Has anyone ever seen anything like this? I can’t imagine this hasn’t been attempted

  • toiletobserver
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    78 months ago

    This sounds like a job for 3d printing.

    Also, can you say more about your idea? Are they just speakers in the ear lobe? Ear buds held in place by something that goes through the lobe? Something else?

    • @yokonzoOP
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      48 months ago

      I mean I have a 3d printer I could prototype but generally 3d prints aren’t an end all solution as their porous surfaces are a breeding ground for bacteria. And after some testing I could think of maybe two ways to accomplish this, one with a speaker behind a half circle that fits in like a plug. The downside of this design is you would constantly have to rotate the open portion of the semicircle to be directed towards your ear canal. The other idea is an assembly that fits in as a plug and uses a probe that rests against an area behind your ear to do bone conduction rather than straight audio. This is generally meant to be a stealth or at the least pretty discreet listening system

      • @[email protected]
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        fedilink
        38 months ago

        Well, I don’t really have any ideas for implementing the actual headphone portion. But as for the porous nature of 3d prints, I offer 2 separate solutions with wildly different cost points:

        1. Get/use a resin printer.
        2. Use a filler on the surface of your filament print like bondo, and then finish it with a coating of some kind, possibly epoxy.
        • @papalonian
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          48 months ago

          A common one is to 3d print a mold for pouring a different material

    • @[email protected]
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      fedilink
      38 months ago

      I think he’s thinking like conduction headphones. Some of them are pretty decent.

      But without the pressure against your head they lose effectiveness real fast.

      • @Paragone
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        18 months ago

        There was a bone-conduction rig, years-ago, that went through one’s collarbones, instead of one’s skull…

        it sorta draped small-scarf-like around one’s neck, & over one’s shoulders, iirc…