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Hey Ben, glad to read from you! Let's not worry, this part is only the electronics heart of a probe.. and still, more part of a tech dev kit than of a medical d

by kelu124 11y ago

Hey Ben, glad to read from you! Let's not worry, this part is only the electronics heart of a probe.. and still, more part of a tech dev kit than of a medical device =) edit: disclaimer included in the homepage, thanks for the idea !

bencollier49 11y ago
It might be worth exercising the precautionary principle in this case. If someone builds your electronics and decides that you didn't warn them before they used it, you could find yourself in a difficult position. A simple disclaimer somewhere visible would do the trick.
- CamperBob2 11y ago
  <pet_peeve> It's never worth exercising the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is epistemologically invalid: you can never know, much less prove, that something is "safe." The precautionary principle would have confined us to the caves, if not to the trees. In more modern times, for example, it's been used to fight nuclear power plants that might harm some people at some point, in favor of coal-fired plants that definitely do. There are valid reasons to be concerned about the effects of high-intensity ultrasound and warn potential builders of this gadget about them... but that's not the precautionary principle in action, just common sense. </pet_peeve>
bencollier49 11y ago
Hi - thanks for listening. You're doing great stuff.
semi-extrinsic 11y ago
Really cool project! Do you have a total cost estimate somewhere? I toyed with a similar idea a couple of years back, but a friend who was actually working on developing algorithms for medical ultrasound told me I'd be looking at several thousand dollars worth of hardware. Importantly, how many transducers are you planning on using? I understand typical medical ultrasound uses a phased array with hundreds of transducers. That's what drove up my friend's cost estimate. What you can do with a single transducer, though, is listen to a baby's heartbeat using the Doppler effect. (You can buy a fetal Doppler device on Amazon for about $40, that could be a good reference for calibrating your power output to make it reasonably safe.)

by kelu124 11y ago

bencollier49 11y ago

It might be worth exercising the precautionary principle in this case. If someone builds your electronics and decides that you didn't warn them before they used it, you could find yourself in a difficult position. A simple disclaimer somewhere visible would do the trick.

CamperBob2 11y ago
<pet_peeve> It's never worth exercising the precautionary principle. The precautionary principle is epistemologically invalid: you can never know, much less prove, that something is "safe." The precautionary principle would have confined us to the caves, if not to the trees. In more modern times, for example, it's been used to fight nuclear power plants that might harm some people at some point, in favor of coal-fired plants that definitely do. There are valid reasons to be concerned about the effects of high-intensity ultrasound and warn potential builders of this gadget about them... but that's not the precautionary principle in action, just common sense. </pet_peeve>

bencollier49 11y ago

Hi - thanks for listening. You're doing great stuff.

semi-extrinsic 11y ago

Really cool project! Do you have a total cost estimate somewhere? I toyed with a similar idea a couple of years back, but a friend who was actually working on developing algorithms for medical ultrasound told me I'd be looking at several thousand dollars worth of hardware. Importantly, how many transducers are you planning on using? I understand typical medical ultrasound uses a phased array with hundreds of transducers. That's what drove up my friend's cost estimate. What you can do with a single transducer, though, is listen to a baby's heartbeat using the Doppler effect. (You can buy a fetal Doppler device on Amazon for about $40, that could be a good reference for calibrating your power output to make it reasonably safe.)