Homebrew Arduino Pulse Monitor (Visualize Your Heartbeat)

Movies look cool with those EKG (electrocardiogram), the one that beeps and detects heart activities. A few months ago, we had to shoot a hospital scene for our school project. We needed an EKG instrument. To keep the movie authentic, we didn't want to fake the readings so we made the next best thing, a pulse monitor. Since my dad is a doctor he gave me some advice to design the pulse monitor.

Let me clarify this to you. This project works and can actually monitor your pulse. Due to the lack of research and experimentation, the homebrew pulse monitor cannot be used for medical purposes.

What Can You Do With It?
You can make a lie detector/ polygraph and tell who's lying or not. When a person lies, you'll notice a sudden change on the graph.

What Does This Guide Include?
- Arduino Codes & Processing 2 Codes
- Steps on making a pulse sensor
- The Virtual Graphing Software
- Schematic Diagrams

What Do I Need To Make This Project?
- A Grippy Clothes Hanger
- Clear/ Bright Red LED
- LDR (Light Dependent Resistor)

Future Questions:
Why isn't mine working? For some reason LDRs (light dependent resistors) are not standard in resistance ratings. You'll need a some tweaking to pull off the project, it may require experience with Arduinos and electronics.

This project is inspired by Make Magazine's pulse monitor although my version didn't use a LM324 Op-Amp chip. Their tutorial will work on my setup.

Make: Full Tutorial

Programming Stage:

Step 1: Find the Perfect Colthes Hanger

This project works best with rubber padded hangers. Luckily "Marks & Spencer" gives away these hangers for free.

Step 2: Cut the Clips

Cut the clips off the hanger with a pair of heavy duty shears.

Step 3: Disassemble the Clip

Get your multitool and disassemble the clip.

Step 4: Drill Holes

Drill a hole on the exact center of the clip's rubber pads.

Step 5: Install the LDR

Bend the LDR's leads then mount them in place. Finally use hot glue to keep the LDR from moving.

Step 6: Install the LED

Get your led and use superglue to keep it intact with the clip. Also, you might want to add a resistor to protect the LED from getting busted.

Step 7: It Doesn't Work

You'll barely get a reading. If yours doesn't work, use this circuit to amplify the readings. D1 is just an indicator and not the red LED that's used to light up your thumb. It's best If you use a 10k trimmer resistor for R3 rather than a fixed value resistor.

Step 8: Wire Them Up!

Follow the diagram above. PCB/ perfboards are not necessary. Wires would do just fine!

Step 9: Download the Softwares

Processing 2 is the graph/ monitor software that will visualize your data while the Arduino IDE is for uploading the arduino sketch. You'll need both to run the project. Click on the links below to download them.

Arduino 1.0.5 IDE:click here!
Processing 2 IDE:click here!

Step 10: The Codes

Run these codes on the proper IDE. If the processing 2 codes shows an error, change tho port number (found in the codes).

//Arduino Codes:

void setup() {
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop() {
Serial.println(analogRead(0));
delay(50);
}

//Processing 2 Codes:

import processing.serial.*;
    Serial myPort;
    int xPos = 1;
    float oldHeartrateHeight = 0;

    void setup () {
    // set the window size:
    size(1000, 400);
    frameRate(30);

    // List available serial ports.
    println(Serial.list());

    // Setup which serial port to use.
    // This line might change for different computers.
    myPort = new Serial(this, Serial.list()[0], 9600);

    // set inital background:
    background(0);
    }

    void draw () {
    }

    void serialEvent (Serial myPort) {
    // read the string from the serial port.
    String inString = myPort.readStringUntil('\n');

    if (inString != null) {
    // trim off any whitespace:
    inString = trim(inString);
    // convert to an int
    println(inString);
    int currentHeartrate = int(inString);

    // draw the Heartrate BPM Graph.
    float heartrateHeight = map(currentHeartrate, 0, 1023, 0, height);
    stroke(0,255,0);
    line(xPos - 1, height - oldHeartrateHeight, xPos, height - heartrateHeight);
    oldHeartrateHeight = heartrateHeight;
    // at the edge of the screen, go back to the beginning:
    if (xPos >= width) {
    xPos = 0;
    background(0);
    } else {
    // increment the horizontal position:
    xPos++;
    }
    }
    }

Step 11: Learn to Use It!

Make Magazine has a similar project that works exactly the same. I got the codes from them so video should explain the programming procedure.

Make Magazine's Full Version:

Programming Stage:
This video will explain on how to use both IDEs.

Third Prize in the
Data Visualization Contest

Participated in the
Arduino Contest

Participated in the
Sensors Contest

Participated in the
Full Spectrum Laser Contest

2 People Made This Project!

MahmoudS42 made it!
Raitis made it!

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38 Comments

Timofte Andrei

7 years ago on Introduction

now, you can use this example to make a device that can be attached on the wrist and can monitor the hearth rate every second and can log everything on an SD card. :D

501796

Question 2 years ago

Hello, I builded the circuit using photodiode bpw41n (PIN). I used the circuit as it is described in https://makezine.com/projects/ir-pulse-sensor/
The photodiode is detecting changes in IR light but nearly not as good as is shown above and to get a useable signal.
In a baseline setup without my finger on the sensor this is the result I'm getting:

When I put my finger on the sensor, I get the following result:

It seems that the sensor is already detecting chances in the default situation. Should I amplify the signal more? I'm using an opamp LM324 now. Should I change the capacitators? Can anybody help me? Every help would be much appreciated! I'm pretty new to all of this but I'm very eager to learn how to get this working! Thanks in advance!

Manuel SebastianB1

3 years ago

Hola, el Monitor serie tiene que ejecutarse mientras funciona el Process? Porque en el process no me funciona cuando activo el Monitor serie. Me sale Port Busy, cuando activo el Process sin el arduino me funciona bien pero no me grafica nada

ZoltanG3

4 years ago

nice idea!

GRama95

5 years ago

Hi,
What is the problem with my processing ?((
please help me

MollyM17

5 years ago

Hey! We are a few students, with no tinkering experince, who want to bulid a drawing machine that draws a diagram of pulses. Do you have any tips on how to tranform the pulse data on the computer into movements of a robot arm?