A friend of mine was born with a birth defect in which one of his eyes did not grow to fix the eye socket. Because having a hollow eye socket looks really creepy, he got a fake eyeball to fill it and look normal.
I recently had the idea that said fake eyeball should be replaced with a laser pointer, on the grounds that it would be so awesome it hurt. However, googling has not gotten me very far on this subject. So, I pose these questions:
-How big is the average eye socket?
-Are there any laser pointers that can fit an eye socket?
-Can they be obtained cheaply, and preferably, also have a good battery life and remote control?
One of the major complicating factors is that his eye is still there, and I’m guessing he doesn’t want it poked out, so it can’t be a completely spherical laser pointer, but have a recession in back for it. Does anyone know where this could be obtained, or if it is even possible to create cheaply?
The average eye is bigger than you’d think, and if you were to replace the entire eyeball I think you could fit a little lasser pointer in there. But you might have to make or modify it yourself to fit – most of the laser pointer’s length is due to the batteries used.
The problem is that I don’t think artificial eyes really are the entire eyeball. At the last place I worked, they made artificial eyes down the hall from me.* The parts they made, which were astonishingly realistic, with tiny red blood vessels and very detailed irises, were only the front portions of the eyeball. I still have a couple of rejects they gave me.
I swear that this is true. It was a really bizarre thing to find out, and I used to drop in on them and talk and watch them make fake eyes on the smallest injection molding machine 've ever seen. They used to make eyes for the audioanimatrionic figures at Disney, too.
On a related note… I work at an ophthalmology/optometry library, and when I started this job I inherited a huge cataloging backlog of books, pamphlets, journals, objects, etc, that belong in our archive/rare book collection.
One day as I was sorting through some stacks of stuff I came across a brief-case like box. I casually opened it to find out what was in it… and found 5 dozen glass eyes staring back at me! I let out a shriek that was probably heard throughout the library.
They were very realistic, in many different iris shades. And I was surprised to find they aren’t the same size & shape as a real eyeball. The oogiest thing was I’m pretty sure these were used glass eyes. ::shudder::
Naahh – the Terminator only had a glowing red Eye. His friends is looking to have one that shoots out a laser beam. Sounds more like he’s friends with Locutus of Borg.
You know, I have one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads! Now evidently my cycloptic colleague informs me that that cannot be done.
Scleral shell (on the right).kaylasmom has two of these. Not a whole lot of room to accommodate a laser device, even one powered by button batteries (the kind you find in a watch or a hearing aid).
But if you did find one, you might need to consider switch placement. It can’t be a good idea to have a powered laser in your eye socket 24/7. And battery replacement? Better to just make it rechargeable with an inductance charger, I suppose.
I don’t this would not be difficult to do. The problem is making sure you aren’t going to scratch him with the back side or cause an infection. If you buy the smallest pointer you can find you could just take it apart, drill a small countersunk hole for the laser portion (which can be a tiny LED) and wire up the batteries to the back. You would have to coat the whole thing in an epoxy or something that is inert and safe for the body. Making the batteries changeable would be much more difficult as would an easy access on/off switch. These would be much easier to include in the back. Then, he could carry his replacement eye with him and just turn it on and insert it whenever he wanted to be cool, and by cool I mean totally sweet.
An easier solution, and potentially more awesomely hurtful, would be to use a variety of LEDs. Power consumption and size is less, and could fit inside an eyeball quite easily. You could also include a small circuit to blink/cycle in various patterns and colors.
I envision a bat-shaped pupil with which you could project the bat symbol
My entirely speculative intuition is that it might get a bit hot, even with a low-power device.
kaylasmom, when we met, had only one prosthesis, and she did keep it in her eye socket 24/7. She had a pair of them made for her a couple of years ago, and she rarely sleeps with them in place. I cannot speak for other users.
As for drilling a hole in the prosthesis, I can’t see that being a practicable option. It’s more likely that you’d want to have the entire thing fabricated in one piece by an ocularist. An inductively charged battery (such as you see with some electric toothbrushes), and a magnetically activated switch would theoretically make this doable. Obstacles might include adequate miniaturization of components and ability of the components to survive the finishing processes.
And LCDs would probably be superior to LEDs, both in terms of power consumption and awsome image capability.
OK, so laser pointers would be way too much of a hassle. But LEDs…I think I’d be content with making him an ultra-brite LED eyeball (Flashlight wherever you look!). This would be easier and cheaper, thank god.
I was thinking of something that would replace the prosthetic eyeball, not something that would be included in it. However, an on-off switch, preferably remote controlled (because pulling out your eye to change it every time is just too weird), would be needed, as well as some sort of power source that’s either rechargable or easily replaced and lasts long. Of course, I still have to find out what to set it in.
What materials are there that the average joe can shape that wouldn’t distort, splinter, break, etc? Because none of those would be very good in an eyeball.
I notice you haven’t mentioned your friend expressing any opinion on what you’re going to install in his orbit. Do you plan to spring this on him as a surprise gift?
Man, I’m humming Goldeneye here and thinking about all the tacky lines about seeing red, and worst of all, about your friend keeping an eye out for you—
Most laser pointers seem to have diodes in them that are potted into a metal can that is quite large; I’m sure you can buy much smaller-packaged laser diodes as new components, but they’re not going to be cheap.
I’d say there’s no way the average joe can produce an ocular prosthetic. The tiniest bump or seam will feel like a razor blade. A prosthetic that’s the wrong size will fall out, or cause massive headaches. Problems with sizing are one of the reasons prosthetics are now just a hollow front third of the eye.
I don’t see a remote control being feasible. It would take up more space. I think you’d also have problems with the signal being blocked by the guy’s head. Then there are the usual problems of picking a frequency nobody else is using.
Finally, exactly what is the condition of your friend’s socket? How big is the underdeveloped eye? How far back is it seated?
I can think of a way this would work. On examination of my eye belt-buckle (It’s a real medical grade prosthetic, mounted on a metal backing and covered in fine leather) It looks like the pupil is clear. If this is true, you can buy an LED flasher ring, earring, body jewelry etc and mount it on the inside of the glass eye. Space shouldn’t be a problem. Unfortunately, mounting is a problem. Glues tend to have labels warning you to keep them out of your eyes. However, once you solve this problem, you’ve got an ordinary eye with a flashing pupil.
