Simulating bedwetting

[PaSS]

I also considered doing this, except building on it a little to be an overall potty training simulation. I thought about building it into a camelback so you could wear it around the house and having the Arduino set to dispense at semi random intervals. If you wanted to make it even more complicated you could add some kind of haptic feedback as a warning system.

Oh snap I might have to take your idea reguarding the camelback. I have one and that would be an epic addition . I guess it really comes down to when I go out and buy the supplies to make this.

 

[robertabdl74]

Sounds like fun. Is their a way to keep the water warm to

 

[RetroGamerGuy]

Oh man so many incredibly amazing tinkerer people here! Im laughing at how absurdly awesome this all sounds. Kinda getting err (forgive the spelling) Rube Goldburg esq vibes here about an elaborate bed wetting simulator

 

[PaSS]

um, fanny pack, small chemical heat pack (the hand-warmer kind), water balloon, and little tube. For a time delay block the tube with something water soluble.

Oh hey thats a thought... I wonder if a hand warmer can keep the water warm long enough. As for your solution to delay. Id prefer to go electronic so the liquid can be drained over 5 or so hours instead of seconda haha. As for a water ballon maybe not. I might wake up with more then a wet diaper and fried electronics...

Maybe I can use one of those enema bag things. The red ones that are rubber. They are built for warm water and a liquid output. Still would need a small pump to allow it to drain the bag.

 

[Slomo]

A simple bag of water can drain slowly, and still be gravity fed. You'd only need to have an inline restrictor or partially closed valve. (Like an IV drip). Just place it on an elevated surface and now you can have a small electric heating pad under it too. Set it on low and that would be enough to keep the water warm without burning anything after the water is drained.

 

[NotSoDrynites]

A peristaltic pump is probably the best way to go, as it should be easy to drive and have a lower chance of leaking. I think from memory some are designed specifically to go onto the tube of an IV bag.

 

[sk1n1m1n]

Why not drop warm water on the pull up and put it on

 

[looklook1]

I have done a low tech version of this. I used a 1 liter saline bag and a 60 drop iv dripset. I set an alarm for 3 in the morning, woke up enough to very slightly open the drip set, and was asleep well before the saline made it all the way down the tubing. I work in the medical field, may be difficult to get these supplies otherwise.

Edit: or just go on Amazon and pick one up lol

 

[PaSS]

Why not drop warm water on the pull up and put it on

The idea is to wakeup wet of a diaper that was dry before going to bed

I have done a low tech version of this. I used a 1 liter saline bag and a 60 drop iv dripset. I set an alarm for 3 in the morning, woke up enough to very slightly open the drip set, and was asleep well before the saline made it all the way down the tubing. I work in the medical field, may be difficult to get these supplies otherwise.

Edit: or just go on Amazon and pick one up lol

Yea I guess I could do that. I might who knows

A peristaltic pump is probably the best way to go, as it should be easy to drive and have a lower chance of leaking. I think from memory some are designed specifically to go onto the tube of an IV bag.

I'll look into it

 

[bambinod]

I think from memory some are designed specifically to go onto the tube of an IV bag.

AFAIK, all "peristaltic" pumps work by threading the IV line through a "U" shaped channel in the pump, where a roller turns around the circular area, creating a traveling area of compression, that drives the fluid through the line. This has several major benefits - the pump never interacts with the liquid (it never leaves the line) so it stays sterile, it moves liquids with very high precision whch is perfect for things like insulin dose pumps, fluid movement stops and cannot back-up when the pump stops, and it can generate controlled high pressure. The biggest downside is it's slow. (low volume, measured in cc's per minute, not gallons per minute)

The speed is the issue here for us - if you want to simulate a void, and I just mean a regular one and not a flood, a peristaltic pump probably can't move liquids fast enough. It'd be great for simulating a slow drip or periodic spurt all night long though.

 

[Entity]

What you are trying to do is what diaper companies regularly do with their test subjects; so what you are trying to do is not only well within possibility, but surprisingly normal even though your research is for non-research purposes. Let us know how it goes. Better yet, take pictures (no crotch shots). I personally would recommend a gravity feed as it is noiseless apart from the click of the solenoid and using a pump will almost certainly yield unexpected results. A pump pushing out even a measly 1 pint/minute (0.47 litre/minute) is equivalent to subjecting your diaper to a full on flood; even though many of us can output all that and more by ourselves.

But if you truly want to use a pump, keep that in mind. You want a very low flow rate, because when you are asleep, the last thing you are thinking about is waiting to see what happens. If that is what's on your mind, you are awake.

 

[Wetshisbed]

This made me smile. "Simulating Bedwetting" I wish! I wet the bed every night without fail and don't need to resort to any simulation.

 

[logancody16]

First time posting. Had to seeing this thread.

I successfully built an Arduino project to do this, using methods very similar to what was already suggested. Obviously, it's very doable, and the results are quite good.

Here are a few bullet points (in the order I think makes most sense):

- First, for tubing, I used blue aquarium airline tubing. It's nice and soft, easy to work with, and the perfect diameter. There's also cheap fittings you can easily get.
- I used the elevated container/gravity fed method. My original thought was to use a pump as well (to be able to keep everything under bed and out of the way), but for a number of reasons I decided against it (power requirements, noise, priming, and flow rate). So, I used an elevated bottle hung from the bedpost. I ran a short span of tube from the bottle to a small project box where I housed a solenoid (I think it's meant for a coffee maker). Make sure to have a small hole in the bottle to allow air in when it drains.
- I kept the Arduino under my bed and ran a small bundle of wire up to the project box to control the solenoid. I used the Vin pin for power (using a 12v supply for the Arduino) and a simple transistor circuit with a digital pin to control connection to ground. Make sure to use a flyback diode.
- I ran the main stretch of tubing from the output of the solenoid into the back of my diaper, and secured it with a small safety pin. This was surprisingly unnoticeable.

Now for the fun part. I used an adafruit lcd shield and coded a simple interface for you to be able to do two things: 1) set the probably that you will wake up wet, and 2) set how long you will be sleeping for. With these two parameters set, the code then picks a random time when you will be sleeping (waiting at least an hour) and, based on the probability, will actuate the solenoid or not. In order to avoid flooding/leaks/waking up, I had the solenoid actuate open/closed to slow down the flow.

Some notes: It worked! After a few restless nights of not being able to sleep while anticipating what was going to happen, I got what was desired. I finally slept through the night and woke up in the morning. I didn't initially feel wet - moved around a bit and thought something went wrong. Then I looked up at the bottle and it was completely empty. I immediately thought it had leaked, and only then did I realize my diaper was indeed wet. So there you go.

The problem: I never built a heating system. I knew this was likely going to be the sticking point going in. If you're a deep sleeper, and the cold flow won't wake you up, then I guess there is no point in having the liquid heated. I never got around to completing this, and I'm still not sure exactly how I would go about it.

Good luck! This is a fun project

 

[bambinod]

looks like that's off to a nice start. (I'm an avid arduino programmer)

- you can modify most of those keypadshields to dim or turn the display light off. BE CAREFUL, some are wired stupid and put the dpin right to the base of the transistor for backlight control, look carefully at it and see if you need to mod it. Ones that can't be modded are pulled one way and you either need to pull them the other way or set them input because pulling the other way will fry the controlling transistor. (often mounted UNDER the display) THOSE cannot be PWM dimmed without modding by inserting a resistor internally. Mine typically turn off the display backlight (smoothly dimming out over 2 sec) after 60 seconds of no key input.
- where did you get the solenoid for aquarium tubing? I didn't consider that and was only looking at pumps
- can you edit the probability and timer at the keypad or is that hard-coded? (if not, add that feature! also store in eeprom to reload after reboot)
- does it control how long the valve stays open, or does it just empty the bag? I was thinking of doing random wetting throughout the night, random times, random amounts
- add a solid state tilt sensor to the outflow end so it can detect movement beyond a threshhold, and not trip unless you've been motionless for a certain minimum amount of time, like 30 minutes, and maybe stop if it's wetting and detects movement?
- most of those keypadshields have a row of empty holes by the headers, you can buy header blocks and solder them in. then you can put the shield on the arduino without needing to use a breadboard, you can just attach wires in on top of the keypadshield as needed for your power, inputs, and outputs. cleaner design. they don't stack usually though (you can't plug another shield on TOP of the keypadshield... but who would want to block the display anyway?)

off-topic... get mega2560 clones. (I prefer Funduino) for HALF the price of an uno ($14-17), you basically get a mega2560, with all the added pins, functionality, RAM, and PROGMEM.

feel free to upload the sketch. and let us know if you come up with an elegant way to heat the water.

 

[djwiktor]

Nice work I have done it something like year and half ago, I will need to search for the parts again. I made it with the peristaltic pump, and one way vent, so then the water bottle can be anywhere and almost in any position. I made it together with small arduino nano, all settings were done via serial port over pc. Then it was saved in arduino memory and can be used anytime. I had included a small heater, to keep the water warm. The main problem was as always- how to keep the tube inside the diaper as i am not a very motionless sleeper, I found out that standard 4mm transparent tube used in medicine was the best solution, together with thigh strap, which fixed the tube and voila. Everything was working fine

 

[bambinod]

I had included a small heater, to keep the water warm.

What was this "small heater"?

 

[djwiktor]

12VDC polyimide heater, 50W.

 

[bambinod]

12VDC polyimide heater, 50W.

oh those are handy! I think a smaller 7w one might be fine if used in combination with a cheap temp sensor to cycle it as needed? 50w seems like ovekill?

 

[djwiktor]

I think 20W should be fine for 5liter tank. I used 50W, because I had it at home make sure you do the mathematic calculation before. You know- energy, heat transfer and so on.