
Induction powered LED lit engagement ring - bcl
http://www.kokes.net/projectlonghaul/projectlonghaul.htm
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jcampbell1
As a person who made his own titanium wedding ring, I have to laugh a bit. It
appears this ring is chamfered on only one side. That makes it a bit of a
chinese finger trap, easy to put on, uncomfortable to remove. A good metaphor.

Don't tell my wife, but cutting a round chamfer on the back side of a ring is
really hard. I built a custom chock and ground a tool to do just that.

Assuming the diamonds are all recessed, cutting a backside chamfer shouldn't
be impossible. Just chock, indicate, and re-chock, repeat, until you get it
aligned.

This is a brilliant piece of art.

The only thing I would add is that titanium is a PITA, but while I have no
experience, apparently most of the problems go away when you have coolant. I
have seen production cutting tools at GE Aircraft and they rough cut like it
is butter.

~~~
ISL
If you're familiar with stainless, Ti isn't that different. Go slow, listen to
what your tools are telling you. Carbide tooling doesn't hurt, but isn't
inherently requisite. Titanium is a wonderful jewelry material (biocompatible,
low density, durable, polishes fairly well). It's only "downside" is that it's
not expensive. Well-made Ti stuff draws the same attention as higher-Z
materials.

I've made a number of Ti rings, but haven't set stones, as the You'll save a
lot of time by starting with Ti tubing rather than turning the hole into
chips. Depending on the size you need, relevant tubing isn't always available.
Anodization is really fun.

I'd check into the biocompatibility of permalloy. Nickel allergies are real
and can be acquired, sometimes from rings. Might rust/discolor fingers over
the long term too.Laminating a Ti strip to the permalloy might help to
attenuate the situation?

Chamfering the inside of a ring isn't hard to do with careful sanding on the
lathe. Doing it wrong will amputate your finger or worse -- seek qualified
instruction.

The article doesn't make mention of accommodating water/drainage. What happens
if a little water gets beneath the stones after a hand-washing?

What a cool and inspired piece of work!

~~~
jodrellblank
Somewhat offtopic, but since you mentioned anodizing titanium, it reminded me
of an example - anodized titanium chopsticks:

[http://tistix.com/cart3/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=...](http://tistix.com/cart3/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2)

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D9u
There's more "hacking" that went into this ring than most of the usual HN
front page articles.

This is truly an impressive bit of work, and I hope the author and his beloved
share a happy and healthy life together for the rest of their days.

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Turing_Machine
"Well, she insists that I change the design on this ring to make it more
permanent and forgo a professionally made ring."

You have a keeper here. I made a (low-tech) engagement ring for my late wife,
years ago. She would never have dreamed of replacing it.

~~~
hndude
I'm sorry for your loss

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will_brown
This is really awesome. Funny enough there was a post and on going discussion
on HN recently regarding the social pressure on women to have a traditional
diamond ring. I refrained from commenting, very unlike me, but I wanted to
make the point at the time that if a women presented her friends with a small
brown stone, but the back story was how her partner mined the diamond and
shaped it himself, no store bought diamond or social norms could compare.

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hkmurakami
Haha I used to work with Ben (the OP) a few years ago and saw this on his FB
over the weekend. He is an awesome and hilarious guy on top of being an
amazing hacker (especially in hardware). It was a pleasure working with him
for the few months before he left the company.

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DanBC
This is lovely!

It's really interesting to see all the metal work stuff that went into making
this ring.

I _love_ seeing the failures of mounting the stones. Seeing a product from
start to finish is good, but seeing the problems encountered during the
process is a better opportunity for me to learn.

A gentle note of warning: if you ever have a problem with your finger please
take off your titanium ring before your finger starts to swell. It's tricky
for clinicians to cut off titanium rings. Gold and silver are much softer and
much easier to cut off.

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drone
Excellent job, it reminds me a lot of the effort and creativity involved with
the Gir Proposal Robot[1].

Kudos to the OP for taking the time, and effort, to create something unique
while learning a lot in the process. You've set the bar higher for creative
proposals =)

Regarding stone-setting, a quick thought on that -- since you have to mount
material (and fill) on the inside of the ring, could you not have made the
holes larger on the inside than the outside, and fixed their positions from
the filler?

~~~
twrkit
link for the robot?

~~~
drone
Sorry, I failed to add that in: <http://rangerx52.weebly.com/>

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ChuckMcM
Awesome ring! At some point someone will make flex circuits for this type of
application. And it certainly puts the old one-button rings from Dallas
Semiconductor to shame :-)

~~~
xradionut
Most of the button wasn't circuitry and the one wire chips were packaged in
various formats depended on the use. There were some nifty amazing prototypes
that never made it to the public. (I can neither confirm nor deny previous
employment at DS or TI.) :P

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nine_k
If I ever saw a work of love, this is it.

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notatoad
So the problem of attaching the stones was never really solved? that section
seemed to be leading up to a moment of genius and a thrilling conclusion, but
it looked like it was just epoxy in the end.

~~~
VLM
By him, not really. Professionally the term to google for is stonesetting
techniques. Its a pity titanium is an unholy pain to solder, otherwise he'd
have been a perfect candidate for bezel mounting (basically think of how glass
pieces are held in stained glass windows, wrap the edges with foil, more or
less, and solder the foil).

He has the same Polish made 5C collet chuck on his lathe as I have on mine in
the basement.

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primo44
This title is really difficult to parse as it is:

    
    
      "Induction powered LED lit engagement ring"
    

mostly because it should be:

    
    
      "Induction-powered, LED-lit engagement ring"

~~~
qu4z-2
I agree with "Induction-powered" and "LED-lit" but I think the comma is going
too far. Then again I'm a comma minimalist ('though I do like the oxford comma
for some reason).

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benjamincburns
The ring I bought for my wife has a highly fluorescent solitary diamond. If
you can find enough of these to fit your final version, and if you can find
LEDs of a sufficient wavelength to trigger fluorescence, the result might be
quite nice.

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jenius
This is insane and very impressive, but I have to ask -- how does he have
access to all these tools, and all this expertise? Is this a product of his
job as an engineer? These seem like a lot of very expensive and large
metalworking tools and some seriously in-depth domain knowledge. Really
impressive either way.

~~~
nrivadeneira
At the bottom he mentions that he'd gotten some help from friends, however a
lot of this is knowledge gained over time as an engineer and wisdom passed on
from more senior engineers. Some engineers have their own metalworking
equipment at home, but it's also possible he did this at his place of
employment.

~~~
maxerickson
He also mentions TechShop. Maybe after an edit? They sell access to machine
tools and such:

<http://www.techshop.ws/>

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bjpirt
Fantastic project! My wife and I spent the day making rings for each other
here:

<http://www.weddingringworkshop.co.uk/cms.php?pageid=2>

which is highly recommended, but sadly we didn't have the option to add an
inductively powered LED lighting element to them :-)

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splendidfailure
This is one of the most heartwarming things I've read on HN, thank you for
posting details of how you did it!

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nicholassmith
I really enjoy reading hardware write ups, because it's such a completely
different set of skills and seems fascinating. Plus look at how awesome the
finished product is, it's a clever combination of components and I'm not
surprised his fiance said to just make it more polished.

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Chocolator
I still love my husband's grandmother's ring...but damn, this is cool.

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tlrobinson
"the stone would fracture along pre-existing crack lines."

"The failure mechanism is that it CRUSHES the stone to dust"

Presumably these weren't diamonds then...? Those would be expensive mistakes.

~~~
ars
Small diamonds aren't all that expensive, especially if you get them with
flaws (which are usually invisible anyway), and off colors (which can't be
seen if the stone is mounted).

Little ones (about the size on this ring) can be had for $5-$20.

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mickcartwright
As neither a mechanic nor a photographer, thank you for the clear explanation.
I learned a lot and was, at the same time, smiling... was your (now) fiance
berating you during the development process for spending all of your time in
the workshop/start up office or did she know what she is getting in to. Let's
be honest, with your skill level on fabrication combined with curiosity I
don't suppose this is the last project...

Meanwhile a (long and rambling) question. With some friends we bought a friend
a quality lathe for their birthday. I was involved in sneaking it in to their
basement, and holy __* was that thing heavy! During the write up you make use
of various tools - some seem appear to be professional level, base mounted
etc, then at the end you mention the dremel... right place/right time... does
it do the job you expect of it?

As an Englishman that moved to the US, 15 years later I am still trying to
decipher infomercials, advertisements, brand names & US/Europe preconceptions,
all comment welcome!

------
outworlder
Now, this is the sort of stuff I expect to find on Hacker News. Awesome work.

Since electronics are getting smaller, perhaps we are going to see more
"useful" rings. RFID rings for identification, anyone?

~~~
asciimo
You might enjoy <http://hackaday.com/>, if you don't already.

~~~
outworlder
Thank you for the link! I had seen that site before, but my brain's garbage
collector removed it for some reason. Must be a bug :)

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etrautmann
Awesome idea! I was thinking of doing something similar using an energy
scavenging IC with the coil and only pulsing the LED for brief flashes when
enough charge is stored.

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caycep
but does it bind all the other rings of power?

~~~
oneandoneis2
The Nine, Seven and the Three each had their proper gem, not so the One.

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maximem
Next step: the OAuth Ring ;)

~~~
arethuza
There was a Java Ring back in '98:

<http://www.nngroup.com/articles/javaring-wearable-computer/>

I would imagine much smarter (and nicer looking) devices must be available, or
at least possible, these days.

~~~
maximem
Awesome! ;) Access your cloud with your NFC OAuth ring. Maybe it could need a
little bit more security in case you loose it (a DNA checker... just kidding).

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rdrey
Now build a USB-powered mousepad to make her ring glow all day at work!

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codereflection
This is awesome. I'm not sure my non-geek wife would like it, but I would
have.

Many people wear their rings in the shower, or even just washing their hands.
I wonder how it stands up to water damage.

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codex
Impressive--but likely uncomfortable to wear because of the thickness and
square edges. Perhaps a comfort fit finish on the interior, with rounded
corners, and a third less thick.

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shmerl
Next project, the ring of power with glowing inscription?-)

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quackerhacker
>There was a small hitch...i[t']s a really tight fit for her

Definitely the Homer Simpson D'oh moment. Could you have shaved the inside to
make the adjustments?

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steven2012
What an awesome idea! You should have patented it!

~~~
rcfox
Nikola Tesla might have something to say about that...

~~~
TimCinel
Do you mean Faraday?

~~~
tripzilch
No, for 70 years.

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sp332
Figure 37 at the bottom reminds me of Iron Man :)

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kaeawc
Ridiculously cool. Thanks for posting this!

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BostX
Good luck at airport security checks :)

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monsterix
Cool piece of work! How about making the ring glow in a particular color when
the guy is in proximity? Imagine how awesome it'd be for the girl to get up
and say "well, my boyfriend is here..."

And on another note I figured that this is exactly how machines creep into our
lives - emotional pitch. Live example!

~~~
D9u
Reading the article, it appears that the ring only lights up when near the
device worn on the man's forearm, but I'm not sure at what distance the
illumination occurs.

~~~
monsterix
Yes, glowing when hands are close suggests that the two are 'zinged'.

Triggering a color when the partner is close within a few feet after a period
of absence would mean 'he is here'.

