate Hacking Keyboard. Thanks for broadening my horizon and probably robbing me of some savings.
My Keyboard.io Model 01 took a bit over three years. I was expecting it to take a lot longer at some point and almost gave up hope, but in the end received a great keyboard in the mail that I still happily use almost every day.
Kickstarters can be a wild ride sometimes (-:
A colleague ordered one yesterday and got his in 27 hours, so the regular orders now happen in quite a prompt fashion. This was in Europe.
I think UHK (V2) was more like 2 years? But I agree, the product is great and I use it every day.
As a very, very early backer, I have one.
It is a terribly interesting desktop gadget that I've used for debugging a couple of times. My favourite thing to do is to wrap my code in view with gpio on/off blips, and measure the performance of things .. the Oscilloscope watch is good for that.
Mine has a terrible 3D printed case, which broke almost instantly, but I don't intend to wear it much unless I get the better case .. perhaps eventually.
The quirky charm of the most long-standing crowdfunding toy in my collection (of many) has its place in my daily life. I mostly just use it to tell time.
:)
This is quite amazing, both from a complexity, hacking/making and persistence perspective. What an accomplishment. Making a watch is hard. Making a scope is a lot harder. Combining the two is art. Kudos to the person behind it for seeing it through, I'm pretty sure that most people would have given up.
File under “hardware is hard”
Even "software is hard"
I backed a game that was announced 10 years ago (in exactly 58 days) that still hasn't released: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1183462809/paradise-los...
It's been so long that the consoles it was announced for don't exist any more.
Anyone remember the Wii U, and the OUYA?
As far as I understand, they had already made a bunch of the game, then their programmer left and they had to find a new programmer and start again, then there was engine ports, and a side project, and etc..., and covid, and etc...
The lack of observable progress and long gaps between release notes made the community comments devolve into absolute toxicity.
Strangely enough, if it ever does come out I think the press of a game that has taken over a decade to build might give it some more attention than it otherwise would have received.
Apparently they're still working on it.
The other game I backed (that was made by a guy with heart condition who wanted to leave something behind before he kicked the bucket) did come out and it was awesome: https://store.steampowered.com/app/257850/Hyper_Light_Drifte...
(the guy ended up surviving and is continuing to work in game dev)
Unlikely, they actually sold several oscilloscopes in other form factors before.
The idea of an oscilloscope watch is kind of cute, but I don't really want something attached to my wrist with directly connected scope probes. Now if the probes attached to a remote device that used Bluetooth, that would be fine.
(Also, an e-ink scope is going to be rather sluggish.)
I can't decide why this is proof why one should never back any complex manufactured good, least of all electronics, on Kickstarter -- or ...
... proof that I'm a cynical jerk who's missing out. Maybe the things I backed 8-10 years ago that taught me this lesson will actually be headed my way any day now!
Overall my policy is I would back works of art on Kickstarter, but never any item where I'm not absolutely positive "Figure out how to actually make X" is NOT one of the steps on their plan.
I've backed the Oculus Rift, the Pebble and a few others that turned out great. Oculus even gave me a Rift consumer version which they didn't have to.
But the Golden age is over and it's mainly scams, free marketing and rebranded Chinese OEM stuff now.
My take is that if it is popular product, you can get one when it is released. No need to commit money early. And if you are ready to wait you probably even get it at discount for same price on some later sale.
Am I the only bothered by the tagline “Now you can tell time and measure current on the go.” ?
An oscilloscope measures voltage, not current.
Tech journalism in 2023. No one cares about facts. You should be happy they didn't write "you can measure blockchain" or "you can measure AI" with it. (Yet)
"Track your potential while staying current" would be more apt
Oscilloscopes measure current too. Differential measurement across a resistor (channel b subtracted from channel a) will result in a current measurement. Also current probes do exist - I own two.
Looks like it was printed on a 10 year old 3D printer too.
Pretty much wait till electronics advance enough to have these off the shelf oscilloscope-in-a-chip.
Great idea!
Even though this has already been created -- I think it would be an interesting project to attempt to create one's own oscilloscope watch...
Functionally, it's just a 3D printed watch case, watch bands, an 8-bit microcontroller, LCD screen, battery, oscilloscope probes, a little bit of custom software, and some circuitry to block excessive currents...
Oh sure, it would probably be much easier (and cheaper!) to buy this than make one -- but I think it would be highly interesting to learn what goes into making one...
Any serious student of electronics should, as a project, make their own oscilloscope... it would be a great teaching project!
All of that being said, kudos to the inventor of this excellent oscilloscope watch, it looks really cool -- you'll probably sell a whole bunch of them! So, well done!
kickstarter is skymall for the daring...
Still waiting for my textblade…
Was this like a puzzling garden path sentence to anyone else?
Please tell me that the wristband can be placed around a wire and the watch will also act as clamp ammeter!
Ha! I forgot this indeed. I was one of the backers as well.
Does it have micro-USB or USB-C?
“Now you can tell time and measure current on the go.”
So it comes with current probe built into the band?
Sell a dream and wait for the market to figure out a finished product for you. Genius.