Building a device to read your brains waves can be as simple as soldiering two wires and downloading special software!

Coming Very Soon!

You Will Need:

A Mattel Mindflex Headband (Usually Available On eBay For $20 Approx)

Arduino Uno. (Available On eBay For $5 Approx)

6' USB Cable A Male To B Male

Optional: Dupont 10CM Male Jumper Wire/Pin Headers

1.

Begin by opening the Mindflex on the side with the switch. Drill a small hole to allow two wires in, and soldier them as shown. You can use the Dupont pin headers mentioned above for a slick connection to your Arduino. Note: After completing connections, seal the hole with silicone or Goop brand glue.

2.

Close and replace the screws on your Mindflex headset. Attach your Arduino board to the Mindflex as show being careful not to cover the Mindflex power on led. To attach, use a blob of a flexible glue like Silicon or Goop brand glue and clamp overnight. Last, connect the wire coming from the Mindflex "T" connection to the Arduino board's "RX" plug, and the wire coming from the Mindflex ground to any Arduino Gnd pin.

Amazingly, this completes electrical assembly! Congratulations!

3.

You will need 4 pieces of software to get your brainwave analyzer up and running:

1.) The Arduino IDE (So that you can program your Arduino from your computer).

2.) The "Brain Library" (Which has the programs we'll upload to your Arduino).

3.) "Processing" (which will run the graphing program on your computer).

4.) "Brain Grapher" (which runs inside processing, and draws your brainwaves on screen).

Note: I've been very frustrated when building projects of this type to find that code available from online resources has changed between the time the project was written up, and the time I tried to build it. This has sometimes made projects I spent huge amounts of time on unworkable!

Therefore, I'm going to include one big zip file at the end of this document with all the software I actually used which is tested and known to work.

I would recommend trying the links to the original authors below first, in case improvements have been made, but if problems occur, feel free to download the zip file and use my proven backups!

I am anti your frustration, and pro your success!!!

4.

Click Here To Download Arduino's IDE For Your Computer

Important: After you Download Arduino's IDE program for your computer, install it before going further...

5.

Click Here To Download Arduino's Brain Library

Click the button above to go to the Arduino Brain Library.

When the page opens up, click "brain. zip," and select "Save File."

Save or copy this file ("brain.zip") into your "Arduino libraries Folder."

The Arduino libraries folder was created when you installed the Arduino IDE in the last step.

For example, my Arduino Library folder was found at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\libraries\

Once you have the file in your Arduino\libraries folder, unzip the file and a folder will be created there called "Brain. "

Note: If you are new to unzipping files, on a PC, simply right click on the file name, and select "unzip here."

6.

At this point, we can have some fun and test your headset and see if it is wired correctly and sending data!

Connect your Arduino to you computer using the USB cable.

Make sure your Mindflex headset has fresh batteries, and turn it on.

Run your Arduino IDE.

As seen above, select File/Examples/Brain/BrainSerialTest.

Next, select tools/port and select your serial port. (Mine happens to be "COM 10," but yours may have another number.)

Last, click on the right facing arrow in the upper left corner of your screen to upload the program to your headset!

Note: If you get errors while trying to upload, temporarily disconnect the wire attached to your "RX" pin on your Arduino. Upload your program, then reattach the wire.

Select Tools/Serial Monitor.

You should see a series of numbers, separated by commas, coming in every second or so as seen above...

This means your Mindflex is sending your brainwave information correctly!

7.

Click Here To Download Processing

Click Here To Download Brain Grapher

Building a device to read your brains waves can be as simple as soldiering two wires and downloading special software!

Coming Very Soon!

You Will Need:

​

A Mattel Mindflex Headband (Usually Available On eBay For $20 Approx)

Arduino Uno. (Available On eBay For $5 Approx)

6' USB Cable A Male To B Male

Optional: Dupont 10CM Male Jumper Wire/Pin Headers

​

1.

2.

Amazingly, this completes electrical assembly! Congratulations!

3.

You will need 4 pieces of software to get your brainwave analyzer up and running:

​

1.) The Arduino IDE (So that you can program your Arduino from your computer).

2.) The "Brain Library" (Which has the programs we'll upload to your Arduino).

3.) "Processing" (which will run the graphing program on your computer).

4.) "Brain Grapher" (which runs inside processing, and draws your brainwaves on screen).

​

Note: I've been very frustrated when building projects of this type to find that code available from online resources has changed between the time the project was written up, and the time I tried to build it. This has sometimes made projects I spent huge amounts of time on unworkable!

Therefore, I'm going to include one big zip file at the end of this document with all the software I actually used which is tested and known to work.

I would recommend trying the links to the original authors below first, in case improvements have been made, but if problems occur, feel free to download the zip file and use my proven backups!

I am anti your frustration, and pro your success!!!

4.

Important: After you Download Arduino's IDE program for your computer, install it before going further...

5.

Click the button above to go to the Arduino Brain Library.

When the page opens up, click "brain. zip," and select "Save File."

Save or copy this file ("brain.zip") into your "Arduino libraries Folder."

The Arduino libraries folder was created when you installed the Arduino IDE in the last step.

​

For example, my Arduino Library folder was found at:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Arduino\libraries\

​

Once you have the file in your Arduino\libraries folder, unzip the file and a folder will be created there called "Brain. "

​

Note: If you are new to unzipping files, on a PC, simply right click on the file name, and select "unzip here."

6.

At this point, we can have some fun and test your headset and see if it is wired correctly and sending data!

Connect your Arduino to you computer using the USB cable.

Make sure your Mindflex headset has fresh batteries, and turn it on.

Run your Arduino IDE.

As seen above, select File/Examples/Brain/BrainSerialTest.

Next, select tools/port and select your serial port. (Mine happens to be "COM 10," but yours may have another number.)

Last, click on the right facing arrow in the upper left corner of your screen to upload the program to your headset!

​

Note: If you get errors while trying to upload, temporarily disconnect the wire attached to your "RX" pin on your Arduino. Upload your program, then reattach the wire.

Select Tools/Serial Monitor.

You should see a series of numbers, separated by commas, coming in every second or so as seen above...

This means your Mindflex is sending your brainwave information correctly!

7.

Our last step is to download a program that will graph our brainwaves and let us VISUALIZE them!

To do this, use the buttons above to download the version of "Processing" for your computer.

Unzip "Processing" in a folder of your choosing

Next, download the "Brain Grapher" software.

Make sure that your Arduino IDE serial monitor is closed.

Run "Processing," and open brain_grapher.pde in "Processing."

​