Electromechanical Refreshable Braille Module : HackadayPrize 2023
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- čas přidán 8. 10. 2023
- Source & Design files: hackaday.io/project/191181-el...
Like the project? buy me a coffee!☕: www.buymeacoffee.com/vjvarada
The big drawback to refreshable braille devices has always been their cost. The loose rule of estimation applied to these products has translated into something like $100 to $150 per braille cell. A 40-cell display, in other words, may cost $4,000 to $6,000, while an 80-cell model will cost $8,000 to $12,000. And so it has been that, while desirable, braille computer access has been out of reach for many users of assistive technology.
It is thus of great value to lower the cost of individual braille cells in order to manufacture Refreshable Braille Devices at a price that is affordable to the Visually Impared community.
While commercially available braille displays use expensive piezo-electric actuated pins. This project employs an electromechanical system with off-the-shelf and easily manufacturable components, leveraging the accessibility of high-quality 3D Printers and micro-magnets to keep the cost low without compromising functionality.
#HackadayPrize #hackadayprize #braille #assistivetechnology #assistivetech - Věda a technologie
FYI: You can get custom wound standing SMD inductors with specified cores. This way you'd not have to self wind the magnets. (Though you still could) and would probably barely increase cost while making manufacturing at scale a lot easier/vheaper.
What are the minimum order quantities for those?
I think Fishman owns the patent. What they do it they take several 16 layer PCBs, trace the coil, and sandwich these PCBs.
I got a quote from a company called Audemers (audemars.com/) for about 6000 Euros for an MOQ of 1000 coils. Im assuming there is a high initial setup cost. At a 20k MOQ, they can even provide SMT mounts that can be used on pick and place. Its good to know its possible, need to figure out the economics of it when scaling up.
Love this project. I can see a bunch of the core components being mass produced in higher quality and for cheap a bit down the line. Similar to the tiny magnets. The project being open source, I wouldn't be surprised if other talented engineers will contribute and improve upon the design
Do they have to be customized to exact spec, in the first place?
This is simply wonderful! Thank you for championing this very challenging space where the price point has always been so high due to complexity and low volume. Wow, I’m just blown away!
Thank you so much! I saw your video about it, thankyou for the shoutout! Your daughter inspires me to keep making this better!
Thank you for sharing it on your channel this is super cool!
@@vjvaradaI’ve been following along, checking in every so often here. We were completely surprised our video has done so well, getting over a million views at this point. I was hopeful more people would come here to see your full video, or head over to your Hackaday page. I’m glad to see more views there than the last time I checked. My daughter is a little overwhelmed that she's been viewed over a million times on CZcams! I’m hopeful she and I can do some more videos together on how 3D printing can be used as a tool to help enable or assist those with visual impairments. I don’t know if it there is anything we can do to help with your project, but if you have any ideas, please let us know. -Courtney
@@FilamentStories Thank you for your support as is! I've myself never had this many views or comments on CZcams, it's getting harder to keep up!
The project won the Hackaday Prize, so I had quite the time travelling to the US and back. There are a few people who have joined in to contribute to the project, and even a company threatening to sue for patent infringement (baseless claims dw, they can't stop me from releasing something non commercially).
The magnitude of what I'm doing is just sinking in, over the next year I plan to refine to project to a finished product that can be manufactured in a decentralised way with 3D printing. Since both assistive devices for the blind and 3D printing is an intersection you are in as well, I'd love if you could just share our progress from time to time, to get enough of a community involved in the development and perhaps have parallel developments happen all across the world, since the tools to recreate these are accessible to all.
Thanks again for the shoutout and checking back in, I'd love to stay in touch!
@@vjvarada hey I'm really curious about which resin you used. I guess the resin holds great importance
I fucking LOVE this. You people are the real force of change in this world thank fucking god for engineers like you who make stuff for humanity, and not for their own personal economic gain...
Wow!!!! This is a brilliant invention and I'm sure it will be really useful to the blind!
I had no idea that braille devices were so freakishly expensive. Great work, makes me wonder what other accessibility technologies can be reduced in cost and manufacturing. It's amazing that you were able to hit both of those in your design!
It isnt because its expensive, its because they know they can rip off the disabled, this happens across almost all disabled marketed devices. Big props to Vijay for having some humanity.
Well, thing is, most blind people - as far as I know - just use screen readers instead. You do not nead a braille display if you can get everything read to you.
I'd guess braille displays are most often used in public places - where you don't have your own device, so you wouldn't know how to operate it easily.
@@iFireenderone of my co-workers uses a braille line to read. I've seen her using it and think she reads faster than the speed a screen reader would talk. And she has her reader on some insane speed, so I could only hear gibberish when she uses it.
@@joachimfrank4134 Huh, interesting. But yeah, I can see that being a thing.
But my point still remains - where Braille readers once would have been indispensible, nowadays, it's just possible to set up most devices with proper accessibility modes for blind people, which decreases the market for braille readers even more, which in turn makes them more expensive.
@@joachimfrank4134The insane speed? Yep they're confirmed blind. Since blind people don't see (duh), a large part of their brain that is normally used for processing vision is instead repurposed for processing audio. So they can understand speech way faster than us.
The rotating magnetic cam bi-stable design is sheer genius! What a great technology advancement. Awesome, simply awesome.
I wish i could take credit for being the first to come up with the idea of using cams, but here (worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/014715047/publication/JP2802257B2?q=pn%3DJP2802257B2) is a patent from 1996 that proposes an idea for using cams as well. Although very different in terms of design from the one I've created, its good news that a design that uses cams had been patented once and is now expired, meaning that its in the public domain!
@@vjvarada The link is throwing of as *Invalid Query* ...
@@rahuls7039 Remove the last parenthesis from the url (or %29 if you have already opened the link)
@@rahuls7039 search for JP2802257B2 on the platform
@@vjvarada so now that it is in the public domain , is everyone else free to use this mechanism ?
Mans a legend helping out impaired people!
This is super awesome. It gives me so much hope for the future when cool people uses cheap and available technology to make life better for people. It reminds me of the guy who made super cheap and handpowered malaria testing kits or the guy who is creating a system for custom 3d-printed prosthetics.
My dad have greatly reduced hearing and if we didn't live in a country with subsidized Healthcare he would never be able to afford hearing aides. So this kind of hits home.
Dedicating time to make tools available and economically accessible to people is honorable and I hope this will lead to more funding so you can do good without worrying about your personal economy.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart. The world need more people like you.
/Bo Carlsson
I know nobody that is blind but I probably got this recommended because at some point I was interested in some of that stuff, and I didn't know they were this damn expensive! That's a very nice project you got there!
this is great! thank you very much
POV you make a world-changing invention. Nice awesome amazing and incredible job! (all at the same time)
Wow, thanks! and thank you for subscribing too!
I cannot thank you enough for this. I'm literally crying sir. I'm an IoT student and my partner is blind. If this becomes widely available this opens doors for whole new systems for braille users.
It's so motivating to hear this, thankyou!
i live to read stuff like this
create one for urslef
Fantastic work Vijay, will be following this story closely!
@@vjvarada no I thank you, much love from Belgium, sir!
The mechanism is genius. This will help so many - Thank you
This warms my heart. OpenSource is the future 🔥🔥🔥
This is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a long time.
This is the only real, human-centric innovation I’ve seen in the tech space in the last 5 years. This is the first goal of technology: To empower disadvantaged people.
Wow. You are a hero. This will change lives.
Oh, that is a very clever solution. Excellent work!
Beautiful work bringing cost down I had no idea a decent model was like $3,000
Holy hells! Thats Genius!
Id played w a braile display improvement before; its a big need, and i couldn't crack it conceptually. You have!
Thankyou!!
Amazing innovation.
Wow I had no idea braille cells were so expensive. Your design changes wtih the eccentric cam are very clever!
This is truly a pinnacle of innovation, taking something and making it better and cheaper. You have the heart and mind of a generation
I don't know anyone who is blind or reads braile, but man you're doing incredible good and lofe changing work. God bless you man, i can't imagine how many peoples lives you'll change if this is widely adopted
Thank you for doing this! Being disabled should not be a burden of any type and you are one of the amazing people who are making the world more accessible for those who are disabled.
Thank you so much!
Hey can i know the voltage and current required to drive the coils ? @@vjvarada
just yesterday i was thinking how cool it would be if you could passively learn braille by somehow having it display subtitles of videos watched. this is dope.
This is amazing. I love seeing these kind of projects that are the complete opposite from the normal greed that drives most manufactoring to benefit a group of people.
This is one of the most ingenious ideas that ive seen in quite a while. Well deserved win!
Commenting for the sole purpose of boosting this video. This is actually incredible and you have done a service to humanity. I'm not blind or visually impaired but still, from everyone, thank you.
This is really freaking cool! Great project and great video summary!
Man... this is amazing!... even if this does not get all the media attention for the hackaday prize, you should be sure about the importance of what you are doing... congrats from Santiago, Chile !
Thankyou!
This is something I have been thinking for a long time, but never took initiative.
True, there is not a big market for this. Your manufacturing process is very good.!~
Very clever, such a good work. People like you make the world a better place
It's refreshing to see an actual genius. I mean, it's reassuring to know that such people exist. I'm sorry, but with all the nauseating motivation guru influencer spam, the internet feels so polluted with fake achievements and fake skills. It makes me feel bad that children are inundated with all of that.
So a video like this just feels good to watch. This is genuinely a positive and admirable thing
The cam bit is the genius here over previous designs, well done.
You are a true hero, even if you do nothing else for the rest of your life!
Quite a heavy apreciation, thank you so much!
this is so excellent, great work!
This is an incredible work!
Amazing work! This doesn't directly affect me, but you're doing an amazing service to humanity.
This is really very cool thank you for putting the time into making such an amazing device
❤ Amazing work
Holy shit. This is really interesting to see and I hope refining this and distributing it goes well. Braille access is literacy access.
Omg this shit me me so happy. I love what people are doing and take control themselves
I worked on such mechanism since 2017, but, unfortunately haven't had enough funding and good engineering team that time. Good luck to you, on your project!
This idea has huge potential. Thank you for making it real - it's an important step towards electronic devices fully prepared for blind people.
Excellent work
You are a gem, I take my hat off to you.
Thankyou!
thank you for making the world a better place
This is cool. I repair Perkins Braillers and can appreciate all the intricate mechanical engineering you did.
Thank you so much! Ive seen Perkins braillers before, the analog ones are built like a tank! Thank you for your comment!
Future award winning project i hope
this man will change so many lives. bravo!
My wife, one of her brothers, her mum and my coworker's wife are all visually impaired, and I'm often disgusted at how expensive anything "for the blind" can be, whether it's just a magnifying glass that costs three times as much as the exact same one on AliExpress, or software to help blind people navigate computers, or mobility canes, it sucks that the people who need them can't actually get them because of stupidly high costs.
Thank you for making these modules. I hope they really take off and are used everywhere because everyone deserves access to information.
Hardcore man. Amazing work
This is a really cool idea!!
I'm an optometrist and my cather is blind and uses braille. He's had braille devices since the 90's but work have paid for them and he would never have been able to afford them personally.
Seeing this is incredible. If someone can buy a decent braille display for £350 instead of £3000 it opens the door to people using them for personal education rather than just for work.
This is awesome work
I did a training course for computer instructors for the blind. It was the first time I met them and learned a lot. Everything is expensive, not only the braille display. This is something that was really needed, and I can't wait to make one and deliver it to a blind person myself! Thank you, developer.
This is crazy. Thank you for this
wow thank you for this, it is really good and refreshing to see this type of engineering on here. subscribed right away
Not only it's effective, but brilliant and beautiful purpose! Hope this becomes the new standard !
I'm so glad to see this! I've been doing research on the side to create exactly this after seeing how stupidly expensive these braille readers are.
This is just awesome!
HOLY SHIT, this is so cool
thanks bro
Glad you finally came back!
Awesome Work!!!!!
This is great! You’re doing something awesome my dude. Good luck!
THIS IS SO COOL!
You are the man, Vijay 🤗
The rotating cam mechanism makes so much sense that it seems obvious in retrospect. Great project!
Very cool
Awesome, so cool!
Thankyou!
Wonderful!!! Congratulations!
This is awesome❣️
Incredible breakthrough. So inspiring. thank god I found this channel.
More people need to see this.
This is so cool!! You're making the world a better place.
amazing!!! :)
Now I want to learn braille to try out these displays.
Good on ya mate! really well done.
There should be a range of smart phones that have a strip of these displays. But still have a full colour touchscreen for when a friend/carer needs to help the blind person do something with their phone
I cannot imagine not be able to use my sight. Technology like this must be in reach for every one who needs it. Great invention!!!
absolutely amazing
I had an idea a decade ago - a braille ring. At the time I googled it, the item didn't exist - though I found a group of Japanese dudes looking for investors for their version of it. It felt like a million dollar idea at the time and tbh, it still feels like a good product (in a niche market). Met a few blind people who said it would be really handy. Blind people could read while walking/laying/standing. There's really no need to have a finger run across a large (mostly unused) surface, just run the braille underneath the finger. I don't know how long a watch battery would last with the moving parts - you may need to find a convenient/less intrusive way to power it (perhaps a wire that runs to a watch-sized battery pack on the wrist?). Braille mechanics aside, you'd also have to put an OS of sorts on there and have a way to navigate the "files" or source material. I could never find/make the time to learn the skills necessary to build such a thing but the idea still beats around my head frequently.
If you ever do this ^, please do let me know somehow.
Wow, good job!
Those are the people we need not the celebrities. We need the people who make the word a better place fore everyone
Incredible!
I'm not religious but it feels fitting to tell you you're doing God's work.
Bro you are a genius.
Thanks 😅
love it!!!
this is amazing. thank you so much for making this
This is absolutely amazing! Great work, great engineering. It is always amazing to see an elegant solution presented to lower costs! I wonder if you could scale this up to the size of a small 300x300 pixel display. Over time it could even be used to display websites with Braille text substituted to allow even higher accessibility.
Thankyou! Im sure with more work, that would be possible to do! If we can automate the coil winding process, which is the most time consuming part of the system, we could do it affordably.
@@vjvarada Have you considered using high layer count PCBs for the coils? czcams.com/video/NX7GHqq28uU/video.html&ab_channel=CarlBugeja
I don't think this is possible to a useful degree with that technology. The nature of haptic devices like this is that the user still needs to actively select the part of the device he is "listening" to, which also means the dots should be presented at higher resolution if used in 2D. If it's just multiple rows of braille, that's not that useful because you could as well "scroll" or navigate digitally. Those dots still consume quite a bit of room, especially because of the coil. If you make the dot smaller, it will get harder to manufacture, especially by hand. But the coil can't be made much weaker because it will need to have a minimum force to push that cam and overcome the resistance that provides the staticness of the dot. Additionally, the more coils there are per area, the more issues of parasitic currents, inductance or magnetic force occurs. A big 2D matrix of these coils may just not work the same way a single or double braille row would work.
That flippy bit is really clever, I thought it was gonna use electromagnets but didn't take poles into account like you did and took advantage of
Awesome work, bud!
I want a braille display so much!!! But there's no way I have time to build one. (I also want a tablet, not a single row of cells.) I tried so long to make a working design, but I was too incompetent in the end to make the tiny parts. Reading with your eyes closed is completely, fundamentally different from listening to an audiobook. I very much hope your project's inspiring work leads to a product I can afford.
Genius!!! Awesome project! I hope you'll keep working on it and make life easier for a lot of people who need this👏👏
Incredible work Vijay.
Amazing! I would’ve thought that there would already be low cost braille devices, but all the devices are surprisingly expensive. Thank you for having the thoughtfulness to make this!
Thankyou!
Very impressive! Thanks for sharing
good job!
You are such a legend.
Great project! Helping the world a best place!