The Shaman Box

Aha!!! Finally.....I've completed the Brain Wave/Audio Machine (aka The Shaman Box) and I think I'm in love. I've always been a sucker for flashing lights. Years ago I began building the original Brain Machine glasses that interface via the parallel port on my old DOS box. I'd set the pattern to something interesting and slip on the headphones with some heavy techno...and just relax. (in fact, my author photo shows the original glasses I built).

I was never quite happy though....of course, because of issues getting the Brain Machine software to work on my XP laptop. XP does odd things to the parallel port addresses. I happened across Andrew Moya's page at hackcanada.com and knew I had to build it. So....it's taken me a while..but I got there in the end.

I LOVE this thing! The left/right LEDs are driven by the two channels output from the audio source (in my case, my aging MP3 player)......so the pattern displayed on the retinas are directly pumped in via the music. I've wired in a 3.5mm pass-thru, so I plug in my MP3 player and headphones to the two 3.5mm jacks. The glasses plug into the RCA jacks. Unlike Andrew's original schematic, I used a double-ganged 50K pot (since I found some surplus). I coated the clear safety glasses with GCE's Insulating Compound (aka liquid electrical tape)....to cut out ambient light, protect the LED interconnections and well....it just looks cooler..grin. The enclosure is a Hammond box. I connected the 9-volt battery in an external holder since I think it'd be a pain to open it up to change the battery.

This is easy to build....taking a few hours. And so well worth the effort.

Andrew's site: http://www.hackcanada.com/homegrown/wetware/brainwave/audio_machine/index.html

Note: I have found this site: http://www.bwgen.com/magicjim/.
I don't know if MagicJim is the originator of the schematic or not, but hey, check it out.

The original Brain Wave Machine (parallel port interfaced) site : http://www.hackcanada.com/homegrown/wetware/brainwave/

Check it out. Wire your brain.....and trip the light fantastic.