4029 replies to this topic

[lostfalco]

Another reason that low dosing is important is that we are dealing with astronomical numbers. Obviously, we are not photobiomodulating every brain cell (just the surface and only with light that makes it through the skull) but this will give you guys some idea of the scale we are looking at.

“Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life” by British biochemist Nick Lane (pg. 58-59) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Lane
1. ATP is ‘the universal energy currency’ of life.
2. ATP has been found in every type of cell ever studied: plant, animal, fungal, bacterial.
3. All three ‘Great Energy Highways of Life’ generate ATP: respiration, fermentation, photosynthesis.
4. The average person produces ATP at 9 x 1020 molecules per second.
5. One mitochondrion’s inner membrane can have up to 30,000 individual ATP generators (called ATPase or ATP synthase).
6. These generators are ‘the fundamental particles of biology’ because they produce ‘the universal energy currency of life’.

My thoughts:
7. One brain cell can have 1000+ mitochondria (this estimate is WAY on the low end too). Therefore, possibly 30,000,000 (30,000 x 1000) ATP generators in one cell. One brain can have 170 billion cells by current estimates (86 billion neurons, 84 billion nonneuronal cells (glia)). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19226510
170,000,000,000 x 30,000,000 (Note: 19% of neurons are in the cerebral cortex)

Tiny enhancements can have huge effects.

Edited by lostfalco, 02 October 2013 - 02:57 PM.

[AscendantMind]

Another reason that low dosing is important is that we are dealing with astronomical numbers. Obviously, we are not photobiomodulating every brain cell (just the surface and only with light that makes it through the skull) but this will give you guys some idea of the scale we are looking at.

“Power, Sex, Suicide: Mitochondria and the Meaning of Life” by British biochemist Nick Lane (pg. 58-59) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Lane
1. ATP is ‘the universal energy currency’ of life.
2. ATP has been found in every type of cell ever studied: plant, animal, fungal, bacterial.
3. All three ‘Great Energy Highways of Life’ generate ATP: respiration, fermentation, photosynthesis.
4. The average person produces ATP at 9 x 1020 molecules per second.
5. One mitochondrion’s inner membrane can have up to 30,000 individual ATP generators (called ATPase or ATP synthase).
6. These generators are ‘the fundamental particles of biology’ because they produce ‘the universal energy currency of life’.

My thoughts:
7. One brain cell can have 1000+ mitochondria (this estimate is WAY on the low end too). Therefore, possibly 3,000,000 (30,000 x 1000) ATP generators in one cell. One brain can have 170 billion cells by current estimates (86 billion neurons, 84 billion nonneuronal cells (glia)). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19226510
170,000,000,000 x 3,000,000

Tiny enhancements can have huge effects.

Forgive my ignorance of biophysics/chemistry, but is there a conceivable way of calculating the effects of the applied light on the generation of ATP? I refer only to the immediate effects, not to the long term effects we are also looking for.

[Nattzor]

Zawy, please check out alibaba's aliexpress shop, there are offers for 1000s of 5mm led diode IR LED 850nm for as low as $50 (0.05/piece) up to 0.12/piece for the blue (I really dont know whats the difference between color of the diode if they have same 850nm vawelength?) So I think the price can drop massively.

I doubt they can be 850 nm and blue, the colour of the light is dependant on the wavelength and 850 nm is nIR, which we cannot see.

[zawy]

lostfaclo, you bring up something very important that counteracts my skepticism. Yes, the whole up-regulation of genes over a couple of weeks could make a lot of difference. 2 minutes would only be good for skin cells. Probably 95% of the light is blocked in even a bald head before it reaches the cortex, so in order to get the optimum 6 J/cm^2 that is used for injured cells you need 6/0.05 = 120 J/cm^2. A Joule is watt times the seconds applied, so my 75 mW/cm^2 is 0.075 W/cm^2. 120/0.075 = 1,600 seconds needed even for my very powerful unit (26 minutes). Too much time and it negates it's benefits back to zero, so it's good not to over do it. But penetration depends heavily on the person, around a factor of 5 for white verses black skin, and maybe 10 for thick black hair. So you can only use timing as a guideline. My halo game was over an hour, so yes, I definitely went beyond safety when it seemed to cause me to lose sleep.

[zawy]

I bought a 50 W red array for only $40, so there must be a way to make a 250 W helmet for $250. My red LEDs are high quality and cost $0.20 nearly direct from lumix. Yes, the 850 nm are pretty much all the same, even the ones with the blue plastic, and $0.05 each with free shipping is a good price, but I had to pay $0.10 in the past. If you use all infrared, that would be only $75 for 1500. I bet there are arrays out there that use 1 W LEDs and you could get the price down to $50 with your arrays built for you. Not that I want any to get electrocuted, but you could hook 10 of the 12 V arrays in series directly to 120 V AC so the power supply is optional. It would pulse at 60 Hz. I did this but I used a "bridge" of 4 rectifiers ($2) so I got more "on" time, and this makes the pulses 120 Hz. You would need 10 A rectifiers. 120 VAC is 170 V at the peak times in the cycle, so the pulses will be very strong if you use only 10 of the 12VDC boards. But the >120V time in the cycle is only about 25% of the time (50% if using the bridge rectifier), so they don't overheat too much. 11 boards are needed if the 10 over heat. I did this without series resistors so completed arrays with resistors will be less likely to overheat. You see, my helmet was originally me LED "bed" and laying under that for would feel slightly "tingly" as confirmed by a friends and I was not sure it was from the 120 Hz, but it seemed nice. After 10 minutes, you really were relaxed and ready for a 5 minute nap. Imagine laying out on the beach without the heat, so an LED bed is pretty darn cool. Me an a guy in Canada did a halogen bed with water blocking the heat, 3,000 watts as described in my article. That also made us sleepy. Total cost for it was around $50. Definitely the LEDs are less trouble to use (but not make) and more light for the amount of energy needed.

[zawy]

OK, now I see why you guys are saying LLLT. It used to be that LLLT meant Low Level LASER Therapy. Now I see the American literature has warped the acronym to include Low Level LIGHT or LED Therapy. I wonder if that is a marketing desire of the medical laser manufacturers who finance a lot of the research to obscure that LEDs are better and they don't want "LED" in the title of papers because people are more likely to think "Hey, I wonder if I can make that myself." Because, yes, $5 red LED flashlights on ebay are as good as $200 medical LEDs on amazon.com. Even LEDs are an insult to obscuring the benefits of halogen bulbs. If you ever hear anyone talking about halogen for light therapy, that's because of my pinky toe 10 years ago and because my "LED Light Therapy" article has been ranked #1 or #2 on google for about 7 years.

[Psionic]

Zawy, please check out alibaba's aliexpress shop, there are offers for 1000s of 5mm led diode IR LED 850nm for as low as $50 (0.05/piece) up to 0.12/piece for the blue (I really dont know whats the difference between color of the diode if they have same 850nm vawelength?) So I think the price can drop massively.

I doubt they can be 850 nm and blue, the colour of the light is dependant on the wavelength and 850 nm is nIR, which we cannot see.

its the color of the diode (plastic material), not its light...

Edited by Psionic, 02 October 2013 - 03:56 PM.

[zawy]

I see the studies from lostfalco's pdf link in mice and rats that use only 2 minutes at only 25 mW/cm^2. This appears to be with the skull in place. Rats and mice skulls are going to allow a LOT more light through, but what most of the studies used is too small to be optimum. They need at least 2 J/cm^2 to see an optimum benefit. You can also see the good human studies used the high doses I am talking about. But most of them still not using the best wavelengths. But then again the Laser might actually penetrate the skull better from being in a single spot it floods the skin and keeps from getting dispersed too quickly. LEDs hitting a broader area per mW in the skin will back-reflect back out of the skin more. I paint my circuit boards silver for this reason, and prefer to press the LEDs against the skin. It's kind of sad to see all that research using the wrong wavelengths and weak dosing, most of it borderline useless being the same as if they had just let the rats and mice out in the sun for 5 minutes a day. Imagine if the results if they had had 30 minutes. You can see better results with the higher doses. In 2013 finally someone did something at 60 J/cm^2, but they're still using the wrong wavelengths that Russians were aware of in in the late 1980's.

[Nattzor]

2 minutes would only be good for skin cells. Probably 95% of the light is blocked in even a bald head before it reaches the cortex, so in order to get the optimum 6 J/cm^2 that is used for injured cells you need 6/0.05 = 120 J/cm^2.

There has been atleast one human study that showed positive results with 2 minutes/spot (ignored the rabbit and mice research, didn't look for more human studies).
http://i.imgur.com/4R897cP.png
- http://www.ncbi.nlm....cles/PMC3065857

[zawy]

That is shockingly low. In looking at the full abstract, you can see if 1 patient had had a different result, they would not have met statistical significance (1.01 and 1.03 at the low end of the 95% CI). 5 minutes in the Sun (about 22 mW/cm^2 verses 7.5) with a bald head would have been at least 4 times better. The laser contacting skin has the advantage over LED of not being blocked by hair. They apparently copied the lowest observed effects in rabbits and did not even bother to adjust for rabbit having a thinner skull and probably much more transparent skin. The rabbits who got 5 times a higher dosage than this did 4 times better (percent recovery wise). And remember that the rabbits probably got much larger doses to their cortex so that the plateau effect seen in the rabbits would not occur unless the bald human patients got a lot more than 5 minutes in the sun. If I had a stroke and no devices available, I would shave my if possible and sit in the sun for at least 30 minutes. Even up to 3 hours might be best, and definitely 3 times a day. Then sit under a 100 W halogen flood light for an hour before going to bed and then when waking up. I have 10 years of personal experience with these thing on soft-tissue injuries and the mechanism of action in the brain is the same. More than helping the injured cells, they are saying it frees up more energy by helping the healthy cells, so lower doses to the full brain are indirectly like a larger dose to the injured area. So only 10 minutes in the sun twice a day might show maximum effect for a stroke victim. Dementia is another story, but stil the high doses I use for soft tissue injuries may be a bit much.

[AscendantMind]

5 minutes in the Sun (about 22 mW/cm^2 verses 7.5) with a bald head would have been at least 4 times better.

Is this the amount of sunlight in the desirable IR/nIR spectrum ranges, or is this a total measure of the light available? If the latter, do you have numbers for the former?

[zawy]

Sunlight around noon as long as it's not deep winter AND above 32 degrees latitude is about 1,000 W/m^2 which is 100 mW/cm^2. About 30% of this is in the 600 to 900 nm range. I did a spread sheet on the black body radiation to measure the expected percent energy in this range but you can also see my 30% estimate must be approximately correct for the Sun and halogens based on good charts of their spectrum measured and generated by others. It's all in my LED document we've linked to two or three times in the past 3 pages. I also have an advanced Sun intensity spreadsheet for my solar heating activities, allowing me to know sun position and intensity at any time, location, and solar collector orientation. I also measure sun and LED intensity with a shallow cup of dark liquid, timer, and good thermometer as described in my document.

[crow]

lostfalco - thanks for your answer.

I'm thinking this could probably be tested indirectly.
People living in sunlight abundant countries (Israel or the Sahara's) would be exposed to much more radiation at those wavelengths than people living in colder areas (Norway). Between those living in sunny places, there should be a difference in performance between people with long hair, short hair and no hair. People with longer hair will probably be less exposed to sunlight (or light in general). Does this make sense to anyone ?

[Nattzor]

lostfalco - thanks for your answer.

I'm thinking this could probably be tested indirectly.
People living in sunlight abundant countries (Israel or the Sahara's) would be exposed to much more radiation at those wavelengths than people living in colder areas (Norway). Between those living in sunny places, there should be a difference in performance between people with long hair, short hair and no hair. People with longer hair will probably be less exposed to sunlight (or light in general). Does this make sense to anyone ?

Waaaaaaaaay too many factors to play with.

[zawy]

I'm still reading lostfalco's pdf. They say 2% of 1064 nm makes it through, so they used 60 J/cm^2 so that healthy neurons get the optimum they say is known to be about 1 J/cm^2. This is lower than what injured cells need which is 4 to 6 J/cm^2. According to the paper they reference, which happens to be the same paper I linked to a few years ago, they do not state their math correctly and the 2% result is correct only if it was a 5 mm skull bone. At 850 nm penetration is 6%, 3 times better than there 2% (a=0.11 instead of a=0.22...don't ask for details). To copy this experiment using 850 nm, 60/3 = 20 J/cm^2 is needed. But they have not determined or estimated skin blockage which might be less for laser than LED. My estimate for really white scalp is 20% penetration for LED, so I would need 100 J/cm^2 to copy them if their laser is 100% skin penetration, pretty darn close to my guess of 120 J/cm^2. I'm saying all this just to show how complicated things are and that treatment time is only a guideline. My comments on skull penetration I found out just now were also wrong since the absorption equations might use natural log or base 10 log. This paper assumes base 10 which I now think is correct. 1064 nm is probably not a very good choice, but papers are saying it works.

Certainly after a cm of skin or 1/2 a skull bone thickness, the scattering of the point source from the laser should make it work exactly like an LED. I'm usually against lasers, but thinking about it is making me more open minded if it penetrates skin by 60% verses an LED of 20%. That makes it 3 times more efficient, but not that it can reach 3 times deeper since depth exponentially blocks the light.

I suspect male-pattern baldness comes from northern latitudes to increase vitamin D production. Sex-selection is strongly biased against this because baldness previously meant mal-nutrition to our African ancestors. So the gene sneaks through the un-affected daughters but not the sons. Lack of vitamin D is probably the number one killer in the U.S. and Europe. I've known since the late 1980's that there was a correlation between latitude and various cancers and that the link was probably lack of vitamin D. Of course the authorities said you would get kidney stones if you took more than 400 IU and outlawed any pills with more. Selenium, vit C, and vit A have a similar tragic story that is still debated when it should not be any debate. Don't forget lecithin for brain speed.

Edited by zawy, 02 October 2013 - 09:00 PM.

[AscendantMind]

I'm still reading lostfalco's pdf. They say 2% of 1064 nm makes it through, so they used 60 J/cm^2 so that healthy neurons get the optimum they say is known to be about 1 J/cm^2. According to the paper they reference, which happens to be the same paper I linked to a few years ago, they do not state their math correctly and the 2% result is correct only if it was a 5 mm skull bone. At 850 nm penetration is 6%, 3 times better (a=0.11 instead of a=0.22...don't ask for details). This is lower than what injured cells need which is 4 to 6 J/cm^2. OK, so to copy this experiment using 850 nm, 20 J/cm^2 is needed. But they have not determined or estimated skin blockage which might be less for laser than LED. My estimate for really white scalp is 20% penetration, so I would need 100 J/cm^2 to copy them, pretty darn close to my guess of 120 J/cm^2. I'm saying all this just to show how complicated things are. My comments on skull penetration I found out just now were also wrong since the absorption equations might use natural log or base 10 log. This paper assumes base 10 which I now think is correct. 1064 nm is probably not a very good choice, but papers are saying it works.

Certainly after a cm of skin or 1/2 a skull bone thickness, the scattering of the point source from the laser should make it work exactly like an LED. I'm usually against lasers, but thinking about it is making me more open minded if it penetrates skin by 60% verses an LED of 20%. That makes it 3 times more efficient, but not that it can reach 3 times deeper since depth exponentially blocks the light.

Lots of detail, but thanks for that in-depth analysis. My question would boil down to the following: Will using the LEDs Lostfalco recommends for 1-2 minutes per site deliver an appreciable amount of light to my neural mitochondria--more so than just taking a walk in the noon sunlight? It seems that you may be saying that it wouldn't.

Note: I have about as much hair as is in my profile picture. Not sure how much that blocks the light.

Edited by AscendantMind, 02 October 2013 - 09:07 PM.

[crow]

lostfalco - thanks for your answer.

I'm thinking this could probably be tested indirectly.
People living in sunlight abundant countries (Israel or the Sahara's) would be exposed to much more radiation at those wavelengths than people living in colder areas (Norway). Between those living in sunny places, there should be a difference in performance between people with long hair, short hair and no hair. People with longer hair will probably be less exposed to sunlight (or light in general). Does this make sense to anyone ?

Waaaaaaaaay too many factors to play with.

Too many factors to conclude a cause and effect, for sure. No question about that.
Nevertheless, if the effects is significant, you would expect it to be picked up in the statistics. people in sunlit states would have (slightly) better IQ or something of that sort.

[zawy]

With your black hair, I doubt you're going to get much from sunlight. The lasers will need to touch your scalp. Your forehead needs to face early morning or late afternoon sun, or lay down during noon.

OK, if my helmet is set at 50 mW/cm^2 and has 4% penetration on my bald head and I get the 1 J/cm^2 they recommend for enhancement, then my treatment time is 400 seconds. OK, so this morning while I was doing it, I was thinking "5 minutes doesn't FEEL long enough, and 10 minutes SEEMS like too much" so I went for 8 minutes. I said 10 minutes earlier, but I didn't bother to be precise. 8 times 60 seconds is 480 seconds. So you see your intuition with this stuff supersedes science after you get some experience with it. Mainly because that 4% I just assumed could be 8% or 1%. And if 1% is 1 J/cm^2 and it's really 8%, then you've overdosed. And if 8% is 1 J/cm^2 and it's really 1% then you've done nothing.

[Psionic]

actually the IR led/laser (or halogens) can increase vitamin D production?

[zawy]

No, just UV increase vit D, and halogens contain less than sun and I think the bulbs nowadays usually block it.

I should mention that NO is released from the target pump. The article says that in the pump it blocks respiration. So supposedly from there the NO goes to the arteries to open them up for higher blood flow under the increase demand for respiration. Pretty cool.

Edited by zawy, 02 October 2013 - 09:31 PM.

[zawy]

Umm, I "hate to admit it" but there might be something to this light stuff for the brain. I can be a terror at typing, but yesterday's 19,300 keystrokes in this thread was a bit unusual (in addition to taking care of two kids all day, 2 hours at a dinner, and goofing off on something stupid for 3 hours last night before bed at 1:00 am). Normal bedtime is 10 pm. So that was 3 hours less sleep than usual and I feel less groggy than I did yesterday when I woke before the light. I guess I'll do another 8 minutes today. This also means I have to make a new helmet since mine is sold and being shipped off in a few days.

[lostfalco]

Umm, I "hate to admit it" but there might be something to this light stuff for the brain. I can be a terror at typing, but yesterday's 19,300 keystrokes in this thread was a bit unusual (in addition to taking care of two kids all day, 2 hours at a dinner, and goofing off on something stupid for 3 hours last night before bed at 1:00 am). Normal bedtime is 10 pm. So that was 3 hours less sleep than usual and I feel less groggy than I did yesterday when I woke before the light. I guess I'll do another 8 minutes today. This also means I have to make a new helmet since mine is sold and being shipped off in a few days.

haha Cool zawy. I'm glad that it seems like it might work for you. A few of us may have some synergistic supplement recommendations if you're interested. =)

So...2 quick questions about the helmet. As I mentioned before, one of my goals is to make a helmet that is as convenient and affordable as humanly possible while still providing quality results: 1. what is the rock bottom price one could make a full coverage helmet for? and 2. what is the best brain stimulation device one could make and sell for $50? I would love to hear your thoughts on these questions since you have WAY more experience and expertise with this than any of us do.

Last thing...is there any sort of paradigm shifting approach to this that I haven't thought of? You've mentioned halogen lamps, pulsing, etc. Is there something we could make for $1 that takes 5 seconds to get a full dose? That sort of thing.

Thanks for all your thoughts zawy! It's really cool to have you posting here.

Edited by lostfalco, 03 October 2013 - 01:51 PM.

[Nattzor]

Umm, I "hate to admit it" but there might be something to this light stuff for the brain. I can be a terror at typing, but yesterday's 19,300 keystrokes in this thread was a bit unusual (in addition to taking care of two kids all day, 2 hours at a dinner, and goofing off on something stupid for 3 hours last night before bed at 1:00 am). Normal bedtime is 10 pm. So that was 3 hours less sleep than usual and I feel less groggy than I did yesterday when I woke before the light. I guess I'll do another 8 minutes today. This also means I have to make a new helmet since mine is sold and being shipped off in a few days.

I've talked about it before, first I drew the conclusion that you'd need less sleep, then more. So I'm not really sure at all anymore.
http://www.longecity...tc/#entry610278
http://www.longecity...tc/#entry610435

[lostfalco]

Just listened to our boy Abelard over on the Smart Drugs Smarts podcast http://smartdrugsmar...m-potentiation/ Seems like a really cool dude. It was def interesting to hear him talk about the discovery and development of CILTEP. Check it out if you guys have the time.

[zawy]

Excepting caffeine and cocaine (you can buy cocaine from amazon.com in the form of coca tea, 1% cocaine which is about like a cup of coffee, but a very different buzz...terrible shame coke doesn't have it anymore...you'll fail a drug test). Coconut oil, 4 large green tea extract pills, and 2 cups blueberries are the only nutrients I have found to affect my brain for the day. I've got methylene blue, vinocopiene (sp?), and phosphatydil sterine in the cabinet. I suspect a tablespoon of lysine has either sped my thinking, judging by a memory test. I posted on amazon that I thought it was heavy doses of maca tea, tablespoon a day in coffee which appears to be a safe testosterone mimic that seems to increase my muscle mass and libido. But I haven't tested the methylene blue much, and the 2013 article says it works apparently very much like light, but the whole MB stuff scares me a little. They actually use it and red light to kill cancer cells because the light changes it to something toxic and it concentrates in energy-hungry cancer. I don't want to do that to my brain, so MB should not be in the blood when applying the light. One of my previous posts above discusses minimum cost. 808 nm is WRONG. You'll need twice the dose. I think $50 for a 50 W device and 5 minute treatment twice a should not be possible. My array is 850 cm^2 but my head in in the area of exposure is only 400. Because the unit is kind of spherical and pointing in to a head that's half the surface area, it is an amplification of about 2. So my high setting is about 150 mW/cm^2. And that's what I used yesterday and today for 8 minutes. 0.150*8*60 = 72 J/cm^2, compared to the article that used 60 J/cm^2. But they were using 1064 which is about half the penetration of my 850 nm if not my 660 nm. Also, it's not one of the target wavelengths like mine, which is about another factor of 2 reduction in action. But the unknowns are large enough that I could not confirm that their estimate of desired dose of 1 J/cm^2 is correct because they did not measure it directly and make no mention of adjusting for skin or hair blockage. They only mention 2% makes it through bone of the cadaver skulls they tested, not in their treated subject who have skin and hair in the way. In other words, instead of subjecting myself to 4 times more than their estimated 1 J/cm^2, I might be getting only 1 J/cm^2 which I agree is very reasonable for brain enhancement as opposed to my usual 4-6 J/cm^2 injury repairing. No, 5 second treatment isn't going to happen. With pulsing and 250 watts, 2 minute is the shortest possible time. Also, they say spreading the doses out is important. So, yes, 30 seconds 3 times a day with 250 W can do it. Yes, I'll do PWM. BTW, fellow EE, I'll have to have a 220 uF cap on each IRF530 power MOSFET switch on each board, otherwise my 5 amps turns into 30 amp pulses from the power supply... I suspect that's not cool, one way or the other, and I know my 555 circuit will not like the noise and switch on/off erratically. Mainly I need to be making these for researchers. To copy my current device, I still can't see it costing less than $200 in parts. $0.05 for the LEDs is the best possible, and $0.05 per LED installed seems best possible. You could use halogen, but not with pulsing and you would have to surround yourself with lamps and wear some kind of water helmet. I'm going to order 850 nm arrays and make another for myself, with adjustable pulsing. This is what I want: full head coverage, adjustable pulsing from 10 Hz to 1 MHz, in different duty cycles. Adjustable from 10 to 150 mW/cm^2 like my current one, and a timer for treatment time. Fits any head. Open circuit boards to allow cooling. A nice enclosed production unit will have to be no more than 20 mW/cm^2 in the circuit boards (40 mW/cm^2 in the skin) and timed limit to 5 minute treatments if a fan is not included. If there is 4% penetration, then 0.04*5 minutes*60 seconds*0.040 = 0.5 J/cm^2. It will need a 70 W power supply. Two treatments per day, not to exceed 4. Half 850 and half 660 nm. Mainly use 660 nm so people get a powerful placebo effect and do not look directly at it. Optimum pulsing schemes are completely unknown, so I would stick with 50 uS on, 250 uS off, but that will add to cost. Otherwise, use an AC supply like I described before to get 120 Hz and save on costs.

Of course if our ancestors were exposed to more sun in the summer "food months", then they had more hours in the day to work. Then in winter, they would sleep more to conserve energy. So it not only encourages muscle activity during the Sun hours, it seems to allow more thinking and awake time during the "work season".

[chris106]

Hey y'all!

First of, I haven't checked this thread for aproximately 2 weeks, and sadly I have no time right now to read up everything I missed up to this point. That being said -

A few weeks back I said I would update if I found a cheap source for LEDs that actually ships to Germany.

Well turns out, there is quite the cheap source IN Germany - namely a seller on amazon.de. But here comes the weird part - this guy actually calls his series of LED devices "GOLDEN TULIP" - with a trademark!

It's just the usual, infrared 48, 54 and 96 LED devices like they have been shown various times in this thread. The even weirder part is though, that he doesn't explain at all what TULIP means anywhere in the product description, neither does he state that these devices can be used for TULIP.
No mention of TULIP in the product-ratings /comments by the users, either.

Looks to me like someone jumped on the TULIP bandwagon, trying to earn a few extra euros...really don't know what to make of this...

Here are the links, anyways:

http://www.amazon.de...pd_sim_sbs_ph_5

http://www.amazon.de...ref=pd_cp_diy_0

http://www.amazon.de...infrarot 48 led

EDIT: Then again, I now took a look at this guy's shop and their entire product range - and they sell all kinds of random stuff, like pet-dryers and travel-bags. So maybe just a weird coincidence after all...?

Edited by chris106, 03 October 2013 - 06:00 PM.

[lostfalco]

Excellent post zawy! I'm a big fan of 850nm and 660nm as well.

A couple of quick thoughts:
1. My #1 goal is to make something that just about everyone can try. I want an extremely affordable yet effective device for people with no money...they're the ones who could use the brain enhancement the most and they're the ones I really want to help first. This device would be a paragon of simplicity and would have nothing extra...no bells, no whistles just pure economical effectiveness. The closer to $0 the better.
2. Another goal would be a high end device that has all of the bells and whistles. Multiple settings, options, pulsings, wavelengths, etc. I think an engineer like you would have a blast designing something like this. We could go through all of the most current research and come up with dozens of possible parameters to toy with. These could even be custom made devices for the Dave Aspreys of the world who have $15,000 to spend on a brain enhancement toy.
3. Then, of course, there would be a group of 'in between' devices that have some but not all of the options available with photobiomodulation. We could emphasize different elements depending on people's goals. I would still want this to be very affordable but it doesn't have to be $0.
4. What are your thoughts on flexible bread boards? I have black hair and I have to push the LEDs all the way against my scalp to get proper photonic penetration. I was thinking about something elastic like an LED lined beanie (not made of flammable knit material, of course) that could push the diodes through the hair to the skin.

Anyway, I have about a billion more ideas but I'll stop there. I would love to hear your thoughts on each of these ideas and how you might approach them from an engineering perspective. I realize that you've already addressed a number of these points to some extent so please feel free to refer me to the proper posts that represent your ideas best. Thanks zawy! I'm loving this conversation and I appreciate your time and expertise. =)

btw, This post is just to make explicit my fundamental approach, center the conversation, and hear your direct responses. I realize it's pretty repetitive. =)

Edited by lostfalco, 03 October 2013 - 06:05 PM.

[lostfalco]

Hey y'all!

First of, I haven't checked this thread for aproximately 2 weeks, and sadly I have no time right now to read up everything I missed up to this point. That being said -

A few weeks back I said I would update if I found a cheap source for LEDs that actually ships to Germany.

Well turns out, there is quite the cheap source IN Germany - namely a seller on amazon.de. But here comes the weird part - this guy actually calls his series of LED devices "GOLDEN TULIP" - with a trademark!

It's just the usual, infrared 48, 54 and 96 LED devices like they have been shown various times in this thread. The even weirder part is though, that he doesn't explain at all what TULIP means anywhere in the product description, neither does he state that these devices can be used for TULIP.
No mention of TULIP in the product-ratings /comments by the users, either.

Looks to me like someone jumped on the TULIP bandwagon, trying to earn a few extra euros...really don't know what to make of this...

Here are the links, anyways:

http://www.amazon.de...pd_sim_sbs_ph_5

http://www.amazon.de...ref=pd_cp_diy_0

http://www.amazon.de...infrarot 48 led

Yeah, I've got nothing to do with any of that. Hmmm.....

[zawy]

There is a flexible material that is used for flexible circuit boards that could hold LEDs, but it's not cheap. Bald head, sunscreen, and a mirror on each side of the head is a very good "free" treatment. You could make a wire frame "hat" out of coat hangers to support aluminum foil around the perimeter of the head. The heat problems are there, but less than with halogen lights. it would still be "only" 20 to 30 mW/cm^2, but it can cover 2 times more surface area than the sun by itself. You set the angle to 30 degrees back from directly facing the sun and be careful of not creating a parabola that focuses the sun on your skin. Actually, the cone shape will cause a doubling or more of intensity like my helmet. So it seems 50 mW/cm^2 would be easy, and it's possible to do it without too much of a heat problem since 5 minutes would be the treatment time. I would make one now, but getting it right would be a pain. Actually, instead of aluminum foil, you should use sections of aluminized insulation board ($12 for a 4x8 foot sheet, enough for 10 units. That may you can prevent a parabolic concentration and make it more easily. This is basically the same thing as a solar cooker. If heat is a problem, you would have to somehow add a thin layer of water blocking to the opening aperture. A red filter would also reduce heat. You can use red food coloring and a friend showed me the spectrum of the major red food coloring and it allows all the red through (it's red because it blocks light with wavelengths shorter than red).

[chris106]

Yeah, I've got nothing to do with any of that. Hmmm.....

Lostfalco, I updated my post above. Like I said, they sell all kinds of random stuff, and all of it has the "GOLDEN TULIP" trademark. Maybe it's just a rare coincidence...? Then again I cannot imagine that...

So maybe this guy knows more than we do, and we should conscider adding the following items to the TULIP stack:

http://www.amazon.de...0822966&sr=1-15

http://www.amazon.de...0822966&sr=1-23

http://www.amazon.de...0823675&sr=1-38


^__^

I think we may actually just be witnessing something along the lines of this:

http://images1.wikia...kle_concept.jpg

Anyways, since it seems to be the cheapest option in Germany (with an adapter included, that is) I just ordered the 48 LED one. Will report back once I finally start TULIPing

Edited by chris106, 03 October 2013 - 06:59 PM.