Diminished human

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My second flex implant is failing, and just like when it happened to the first one, I’m feeling a deep sense of loss. As in, some bodily function of mine quit working, and right now I’m not dealing with that too well for various reasons. There’s the practical aspect of it of course (I went to the office today and got stuck outside the door for instance) but also the feeling that there’s someone functional that’s now dead inside me.

It’s all well and good to augment humans. But the flip side of it is, when the techno gadgetry fails, you revert to a boring ole human being bit by bit and somehow it’s rougher than I thought it’d be. And nobody seems to be addressing that part of the process… Or maybe I’m overly sensitive because that sort of shenanigan happened to me in the past (losing bodily abilities that is) and it hits too close to home.

Anyhow, I’m done bitching. Sorry, I just needed to vent a bit.

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Wow deep and sad.

“Why care for these petty obsessions? Your designer heart still beats with common blood.
And what if you could have “genetic perfection” would you change who you are, if you could?

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There are a few genes I have that I would swap just right now…

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I can totally relate to that…
The loss of my flexy was combined with enough pain and trouble (and I had it only for 4 months), so I was even a bit relieved to get it out, but I feel similar about my piercings.
Every single one became a part of me, and I had to take some of them out after some time again - and I felt deeply incomplete. Something of myself was missing.

Many people don’t understand that, “it’s just some jewelry”, but if you integrated something into your body, meant to be permanent, took some pain or whatever to get / keep it, and then lose it again… that’s a bad feeling. And for you it’s even worse, because you lose some functionality…

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I’m sure this sort of thing would be just the same for someone with a medical implant as it’s a self-perception self-image thing.

Mourn the loss of a part of yourself, but not too long, as there’s new and exciting experiences still to be had. :mechanical_arm:

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That really sucks, always sad to hear about implant failure

Just out of curiosity, which implant was it?

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I had two implants fail. Both were pre-alpha prototypes, and it was expected they would, but it was a disappointment to have to lose the capability they offered.

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The first to fail was the flexNExT. This one, surprisingly, is a flexM1.

It quit working yesterday monrning: I went out to change a tire on my bike, and when I went back inside the house, the door wouldn’t open. But that happens sometimes, so I didn’t think much of it, and the lock has an emergency keypad. And then I went to the office and my office door (also keyed to that implant) didn’t open either. That never happens. And I didn’t have the key. I had to press on the implant this and that way to finally get it to answer briefly after 15 minutes. Kind of like the flexNExT in fact: if I ram my thumb hard on it at the right point, it too starts working again.

So in a sense I now have an enable button on the flexM1 I guess :slight_smile: Trouble is, it’ll soon stop working altogether. I can tell.

Well, if I implanted something untested, I would internalize the risk and live with it. But I’m not the adventurous type: I want reliable first and foremost.

For the flexNExT, I suppose it was a little rash of me to play early adopter. I should have let others play guinea pig before ordering. I started using it, developing things for it to exploit its fabulous range, and the blinkies and everything. When it died, all that good fun suddenly stopped. And to add insult to injury, it was still causing me a lot of grief with the healing. It still annoys me today when I look at it in fact, seeing how nice and settled it is, and how well the scar has turned out, knowing that it was all for nothing.

For the flexM1, I had done my research: it seemed to be a mature product nobody had much trouble with, and I selected a very safe implant location and positioning in my hand so it would be best protected against shocks and wouldn’t experience undue forces due to my hand’s movements. It went in, healed in 2 days and worked like a champ for nearly a year. I bought nearly 2 grands worth of NFC locks to go with it (which don’t work with smaller implants). I thought this one was a winner. But… no joy with that one either.

I’ll be implanting a flexDF2 and a flexNT this saturday (and a few other things too), so I should get the locks working again. We’ll see how long those last, if I get the opportunity. But I’m not holding much hope. I’ll implant them fully expecting them to fail at some point: at least it / when they fail, it won’t be such a disappointment.

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Oh, indeed. I ensured removals were within easy reach. But the loss was still felt.

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Yeah, that’s another thing: replacement means flying 400 miles down south to visit the one body modder in Finland who can perform it, or waiting for him to pay his yearly visit to my local tattoo parlor (he’s in such demand that he does a sort of circuit every year to dispense his magic locally :slight_smile:) Not convenient. Living in the boonies has its perks, but easy access to body modification services is not one of them.

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Removal, thankfully, was a trip to my local skin cancer doctor, who is a family friend. He even billed the government for “foreign object removal” so I wasn’t out of pocket. Installs are a train ride away.

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Ah right okay. Sorry I misunderstood.

Hmm, naughty naughty.

The few times I went to the doctor to get my flexNExT arm checked (and an X-ray), I specifically requested to pay for it myself. And if I had to go see a doc for anything implant-related that I elected to do to myself, I would again, because I think it’s only fair to the Finnish taxpayer that they don’t have to foot the bill for stupid shit I do. But that debate is another ball of wax…

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How often do flex implants fail? Are the large circular implants more prone to failure than the smaller type?

I realise that electronics always have a failure rate, I am just wondering if the MTBF is known or if it is just “we hope it won’t fail but you might get the unlucky one that fails two days after it is all healed.”

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Personally, looking at the different flex designs I don’t think i’d go with anything where the coil wires are soldered on and only supported by the biopolymer, eg. flexM1.

@Satur9 should really speak to this but the newer flex wedge design, eg. flexDF2 looks pretty robust to me.

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I’m trying.

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I’m a QA engineer. I go by testing results, or if that’s not available, the next best thing, which is a large enough sample of users and associated failure rate - or if the latter isn’t available, some representation of it based on how many people seem complain about a certain product and how loud they complain.

I’m not aware of obvious, widespread problems with the copper antenna flex implants. I’m sure there are, like with any product, but it doesn’t seem to be systemic. Hence my choosing that design (and in the case of the flexM1, it’s the only option for a large M1k implant anyway).

The new PCB design? Well if knowledgeable engineers say it’s better, I’m ready to believe it. But my QA reflex is to view it as an untested product first and foremost.

I guess I’ll see how my new flexDF2 fares in my - apparently jinxed - carcass :slight_smile:

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By the way, in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m not blaming anyone or complaining about anything, or demanding anything. The mere fact that people are developing those implants, that they exist in the first place, and that we’re even in a position to discuss reliability is amazing enough in and of itself. I couldn’t be happier with what DT is doing and the work everybody involved is doing, and I’m grateful for the opportunity to stick their products under my skin.

I just wanted to document the strange emotional side effect of losing the use of those implants. I didn’t expect that when I embarked on that particular journey, is all.

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The issue with the wire contacts to the chip has to do with the welding process over any support issues. The wires are so small and fine that soldering isn’t an option really. Instead we use a welding process. The welding process is actually quite good normally speaking, but normally speaking it’s done by robot set to a specific pressure… and the robot is not an option for what I’m doing (and it’s super expensive) so I’m forced to do it by hand under the microscope… and this introduces subjectivity and human error into a process that has finished results that are actually impossible to see or really test well… is that a good weld junction or does it just look that way? You can’t really tell with human eyes just looking at it under the microscope.

To be fair I think though that the answer might be to attempt to weld it first to hold wires in place, then try to dab it with a bit of solder. The trick though is that solder will form hills and bumps and spikes and those will cause havoc with the polymer encapsulation… which is part of the reason I avoided soldering all together.

It’s a right mess.

The ultimate solution is to go for a new PCB antenna, but the target inductance is too high at the moment to fit within the bounds of what’s possible at the moment. I’m sure as things progress into multilayer PCBs we can bump the inductance, but for now there’s a bit of a priority problem with that so there’s no ETA for this type of experimentation.

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Have you tried this?

image

image

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What size wire nuts do you need for chips?

I am waiting to see the photo of the wire nut monstrosity that @amal encapsulates for you for your next implant. :rofl: