Alas, another fleeting patch of free time has been bestowed upon me. Just like last semester, this semester (my second in a 4 year dental school) started off tough from day one. After Christmas break it was hard to walk into class at 8am and hit the ground running, but I managed to get the hang of it after a few days. I’ve heard medical school being described as “trying to drink from a fire hydrant”, but I think a more appropriate analogy would involve a treadmill set too fast. You have to work as hard as you can as soon as your feet touch the ground, and you might be able to keep up for now but you don’t know how much longer you can go before you tumble. I never really tumble, but I always feel like I’m about to. Overall, I can’t complain. I’ve managed to compartmentalize dental school into a chunk of my schedule (albeit a massive chunk), leaving time to spend with my family (wife) and when she’s at work, time to spend playing with electronics (which seems to be radio at this stage of my life).
Rather than bore the internet with descriptions of what I’ve been up to in dental school, I’ll focus on the interesting aspects of my most recent endeavors. A few weeks ago I took the final (third-level, extra class) amateur radio license exam. It’s a bunch of technical questions about radio circuitry, antenna theory, and other random stuff. You can see what I mean by taking an online practice test! I passed [whew!] and applied for a new call sign (extra class operators can have shorter call signs). The FCC gave me a VD. AJ4VD that is! Yes, my old call sign KJ4LDF has gone out the window as I am now AJ4VD! In morse code, that’s [.- .--- ....- ...- -..]. Speaking of code, I made my first contact in Morse code from my apartment! Let me set the scene for you… This is the radio I’m using. It’s a Ten-Tec Century 21 HF CW transceiver which puts out ~30W. I’m using a super-cheap but surprisingly functional homebrew base-loaded vertical antenna! The main vertical element is quarter-inch copper pipe from Home Depot (a couple bucks) cut with 1” to spare from my 10ft ceiling. Therefore, it’s a less-than quarter-wave vertical element, requiring a tuning coil (variable inductor at the base)… Here you can start to see the tuning coils. Briefly, I scraped a deep gash in the copper pipe such that a big glob of solder would adhere to it, and stuck a wire (yellow, coated) into that solder so it’s a good connection to the pipe. I then started wrapping the wire around a few toilet paper rolls [it's all I could find at the time!] adding tap points (regions of exposed wire) every other turn. This functioned somewhat, but didn’t allow for fine-tuning (pun intended). I therefore scrapped the bottom half of the cardboard cylinder/coil and constructed a slightly more elegant solution… That’s an Olvaltine container. Yeah, I know, “More chocolaty Olvaltine please!” I used a rotary tool to scrape some measured/templated gashes on each side to give the wire (picture frame hanging wire from Target, 50′ for $1.99) something to rest in. It turned out not to be enough, so I hot-glued the wire into the holes. This gives me a lot of exposed wire space to allow me to “tap” the coil wherever I want. By modifying where I clip onto the coil, I modify the length of wire in the coil that’s used, therefore modifying the inductance of the coil, allowing for some tuning capabilities. Although it has a narrow tuning range, using the current setup I’m able to get my SWR down to 1:1 on 40m (nice!).
I made a couple of contacts since I got the rig last night. First was K4KOR in central TN, who was calling CQ. I replied (slowly), and he came back to me (blazing fast Morse code). I was unable to copy ANYTHING he said (I’m not that good of an auditory decoder yet!) I’m sure he’s incredibly nice and it wasn’t intentional, but I had to give up the QSO. I know he copied my call, and I copied his, but I didn’t copy ANYTHING else he said. Does that count as my first contact? This morning I fired up the rig at 9:15 and heard W4HAY calling CQ from Northeast TN. I replied, stating that I’m new to CW so go slowly, and he was AMAZINGLY nice at sending me code at a snails pace. I was able to copy 90% of what he said, and will consider him my first solid contact! How cool is that?
And, as a closing note, Misia performing “Everything” (my favorite song) in Seoul, Korea:
Yes, I did it. I’m probably the first (and let’s hope the last) human to ever write CEJ (the abbreviation for the cemento-enamel junction, a dentistry term) immediately before the letters QRSS (extremely slow speed Morse code transmissions, a radio frequency term). Anyhow, thanks in part to the temporary cessation of the tortuously monotonous dental school I’m enrolled in, I have had some time to put into random obscure hobbies. For example, I’ve become somewhat obsessed with QRSS, an obscure sub-niche of amateur radio (ham radio).
I only have a couple of minutes to write, so I’ll be concise. In brief, QRSS uses extremely simple radio transmitters at extremely low power to send an extremely slow Morse code message over an extremely large distance to extremely sensitive receivers which are extremely dependent on computers to decode. While you might be able to send a voice message across the ocean with ~100 watts of power, there are guys sending messages with 100 milliwatts (one tenth of a watt! you can get more than that from a couple AA batteries!). The theory is that if you send the signals slow enough, and average the audio data (fast Fourier transformation) over a long enough time, weak signals below the noise threshold will stand out enough to be copied visually.
Without going into more detail than that, this is the kind of stuff I’ve been copying the last couple days. The image is a slow time-averaged waterfall-type FFT display of 10.140mhz from a Mosley-pro 67 yagi mounted ~180 ft in the air connected to a Kenwood TS-940S transceiver sending data to a PC through a SignaLink USB sound card. Red ticks represent 10 seconds. Therefore the frame above is ~10 minutes of audio. The trace on the image is from two different transmitters. The upper trace is from VA3STL’s QRSS quarter-watt transmitter from Canada described here and pictured below. The lower trace is from WA5DJJ’s QRSS quarter-watt transmitter in New Hampshire, described and pictured here. Notice my call sign (KJ4LDF) at the bottom of the page!
^^^ That’s the ACTUAL transmitter I’m hearing from Canada!!!
I don’t know why I’m drawn to QRSS. Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s a hobby which only a handful of people have ever participated in. It uses computers and software, but unlike SDRs (software-defined radios) they don’t require complicated equipment, and a QRSS transmitter or receiver can be built from a few bucks’ worth of parts.
HELPFUL FOR ANYONE WHO USES ARGO!!!There’s a popular QRSS “grabber” software for Windows called Argo. It dumps out screenshots of itself every few minutes, but doesn’t assemble them together!!!!! It’s so annoying. I therefore took it upon myself to write a script to assemble several (or thousands) of Argo screen dumps together as a single image. It’s a script for ImageJ. To use it, first install MBF’s ImageJ. Open ImageJ, drag and drop a DIRECTORY of screenshots / captures into the program to open them as a stack, make a new macro, copy/paste the following code into it, and hit CTRL+R to run it, and poof! The output is a gorgeous panoramic shot like below.
As far as life recontemplation goes, I’m discovering that it’s not the attainment of a goal that gives me pleasure; it’s the pursuit of the goal. Perhaps that’s why I peruse hobbies (goals?) which are notoriously difficult, and further challenge myself by doing things in weird, quirky ways. For example, I’d love to get into radio, BUT I HAVE NO MONEY!. Yeah, an all-band 100-watt HF/VHF/UHF rig would be nice, but I don’t have hundreds of dollars to fork over. Worse yet, in the technical sense, I do, I’m just trying to be responsible and saving it for emergencies / tuition and waiting until I’m a dentist (a.k.a. have a job) before I spend money on things that make me happy. Anyway, without complaining I built a non-elegant but surprisingly functional base-loaded vertical HF antenna for my apartment balcony (don’t worry neighbors, it’s taken inside after every use). It’s mainly for receive, but I don’t see any reason why it couldn’t be used for QRP transmitting! Here it is on my balcony…
As you can see, it’s ghetto. Yes, that’s an antenna made from copper pipe, wire, and toilet paper rolls. I’ve wound the wire around the base and created various tap points so it serves as a variable inductor depending on where I gator-clip the radio. Not pictured are 33′ radials running inside my apartment serving as adequate grounding for 40m operation. The antenna feeds into a Pixie II direct conversion receiver / QRP transmitter which dumps its output to a laptop computer. Note that I did *NOT* use this setup to receive my beautiful QRSS signals. With that being said, I have copied PSK-31 transmissions from Canada with this setup. It works way better than a long / random wire antenna because it dramatically reduces noise. Here’s a closeup of the tap points on the inductor base…
That’s it for today folks! Back to my crazy projects. Take care!
Okay, here’s a preview of my project plans for Christmas break! My goal is to make a fun and comfortably functional HF CW transmitter / direct-conversion receiver capable of working any HF band by merging the incredibly simple and cheap (~$10) Pixie II CW transceiver with a SI 570 digital programmable oscillator controlled by an ATTiny 2313 microcontroller! (it’s often used in SDRs controlled by USB as seen here).
AUDIO FILES!!! [80m.mp3] and [40m.mp3] are already ready already!
Preliminary work demonstrates a functional receiver powered by a crystal. I don’t think the currently-configured digital oscillator is putting out enough power to run the circuit, but it’ll take more time to get that up and running. For now, here are some photos of what I’ve got working and real sound clips of the thing are below. I’m happy with the case I built it in (thanks Ron!), and happy with my level drilling of the holes for power, output, and the CW key! Briefly, the device is powered by a 9V battery. It’s hooked up to an 80m dipole antenna. Output is fed into a computer sound card for amplification / PSK31 analysis. The internals reveal that it’s a simple circuit powered by a single crystal. More crystals are tucked in the case, stuck in foam, for easy transport. Decoding of PSK31 is happening here, using output from my circuit with the 40m crystal in it.
AUDIO FILES approx. 1 minute in length from my circuit:
>> [80m.mp3]
>> [40m.mp3]
A few weeks into dental school I feel I’m fairing decently. I have reached a point where I know everything will be okay, but am still disappointed at the [immense] amount of time it requires. There are so many things I wish I could do, but all of my projects need to be placed on a 4-year hiatus. I can bask in the satisfaction of the few projects I completed this summer, and I only hope that it’s enough to last me for four years. Dentistry, while important, is nothing more than emulation/repetition of what everybody else does. I simply have to satisfy my creative and ingenuitive desires in my hobbies, whatever they may be. For now, this website will cease to grow. Perhaps when I become more in control of my studies I will contribute to it, but in all likelihood I won’t be able to do anything worth writing about until 4 years from now [sigh]. With that being said, adieu, and goodnight.
I realized I never posted video of my finished prime number generator, so here it is. Full details are described on the project page. In brief, the 2-digit display on the left is the last two digits (in base-10, decimal) of a number currently being tested for primeness. This number is also displayed on the bottom red bar above the yellow lights (in base-2, binary). Once proven to be prime (by attempting to divide it by every number between 2 and its square root, every 1000th attempted number shown in yellow lights in binary), it’s loaded onto the top row of red lights (binary) and on the character LCD. N represents the Nth prime, with V representing its value. Half way through the video, the display says that the 16,595,044′th prime (N) equals 306,692,621 (V). Don’t believe it? Check my work.
Note from the Author: This page documents how I made an incredibly simple ECG machine with a minimum of parts to view the electrical activity of my own heart. Feel free to repeat my experiment, but do so at your own risk. There are similar projects floating around on the internet, but I aim to provide a more complete, well-documented, and cheaper solution, with emphasis on ECG processing and analysis, rather than just visualization. If you have any questions or suggestions please contact me. Also, if you attempt this project yourself I’d love to post your results! Good luck!
–Scott
Background
You’ve probably seen somebody in a hospital setting hooked up to a big mess of wires used to analyze their heartbeat.The goal of such a machine (called an electrocardiograph, or ECG) is to amplify, measure, and record the natural electrical potential created by the heart. Note that cardiac electrical signals are different than heart sounds, which are listened to with a stethoscope. The intrinsic cardiac pacemaker system is responsible for generating these electrical signals which serve to command and coordinate contraction of the four chambers at the heart at the appropriate intervals [atria (upper chambers) first, then the ventricles (lower chambers) a fraction of a second later], and their analysis reveals a wealth of information about cardiac regulation, as well insights into pathological conditions. Each heartbeat produces a similar pattern in the ECG signal, called a PQRST wave. [picture] The smooth curve in the ECG (P) is caused by the stimulation of the atria via the Sinoatrial (SA) node in the right atrium. There is a brief pause, as the electrical impulse is slowed by the Atrioventricular (AV) node and Purkinje fibers in the bundle of His. The prominent spike in the ECG (the QRS complex) is caused by this step, where the electrical impulse travels through the inter-ventricular septum and up through the outer walls of the ventricles. The sharp peak is the R component, and exact heart rate can be calculated as the inverse of the R-to-R interval (RRi). Fancy, huh?
Project Goal
The goal of this project is to generate an extremely cheap, functional ECG machine made from common parts, most of which can be found around your house. This do-it-yourself (DIY) ECG project is different than many others on the internet in that it greatly simplifies the circuitry by eliminating noise reduction components, accomplishing this via software-based data post-processing. Additionally, this writeup is intended for those without any computer, electrical, or biomedical experience, and should be far less convoluted than the suspiciously-cryptic write-ups currently available online. In short, I want to give everybody the power to visualize and analyze their own heartbeat!
The ECG of my own heart:
Video Overview
I know a lot of Internet readers aren’t big fans of reading. Therefore, I provided an outline of the process in video form. Check out the videos, and if you like what you see read more!
Video 1/3: Introducing my ECG machine
Video 2/3: Recording my ECG
Video 3/3: Analyzing my ECG
Electrical Theory
Measurement: The electrical signals which command cardiac musculature can be detected on the surface of the skin. In theory one could grab the two leads of a standard volt meter, one with each hand, and see the voltage change as their heart beats, but the fluctuations are rapid and by the time these signals reach the skin they are extremely weak (a few millionths of a volt) and difficult to detect with simple devices. Therefore, amplification is needed.
Amplification: A simple way to amplify the electrical difference between two points is to use a operational amplifier, otherwise known as an op-amp. The gain (multiplication factor) of an op-amp is controlled by varying the resistors attached to it, and an op-amp with a gain of 1000 will take a 1 millivolt signal and amplify it to 1 volt. There are many different types of microchip op-amps, and they’re often packaged with multiple op-amps in one chip (such as the quad-op-amp lm324, or the dual-op-amp lm358n). Any op-amp designed for low voltage will do for our purposes, and we only need one.
Noise: Unfortunately, the heart is not the only source of voltage on the skin. Radiation from a variety of things (computers, cell phones, lights, and especially the wiring in your walls) is absorbed by your skin and is measured with your ECG, in many cases masking your ECG in a sea of electrical noise. The traditional method of eliminating this noise is to use complicated analog circuitry, but since this noise has a characteristic, repeating, high-frequency wave pattern, it can be separated from the ECG (which is much slower in comparison) using digital signal processing computer software!
Digitization: Once amplified, the ECG signal along with a bunch of noise is in analog form. You could display the output with an oscilloscope, but to load it into your PC you need an analog-to-digital converter. Don’t worry! If you’ve got a sound card with a microphone input, you’ve already got one! It’s just that easy. We’ll simply wire the output of our ECG circuit to the input of our sound card, record the output of the op-amp using standard sound recording software, remove the noise from the ECG digitally, and output gorgeous ECG traces ready for visualization and analysis!
Parts/Cost
I’ll be upfront and say that I spent $0.00 making my ECG machine, because I was able to salvage all the parts I needed from a pile of old circuit boards. If you need specific components, check your local RadioShack. If that’s a no-go, hit-up Digikey (it’s probably cheaper too). Also, resistor values are flexible. Use mine as a good starter set, and vary them to suit your needs. If you buy everything from Digikey, the total cost of this project would be about $1. For now, here’s a list of all the parts you need:
Keep in mind that I’m not an electrical engineer (I have a masters in molecular biology but I’m currently a dental student if you must know) and I’m only reporting what worked well for me. I don’t claim this is perfect, and I’m certainly open for (and welcome) suggestions for improvement. With that in mind, here’s what I did!
This is pretty much it. First off is a power source. If you want to be safe, use three AAA batteries in series. If you’re a daredevil and enjoy showing off your ghettorigging skills, do what I did and grab 5v from a free USB plug! Mua ha ha ha. The power goes into the circuit and so do the leads/electrodes connected to the body. You can get pretty good results with only two leads, but if you want to experiment try hooking up an extra ground lead and slap it on your foot. More on the electrodes later. The signal from the leads is amplified by the circuit and put out the headphone cable, ready to enter your PC’s sound card through the microphone jack!
Note how I left room in the center of the circuit board. That was intentional! I wanted to expand this project by adding a microcontroller to do some on-board, real-time analysis. Specifically, an ATMega8! I never got around to it though. Its purpose would be to analyze the output of the op-amp and graph the ECG on a LCD screen, or at least measure the time between beats and display HR on a screen. (More ideas are at the bottom of this document.) Anyway, too much work for now, maybe I’ll do it one day in the future.
ECG circuit diagram:
This is the circuit diagram. This is a classical high-gain analog differential amplifier. It just outputs the multiplied difference of the inputs. The 0.1uF capacitor helps stabilize the signal and reduce high frequency noise (such as the audio produced by a nearby AM radio station). Use Google if you’re interested in learning exactly how it works.
ECG schematic:
This is how I used my LM358N to create the circuit above. Note that there is a small difference in my board from the photos and this diagram. This diagram is correct, but the circuit in some of the pictures is not. Briefly, when I built it I accidentally connected the (-) lead directly to ground, rather than to the appropriate pin on the microchip. This required me to place a 220kOhm between the leads to stabilize the signal. I imagine if you wire it CORRECTLY (as shown in these circuit diagrams) it will work fine, but if you find it too finicky (jumping quickly from too loud to too quiet), try tossing in a high-impedance resistor between the leads like I did. Overall, this circuit is extremely flexible and I encourage you to build it on a breadboard and try different things. Use this diagram as a starting point and experiment yourself!
The Electrodes:
You can make electrodes out of anything conductive. The most recent graphs were created from wires with gator clips on them clamping onto pennies (pictured). Yeah, I know I could solder directly to the pennies (they’re copper) but gator clips are fast, easy, and can be clipped to different materials (such as aluminum foil) for testing. A dot of moisturizing lotion applied to the pennies can be used to improve conduction between the pennies and the skin, but I didn’t find this to be very helpful. If pressed firmly on the body, conduction seems to be fine. Oh! I just remembered. USE ELECTRICAL TAPE TO ATTACH LEADS TO YOUR BODY! I tried a million different things, from rubber bands to packaging tape. The bottom line is that electrical tape is stretchy enough to be flexible, sticky enough not to fall off (even when moistened by the natural oils/sweat on your skin), and doesn’t hurt that bad to peel off.
Some of the best electrodes I used were made from aluminum cans! Rinse-out a soda can, cut it into “pads”, and use the sharp edge of a razor blade or pair of scissors to scrape off the wax coating on all contact surfaces. Although a little unconformable and prone to cut skin due to their sharp edges, these little guys work great!
Hooking it Up
This part is the most difficult part of the project! This circuit is extremely finicky. The best way to get it right is to open your sound editor (In Windows I use GoldWave because it’s simple, powerful, and free, but similar tools exist for Linux and other Unix-based OSes) and view the low-frequency bars in live mode while you set up. When neither electrode is touched, it should be relatively quiet. When only the + electrode is touched, it should go crazy with noise. When you touch both (one with each hand) the noise should start to go away, possibly varying by how much you squeeze (how good of a connection you have). The whole setup process is a game between too much and too little conduction. You’ll find that somewhere in the middle, you’ll see (and maybe hear) a low-frequency burst of noise once a second corresponding to your heartbeat. [note: Did you know that's how the second was invented? I believe it was ] Once you get that good heartbeat, tape up your electrodes and start recording. If you can’t get it no matter what you do, start by putting the ground electrode in your mouth (yeah, I said it) and pressing the + electrode firmly and steadily on your chest. If that works (it almost always does), you know what to look for, so keep trying on your skin. For short recordings (maybe just a few beats) the mouth/chest method works beautifully, and requires far less noise reduction (if any), but is simply impractical for long-term recordings. I inside vs. outside potential is less susceptible to noise-causing electrical radiation. Perhaps other orifices would function similarly? I’ll leave it at that. I’ve also found that adding a third electrode (another ground) somewhere else on my body helps a little, but not significantly. Don’t give up at this step if you don’t get it right away! If you hear noise when + is touched, your circuit is working. Keep trying and you’ll get it eventually.
Recording the ECG
This is the easy part. Keep an eye on your “bars” display in the audio program to make sure something you’re doing (typing, clicking, etc) isn’t messing up the recording. If you want, try surfing the net or playing computer games to see how your heart varies. Make sure that as you tap the keyboard and click the mouse, you’re not getting noise back into your system. If this is a problem, try powering your device by batteries (a good idea for safety’s sake anyway) rather than another power source (such as USB power). Record as long as you want! Save the file as a standard, mono, wave file.
Digitally Eliminating Noise
Now it’s time to clean-up the trace. Using GoldWave, first apply a lowpass filter at 30 Hz. This kills most of your electrical noise (> 30hz), while leaving the ECG intact (< 15Hz). However, it dramatically decreases the volume (potential) of the audio file. Increase the volume as necessary to maximize the window with the ECG signal. You should see clear heartbeats at this point. You may want to apply an auto-gain filter to normalize the heartbeats potentials. Save the file as a raw sound file (.snd) at 1000 Hz (1 kHz) resolution.
Presentation and Analysis
Now you’re ready to analyze! Plop your .snd file in the same folder as my [ecg.py script], edit the end of the script to reflect your .snd filename, and run the script by double-clicking it. (Keep in mind that my script was written for python 2.5.4 and requires numpy 1.3.0rc2 for python 2.5, and matplotlib 0.99 for python 2.5 – make sure you get the versions right!) Here’s what you’ll see!
This is a small region of the ECG trace. The “R” peak is most obvious, but the details of the other peaks are not as visible. If you want more definition in the trace (such as the blue one at the top of the page), consider applying a small collection of customized band-stop filters to the audio file rather than a single, sweeping lowpass filter. Refer to earlier posts in the DIY ECG category for details. Specifically, code on Circuits vs. Software for noise reduction entry can help. For our purposes, calculating heart rate from R-to-R intervals (RRIs) can be done accurately with traces such as this.
Your heart rate fluctuates a lot over time! By plotting the inverse of your RRIs, you can see your heart rate as a function of time. Investigate what makes it go up, go down, and how much. You’d be surprised by what you find. I found that checking my email raises my heart rate more than first-person-shooter video games. I get incredibly anxious when I check my mail these days, because I fear bad news from my new university (who knows why, I just get nervous about it). I wonder if accurate RRIs could be used to assess nervousness for the purposes of lie detection?
This is the RRI plot where the value of each RRI (in milliseconds) is represented for each beat. It’s basically the inverse of heart rate. Miscalculated heartbeats would show up as extremely high or extremely low dots on this graph. However, excluding points above or below certain bounds means that if your heart did double-beat, or skip a beat, you wouldn’t see it. Note that I just realized my axis label is wrong (it should be sec, not ms). Oh well =o\
A Poincare Plot is a commonly-used method to visually assess heart rate variability as a function of RRIs. In this plot, each RRI is plotted against the RRI of the next subsequent beat. In a heart which beats at the same speed continuously, only a single dot would be visible in the center. In a heart which beats mostly-continuously, and only changes its rate very slowly, a linear line of dots would be visible in a 1:1 ratio. However, in real life the heart varies RRIs greatly from beat to beat, producing a small cloud of dots. The size of the cloud corresponds to the speed at which the autonomic nervous system can modulate heart rate in the time frame of a single beat.
The frequency of occurrence of various RRIs can be expressed by a histogram. The center peak corresponds to the standard heart rate. Peaks to the right and left of the center peak correspond to increased and decreased RRIs, respectively. A gross oversimplification of the interpretation of such data would be to state that the upper peak represents the cardio-inhibitory parasympathetic autonomic nervous system component, and the lower peak represents the cardio-stimulatory sympathetic autonomic nervous system component.
Taking the Fast Fourier Transformation of the data produces a unique trace whose significance is extremely difficult to interpret. Near 0Hz (infinite time) the trace heads toward ∞ (infinite power). To simplify the graph and eliminate the near-infinite, low-frequency peak we will normalize the trace by multiplying each data point by its frequency, and dividing the vertical axis units by Hz to compensate. This will produce the following graph…
This is the power spectrum density (PSD) plot of the ECG data we recorded. Its physiological interpretation is extraordinarily difficult to understand and confirm, and is the subject of great debate in the field of autonomic neurological cardiac regulation. An oversimplified explanation of the significance of this graph is that the parasympathetic (cardio-inhibitory) branch of the autonomic nervous system works faster than the sympathetic (cardio-stimulatory) branch. Therefore, the lower peak corresponds to the sympathetic component (combined with persistent parasympathetic input, it’s complicated), while the higher-frequency peak corresponds to the parasympathetic component, and the sympathetic/parasympathetic relationship can be assessed by the ratio of the integrated areas of these peaks after a complicated curve fitting processes which completely separates overlapping peaks. To learn more about power spectral analysis of heart rate over time in the frequency domain, I recommend skimming this introduction to heart rate variability website and the article on Heart Rate Variability following Myocardial Infarction (heart attack). Also, National Institute of Health (NIH) funded studies on HRV should be available from pubmed.org. If you want your head to explode, read Frequency-Domain Characteristics and Filtering of Blood Flow Following the Onset of Exercise: Implications for Kinetics Analysis for a lot of good frequency-domain-analysis-related discussion and rationalization.
Encouraging Words:
Please, if you try this don’t die. The last thing I want is to have some kid calling me up and yelling at me that he nearly electrocuted himself when he tried to plug my device directly into a wall socket and now has to spend the rest of his life with two Abraham Lincolns tattooed onto his chest resembling a second set of nipples. Please, if you try this use common sense, and of course you’re responsible for your own actions. I provide this information as a description of what I did and what worked for me. If you make something similar that works, I’ve love to see it! Send in your pictures of your circuit, charts of your traces, improved code, or whatever you want and I’ll feature it on the site. GOOD LUCK!
Fancier Circuit:
If you want to try this, go for it! Briefly, this circuit uses 6 op-amps to help eliminate effects of noise. It’s also safer, because of the diodes interconnecting the electrodes. It’s the same circuit as on [this page].
Last minute thoughts:
More homemade ECG information can be found on my earlier posts in the DIY ECG category, however this page is the primary location of my most recent thoughts and ideas.
You can use moisturizing lotion between the electrodes and your skin to increase conduction. However, keep in mind that better conduction is not always what you want. You’ll have to experiment for yourself.
Variation in location of electrodes will vary the shape of the ECG. I usually place electrodes on each side of my chest near my arms. If your ECG appears upside-down, reverse the leads!
Adding extra leads can improve grounding. Try grounding one of your feet with a third lead to improve your signal. Also, if you’re powering your device via USB power consider trying battery power – it should be less noisy.
While recording, be aware of what you do! I found that if I’m not well-grounded, my ECG is fine as long as I don’t touch my keyboard. If I start typing, every keypress shows up as a giant spike, bigger than my heartbeat!
If you get reliable results, I wonder if you could make the device portable? Try using a portable tape recorder, voice recorder, or maybe even minidisc recorder to record the output of the ECG machine for an entire day. I haven’t tried it, but why wouldn’t it work? If you want to get fancy, have a microcontroller handle the signal processing and determine RRIs (should be easy) and save this data to a SD card or fancy flash logger.
While you have a LCD on there, display the ECG graphically!
Perhaps a wireless implementation would be useful.
Like, I said, there are other, more complicated analog circuits which reduce noise of the outputted signal. I actually built Jason Nguyen’s fancy circuit which used 6 op-amps but the result wasn’t much better than the simple, 1 op-amp circuit I describe here once digital filtering was applied.
Arrhythmic heartbeats (where your heart screws-up and misfires, skips a beat, double-beats, or beats awkwardly) are physiological (normal) and surprisingly common. Although shocking to hear about, sparse, single arrhythmic heartbeats are normal and are a completely different ball game than chronic, potentially deadly heart arrhythmias in which every beat is messed-up. If you’re in tune with your body, you might actually feel these occurrences happening. About three times a week I feel my heart screw up a beat (often when it’s quiet), and it feels like a sinking feeling in my chest. I was told by a doctor that it’s totally normal and happens many times every day without me noticing, and that most people never notice these single arrhythmic beats. I thought it was my heart skipping a beat, but I wasn’t sure. That was my motivation behind building this device – I wanted to see what my arrhythmic beats looked like. It turns out that it’s more of a double-beat than a skipped beat, as observed when I captured a single arrhythmic heartbeat with my ECG machine, as described in this entry.
You can improve the safety of this device by attaching diodes between leads, similar to the more complicated circuit. Theory is that if a huge surge of energy does for whatever reason get into the ECG circuit, it’ll short itself out at the circuit level (conducting through the diodes) rather than at your body (across your chest / through your heart).
Alternatively, use an AC opto-isolator between the PC sound card and the ECG circuit to eliminate the possibility of significant current coming back from the PC.
On the Hackaday post, Flemming Frandsen noted that an improperly grounded PC could be dangerous because the stored charge would be manifest in the ground of the microphone jack. If you were to ground yourself to true ground (using a bench power supply or sticking your finger in the ground socket of an AC wall plug) this energy could travel through you! So be careful to only ground yourself with respect to the circuit using only battery power to minimize this risk.
Do not attempt anything on this page. Ever. Don’t even read it. You read it already! You’re sill reading it aren’t you? Yeah. You don’t follow directions well do you?
SAMPLE FILTERED RECORDING:
I think this is the same one I used in the 3rd video from my single op-amp circuit. [scottecg.snd] It’s about an hour long, and in raw sound format (1000 Hz). It’s already been filtered (low-pass filtered at 30Hz). You can use it with my code below!
CODE
print "importing libraries..."
import numpy, pylab
print "DONE"
class ECG:
def trim(self, data,degree=100):
print 'trimming'
i,data2=0,[]
while i<len(data):
data2.append(sum(data[i:i+degree])/degree)
i+=degree
return data2
def smooth(self,list,degree=15):
mults=[1]
s=[]
for i in range(degree): mults.append(mults[-1]+1)
for i in range(degree): mults.append(mults[-1]-1)
for i in range(len(list)-len(mults)):
small=list[i:i+len(mults)]
for j in range(len(small)):
small[j]=small[j]*mults[j]
val=sum(small)/sum(mults)
s.append(val)
return s
def smoothWindow(self,list,degree=10):
list2=[]
for i in range(len(list)):
list2.append(sum(list[i:i+degree])/float(degree))
return list2
def invertYs(self):
print 'inverting'
self.ys=self.ys*-1
def takeDeriv(self,dist=5):
print 'taking derivative'
self.dys=[]
for i in range(dist,len(self.ys)):
self.dys.append(self.ys[i]-self.ys[i-dist])
self.dxs=self.xs[0:len(self.dys)]
def genXs(self, length, hz):
print 'generating Xs'
step = 1.0/(hz)
xs=[]
for i in range(length): xs.append(step*i)
return xs
def loadFile(self, fname, startAt=None, length=None, hz=1000):
print 'loading',fname
self.ys = numpy.memmap(fname, dtype='h', mode='r')*-1
print 'read %d points.'%len(self.ys)
self.xs = self.genXs(len(self.ys),hz)
if startAt and length:
self.ys=self.ys[startAt:startAt+length]
self.xs=self.xs[startAt:startAt+length]
def findBeats(self):
print 'finding beats'
self.bx,self.by=[],[]
for i in range(100,len(self.ys)-100):
if self.ys[i]<15000: continue # SET THIS VISUALLY
if self.ys[i]<self.ys[i+1] or self.ys[i]<self.ys[i-1]: continue
if self.ys[i]-self.ys[i-100]>5000 and self.ys[i]-self.ys[i+100]>5000:
self.bx.append(self.xs[i])
self.by.append(self.ys[i])
print "found %d beats"%(len(self.bx))
def genRRIs(self,fromText=False):
print 'generating RRIs'
self.rris=[]
if fromText: mult=1
else: 1000.0
for i in range(1,len(self.bx)):
rri=(self.bx[i]-self.bx[i-1])*mult
#if fromText==False and len(self.rris)>1:
#if abs(rri-self.rris[-1])>rri/2.0: continue
#print i, "%.03f\t%.03f\t%.2f"%(bx[i],rri,60.0/rri)
self.rris.append(rri)
def removeOutliers(self):
beatT=[]
beatRRI=[]
beatBPM=[]
for i in range(1,len(self.rris)):
#CHANGE THIS AS NEEDED
if self.rris[i]<0.5 or self.rris[i]>1.1: continue
if abs(self.rris[i]-self.rris[i-1])>self.rris[i-1]/5: continue
beatT.append(self.bx[i])
beatRRI.append(self.rris[i])
self.bx=beatT
self.rris=beatRRI
def graphTrace(self):
pylab.plot(self.xs,self.ys)
#pylab.plot(self.xs[100000:100000+4000],self.ys[100000:100000+4000])
pylab.title("Electrocardiograph")
pylab.xlabel("Time (seconds)")
pylab.ylabel("Potential (au)")
def graphDeriv(self):
pylab.plot(self.dxs,self.dys)
pylab.xlabel("Time (seconds)")
pylab.ylabel("d/dt Potential (au)")
def graphBeats(self):
pylab.plot(self.bx,self.by,'.')
def graphRRIs(self):
pylab.plot(self.bx,self.rris,'.')
pylab.title("Beat Intervals")
pylab.xlabel("Beat Number")
pylab.ylabel("RRI (ms)")
def graphHRs(self):
#HR TREND
hrs=(60.0/numpy.array(self.rris)).tolist()
bxs=(numpy.array(self.bx[0:len(hrs)])/60.0).tolist()
pylab.plot(bxs,hrs,'g',alpha=.2)
hrs=self.smooth(hrs,10)
bxs=bxs[10:len(hrs)+10]
pylab.plot(bxs,hrs,'b')
pylab.title("Heart Rate")
pylab.xlabel("Time (minutes)")
pylab.ylabel("HR (bpm)")
def graphPoincare(self):
#POINCARE PLOT
pylab.plot(self.rris[1:],self.rris[:-1],"b.",alpha=.5)
pylab.title("Poincare Plot")
pylab.ylabel("RRI[i] (sec)")
pylab.xlabel("RRI[i+1] (sec)")
def graphFFT(self):
#PSD ANALYSIS
fft=numpy.fft.fft(numpy.array(self.rris)*1000.0)
fftx=numpy.fft.fftfreq(len(self.rris),d=1)
fftx,fft=fftx[1:len(fftx)/2],abs(fft[1:len(fft)/2])
fft=self.smoothWindow(fft,15)
pylab.plot(fftx[2:],fft[2:])
pylab.title("Raw Power Sprectrum")
pylab.ylabel("Power (ms^2)")
pylab.xlabel("Frequency (Hz)")
def graphFFT2(self):
#PSD ANALYSIS
fft=numpy.fft.fft(numpy.array(self.rris)*1000.0)
fftx=numpy.fft.fftfreq(len(self.rris),d=1)
fftx,fft=fftx[1:len(fftx)/2],abs(fft[1:len(fft)/2])
fft=self.smoothWindow(fft,15)
for i in range(len(fft)):
fft[i]=fft[i]*fftx[i]
pylab.plot(fftx[2:],fft[2:])
pylab.title("Power Sprectrum Density")
pylab.ylabel("Power (ms^2)/Hz")
pylab.xlabel("Frequency (Hz)")
def graphHisto(self):
pylab.hist(self.rris,bins=20,ec='none')
pylab.title("RRI Deviation Histogram")
pylab.ylabel("Frequency (count)")
pylab.xlabel("RRI (ms)")
#pdf, bins, patches = pylab.hist(self.rris,bins=100,alpha=0)
#pylab.plot(bins[1:],pdf,'g.')
#y=self.smooth(list(pdf[1:]),10)
#x=bins[10:len(y)+10]
#pylab.plot(x,y)
def saveBeats(self,fname):
print "writing to",fname
numpy.save(fname,[numpy.array(self.bx)])
print "COMPLETE"
def loadBeats(self,fname):
print "loading data from",fname
self.bx=numpy.load(fname)[0]
print "loadded",len(self.bx),"beats"
self.genRRIs(True)
def snd2txt(fname):
## SND TO TXT ##
a=ECG()
a.loadFile(fname)#,100000,4000)
a.invertYs()
pylab.figure(figsize=(7,4),dpi=100);pylab.grid(alpha=.2)
a.graphTrace()
a.findBeats()
a.graphBeats()
a.saveBeats(fname)
pylab.show()
def txt2graphs(fname):
## GRAPH TXT ##
a=ECG()
a.loadBeats(fname+'.npy')
a.removeOutliers()
pylab.figure(figsize=(7,4),dpi=100);pylab.grid(alpha=.2)
a.graphHRs();pylab.subplots_adjust(left=.1,bottom=.12,right=.96)
pylab.savefig("DIY_ECG_Heart_Rate_Over_Time.png");
pylab.figure(figsize=(7,4),dpi=100);pylab.grid(alpha=.2)
a.graphFFT();pylab.subplots_adjust(left=.13,bottom=.12,right=.96)
pylab.savefig("DIY_ECG_Power_Spectrum_Raw.png");
pylab.figure(figsize=(7,4),dpi=100);pylab.grid(alpha=.2)
a.graphFFT2();pylab.subplots_adjust(left=.13,bottom=.12,right=.96)
pylab.savefig("DIY_ECG_Power_Spectrum_Weighted.png");
pylab.figure(figsize=(7,4),dpi=100);pylab.grid(alpha=.2)
a.graphPoincare();pylab.subplots_adjust(left=.1,bottom=.12,right=.96)
pylab.savefig("DIY_ECG_Poincare_Plot.png");
pylab.figure(figsize=(7,4),dpi=100);pylab.grid(alpha=.2)
a.graphRRIs();pylab.subplots_adjust(left=.1,bottom=.12,right=.96)
pylab.savefig("DIY_ECG_RR_Beat_Interval.png");
pylab.figure(figsize=(7,4),dpi=100);pylab.grid(alpha=.2)
a.graphHisto();pylab.subplots_adjust(left=.1,bottom=.12,right=.96)
pylab.savefig("DIY_ECG_RR_Deviation_Histogram.png");
pylab.show();
fname='publish_05_10min.snd' #CHANGE THIS AS NEEDED
#raw_input("\npress ENTER to analyze %s..."%(fname))
snd2txt(fname)
#raw_input("\npress ENTER to graph %s.npy..."%(fname))
txt2graphs(fname)
I’ve done a lot of random things the last few months, but few things were as random, cool, or googled-for as my Do-It-Yourself Electrocardiography project . My goal was to produce an effective ECG machine which interfaced the computer sound card for as little cost as possible. I started out small with an extremely simple circuit which technically worked, but required a lot of custom-written software to do a ton of math to decipher the ECG signal from the noise (such as inverse fast flourier transformations after band-stopping several bands of predictable, high-frequency noise). I later started building more complicated circuits in an attempt to minimize the noise, which worked well but were much more difficult to construct. For some reason, my nice ECG circuit died (burned? broke? don’t know why) right after I started to actually generate useful data about my occasional double-beats (which apparently are common, normal, and even expected during basal physiological states). UPDATE: [2am, nextday] Here’s some video of the prototype briefly demonstrating the concept of how to use a minimum of parts to generate a great ECG trace using digital signal processing on the PC side.
I’ve decided to revitalize this project quickly and effectively, going back to its roots and focusing on cost-minimal solutions, and using software (rather than complicated analog circuitry) to eliminate the noise. This will be a beautiful marriage of biomedical analog circuitry with software-based processing and linear data analysis, all on the cheap. If there were ever a project that represented my early 20s life, this would be it. Briefly, I built a circuit with only 3 components (!) which produces extraordinary results (above). That’s the signal after minimal processing.
Check it out yourself! I’ll provide data file for this trace (snd2.zip) along with the Python code to graph it (below) which requires numpy and matplotlib in addition to the Python scripting language. I’ll post the circuity along with some more intricate code when my project progresses a little further.
import numpy, pylab
def trim(data,degree=100):
i,data2=0,[]
while i<len(data):
data2.append(sum(data[i:i+degree])/degree)
i+=degree
return data2
def genXs(length,trim=100,hz=44100):
step = 1.0/(hz/trim)
xs=[]
for i in range(length):
xs.append(step*i)
return xs
data = numpy.memmap("ecg2.snd", dtype='h', mode='r')
data = trim(data)
pylab.grid(alpha=.2)
pylab.plot(genXs(len(data)),data)
pylab.title("Simplified ECG Circuit Output")
pylab.xlabel("Time (seconds)")
pylab.ylabel("Potential (Au)")
pylab.show()
My microcontroller-powered prime number generator/calculator is virtually complete! Although I’m planning on improving the software (better menus, the addition of sound, and implementation of a more efficient algorithm) and hardware (a better enclosure would be nice, battery/DC wall power, and a few LEDs on the bottom row are incorrectly wired), this device is currently functional therefore theoretically complete (I met my goal). This entry will serve as the primary reference page for the project, so I will provide a brief description of what it is and what it does. First, here’s a picture of the device in its current state (click to enlarge):
BRIEF DESCRIPTION: This device generates large prime numbers (v) while keeping track of how many prime numbers have been identified (N). The 5′th prime number is 11. Therefore, at one time this device displayed N=5 and V=11. N/V values are displayed on the 20×2 LCD. In the photo, the 16,521,486th prime is 305,257,039 (see for yourself!). The LCD had some history. In December, 2003 (6 years ago) I worked with this SAME display, and I even located the blog entry on November 25′th, 2003 where I mentioned I was thinking of buying the LCD (it was $19 at the time). Funny stuff. Okay, fast forward to today. Primes (Ns and Vs) are displayed on the LCD, but what’s with all those other LED lights? I’ll tell you:
In short, each row of LEDs displays a number. Each row of 30 LEDs allows me to represent numbers up to 2^31-1 (2,147,483,647, about 2.15 billion) in the binary numeral system. Since there’s no known algorithm to generate prime numbers (especially the Nth prime), the only way to generate large Nth primes is to start small (2) and work up (to 2 billion) testing every number along the way for primeness. The number being tested is displayed on the middle row (Ntest). The last two digits of Ntest are shown on the top left. To test a number (Ntest) for primeness, it is divided by every number from 2 to the square root of Ntest. If any divisor divides evenly (with a remainder of zero) it’s assumed not to be prime, and Ntest is incremented. If it can’t be evenly divided by any number, it’s assumed to be prime and loaded into the top row. In the photo (with the last prime found over 305 million) the device is generating new primes every ~10 seconds. Not bad! Let’s discuss technical details.
I’d like to emphasize that this device is not so much technologically innovative as it is creative. I made it because no one’s ever made one. It’s not realistic, practical, or particularly useful. It’s just unique. The brain behind it is an ATMEL ATMega8 AVR microcontroller (What is a microcontroller?), the big 28-pin microchip near the center of the board. (Note: I usually work with ATTiny2313 chips, but for this project I went with the ATMega8 in case I wanted to do analog-to-digital conversions. The fact that the ATMega8 is the heart of the Arduino is coincidental, as I’m not a fan of Arduino for purposes I won’t go into here).
I’d like to thank my grandmother’s brother and his wife (my great uncle and aunt I guess) for getting me interested in microcontrollers almost 10 years ago when they gave me BASIC Stamp kit (similar to this one) for Christmas. I didn’t fully understand it or grasp its significance at the time, but every few years I broke it out and started working with it, until a few months ago when my working knowledge of circuitry let me plunge way into it. I quickly outgrew it and ventured into directly programming cheaper microcontrollers which were nearly disposable (at $2 a pop, compared to $70 for a BASIC stamp), but that stamp kit was instrumental in my transition from computer programming to microchip programming.
The microcontroller is currently running at 1 MHz, but can be clocked to run faster. The PC I’m writing this entry on is about 2,100 MHz (2.1 GHz) to put it in perspective. This microchip is on par with computers of the 70s that filled up entire rooms. I program it with the C language (a language designed in the 70s with those room-sized computers in mind, perfectly suited for these microchips) and load software onto it through the labeled wires two pictures up. The microcontroller uses my software to bit-bang data through a slew of daisy-chained shift registers (74hc595s, most of the 16-pin microchips), allowing me to control over 100 pin states (on/off) using only 3 pins of the microcontroller. There are also 2 4511-type CMOS chips which convert data from 4 pins (a binary number) into the appropriate signals to illuminate a 7-segment display. Add in a couple switches, buttons, and a speaker, and you’re ready to go!
I’ll post more pictures, videos, and the code behind this device when it’s a little more polished. For now it’s technically complete and functional, and I’m very pleased. I worked on it a little bit every day after work. From its conception on May 27th to completion July 5th (under a month and a half) I learned a heck of a lot, challenged my fine motor skills to complete an impressive and confusing soldering job, and had a lot of fun in the process.
My most glorious summer yet is reaching its end. With about a month and a half before I begin dental school, I pause to reflect on what I’ve done, and what I still plan to do. Unlike previous summers where my time was devoted to academic/thesis requirements, this summer hosted a 9am-5pm job with time to do whatever I want to after. I’ve made great progress in the realm of microcontroller programming, and am nearing the completion of my prime number calculator. I’m very happy with its progress. I think it’s time for some photos.
Here I can be seen working on my prime number calculator. The primary display is nearing completion, and now it’s time to start wiring the buttons, switches, speaker, etc. Note the vintage scope in the background. In the photo it’s showing 60Hz (I couldn’t think of anything more profound to display?) which I’ll say is a representation of the fact that your body is continuously bombarded by electromagnetic radiation whenever you set foot in a house.
This is the current state of the back panel of the prime number calculator. It’s becoming quite complicated.
As you can see, most of the LEDs are working but I’m still missing a few 74hc595 shift registers. It’s not that they’re missing, so much as I broke them. (D’oh!) I have to wait for a dozen more to come in the mail so I can continue this project. Shift registers are also responsible for powering the binary-to-7-segment chips on the upper left, whose sockets are currently empty. Since this project is on pause, I began work hacking a VFD I heard about at Skycraft. It’s a 20×2 character display (forgot to photograph the front) and if I can make it light up, it will be gorgeous.
Here’s a high resolution photo of the back panel of the VFD. I believe it used to belong to an old cash register, and it has some digital interfacing circuitry between the driver chips (the big OKI ones) and the 9-pin input connector. I think my best bet for being able to control this guy as much as I want is to attack those driver chips, with help from the Oki C1162A datasheet. It looks fairly straightforward. As long as I don’t screw up my surface-mount soldering, and assuming that I come up with 65 volts to power the thing (!) I think it’s a doable project.
Update: I found a funny photo from field day. After the tents, antennas, and radios were mostly set up, everyone was exhausted. I was ready to make some contacts! I fired-up my ‘ol netbook and tried communicating over 40m using psk (a digital mode), a mode I’ve never used, with software I’ve never used, on a band I’ve never used. It wasn’t working either. I spent the first several hours in frustration because what I was trying to do wasn’t working, and I couldn’t figure out why. This photo was taken at the height of my frustration =o)
Here’s a rough approximation of the current schematic of the prime number calculator I’m working on. Last night I finished wiring all 12 shift registers for the primary display, so now it’s time to start working on software. Notice that we have a lot of pins free still. This will be advantageous if I decide to go crazy adding extraneous functionality, such as fancy displays (LCD?, 7-segment LEDs?, VFD?, all 3?!) or creative input systems (how about a numerical keypad?). After feeling the stink of paying almost $15 for 100′ of yellow, 24 gauge, solid-core wire from DigiKey I was relieved (and a little embarrassed) to find I could score 1,000′ of yellow, 24 gauge, threaded wire for $10 at Skycraft! Anyway, here’s the current schematic:
I’ll update my progress on this project as I go. I added a lot more light bars to the shift registers on my prime number generator project. I’m up to 5 daisy-chained shift registers completed (powering 40 LEDs) with 7 more to go! I’m using 22 gauge solid-core (fancy and expensive, from digikey, 100′ 14$!) wire for the back of this project. Being that I plan to keep it for many years, I want it to look crazy awesome. Remember, I’m only about 1/3 done so far…
I powered the device up and it produced proper output. Yay! I was so discouraged yesterday when I wired-up an entire row (the top one), powered it on, and 1/2 the LEDs didn’t work. At first I thought it was software, but then I realized that I burned the LEDs out in the soldering process by getting them too hot. I had to de-solder EVERYTHING, rip out the destroyed LED bars, and start over. I’ll have to pick up some more light bars at Skycraft soon. This is what it looks like currently:
I’m making this project a priority because I only have a few weeks before I move to Gainesville, FL for dental school (the cutoff date for all electronics/radio/programming projects). I’ll be busy the next few days with other obligations (work, apartment hunting, field day, etc.) but I hope to resume this project soon.
UPDATE (June 26, 2009 @ 7:30pm): I finished wiring all the light bars I have. I need to purchase 3 more 10-led bars at Skycraft to replace the ones I melted with my soldering iron. D’oh! Anyway, here’s the beaut:
