Re: Bluetooth Sleeping Mask Upgrade Fail
by DJDevon3 on Sun Mar 10, 2019 2:50 am
:0 Thank you for your gracious comment. It's only because of these modules that the project was a success.
I might have gone overboard with the 2500mAh battery. It doesn't fit in the mask for sheer size. The PCB's are smaller than the battery. I can make it smaller with a smaller battery but I'd sacrifice battery life for it.
Fully charged and started playing music at 90% at 5pm on Saturday. It's now 1am Sunday and still going. Been listening to music non-stop as a test at full volume... no heat. Also the larger wires now don't distort until it's at about 75% volume. I think the 50% distortion was due to under driving, feels like I hit a sweet spot RMS of 75%. I can go to 100% with slight distortion. It's LOUD. :)
One off the biggest things that pissed me off about my ProCIV mask purchase was its advertised 8 hour battery life. It actually lasts about 4-5 hours (180mAh battery). It won't even last a single sleep cycle without turning off. SMH. Even if I gave it a bigger battery that would not have fixed the low volume issue. It might last 8 hours at 1% volume, pffft marketing lies.
One of the things I love about Adafruit, if you guys say something will do X then it does X. Your electrical engineering skills are inspiring and advertising integrity matters. That's why whenever I have a small electronics project I usually look to see if Adafruit has it first. You guys are awesome. Needless to say if you had what I needed I would have purchased it in a heartbeat. Ideally, I'd love to see bluetooth amplifier boards that match different sized Li-ion battery sizes for project boxes so people can make their own and break out of this stupid cycle of broken headphones.
Looked on Amazon trying to compare what I made with commercial headphones to see where my creation stands... most of the bluetooth headphones that have a 30 hour battery life are around $50-$70 and headphones with a 40 hour battery life are about $80-$100+. Mine has some low frequency limitations of the small speakers (around 40Hz) but I'm not trying to make headphones in the traditional sense. In terms of sleeping masks there is no comparison to what I made.
I completely dissected my broken Logitech G930's during the brainstorming phase to get a little insight and know how they take a tiny $10 speaker and make it so loud. It's a dual diaphragm trick using the housing as a ported chamber that has more rubber in it which produces more waves like any diaphragm. Brilliant engineering trick. I also used the G930's for years for music production they have amazing bass response, true 25Hz bass, and a 600mAh battery. They are RF and have horrible issues with signal dropout, recharging, and breaking in every way possible. I went through 3 of those too. I was living in a broken headphone hell. Oddly enough my new bluetooth mask beats the G930 in range and signal stability. Weird! The G930's are RF and supposed to have longer range but they don't. The more I use my new mask the more I love it.
I feel completely justified with how much I spent on components to create what I have now. It's wireless, loud, 30+ hour battery life, can sleep with it on. Done with commercial headphones and sleeping masks. This is good enough to serve both roles for my needs. Well except music production I do have another pair of headphones for that. I want to make it smaller but I don't want to give up the 30+ hours of battery life lol. A good problem to have. :)
I'll take pics of the finished version when the battery finally dies after the initial test, still over 30+ hours. Will show the guts of it all and final wire routing.
Thank you to Adafruit and all the PCB module makers out there. You are doing truly great things so that people like me can make things easily without an engineering degree. You are the backbone to a world of electronic creativity. You help people make what might have been previously impossible daydreams, now possible. <3
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- Super thin fabric mask makes the bulge look big but it's just all the extra wires stuffed in there. It was supposed to be center mounted so wires length is still to be adjusted.
- IMG_1350_LR.jpg (872.9 KiB) Viewed 1009 times
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- Battery box too big to be center mounted due to cloth mask narrowing at the center. oops. The PCB's are smaller than the battery. A smaller battery could probably fit.
- IMG_1349_LR.jpg (651.26 KiB) Viewed 1009 times
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- Left temple mounted. It's mounted on the outside so can't feel it. Weight is slightly heavy but stays in place while sleeping. This image makes it look uncomfortable but it's just the additional wires I stuffed in there. Plenty of things to improve.
- IMG_1348_LR.jpg (856.27 KiB) Viewed 1009 times
Last edited by
DJDevon3 on Sun Mar 10, 2019 7:08 pm, edited 11 times in total.