- PleasingFungus
- Oct 10, 2012
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idiot asshole bitch who should fuck off
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Can someone post the Noni quote about pillow modifications? It's still one of the best things these forums have produced.
Not the original, but here's a repost:
Considering the goon community, I can't believe I'm the first to mention this, but have you considered pillow mods? Forget about those expensive, off-the-shelf premium pillows and build your own pillow rigs that have the qualities that you desire. Heck, some of those fancy commercial pillows should be avoided for their outright theft of components and ideas that were developed in the pillmod community. Notably, Serta's FaceHugger line was recalled entirely after they realized the looming PR disaster that a bunch of sleep nerds would incite.
I've been into pillow modding for a few years now and have managed to improve my sleep efficiency index from 0.69 to 0.85 (I'm a class 4b sleeper). You can build a full-featured pillmod for less than $100. Hell, I've made a half-dozen models and not spent more than $200.
Before you start modding, you should heed the standard warning and check if you have sleep apnea or anything medically obstructive. Sure, your vanilla pillows are probably annoying to sleep on, but sleep apnea could be compounding the issue by permitting minor annoyances, like pillow temperature, to wake you easily. More importantly, a few people with pillmods have died while sleeping. Although many of us doubt the involvement of their mods (people who enter the community are prone to sleep issues in the first place), it's still good advice to follow.
If you do have sleep apnea, then pillmods should be hugely advantageous. In fact, the pillmod community began around sleep apnea machines (CPAPs) and their inconveniences, especially for those whose preferred sleep postures are obstructed by CPAP facepieces. The earliest mods involved simply cutting channels into memory foam pillows, and then using freezer gel inserts to cool the pillow. They would also have to reinforce the channel so that the weight of a person's head wouldn't crush the air tubes.
But now, especially with the availability of Arduino kits and cooling systems intended for electronics, there are hundreds of pillmods that you could complete in a few hours.
It seems like most people are drawn to do PCS projects for their first mods. That's fine, but be aware that the better PCS (Pillow Coolant Systems) typically are of moderate difficulty or higher. They are also costly and time-consuming, relative to other mods you could start with such as glowmods, larms, and just simply modding a pillow's material and shape to your headspace.
Here's my first glowmod larm, for example:
This is a good starter mod combination because people like it for light therapy and smooth awakenings. The pillow gradually gets brighter until your wake-up time. You can also set it to gradually get darker at night. It's the adult version of those Glow-Worms that infants love.
But if you are dead-set on a PCS mod, I suggest strongly that you forget about those flashy, complex pillmods that involve watercooled networks of capillaries or, even worse, active heat sinks (such as piezoelectric heat transfer plates). Instead, opt for something silent, passive, and/or battery-based. For example, I have build a mod called "The Vulcan Nerve Pinch" that will get you about 20 degrees F in cooling delta on soft air ducting alone. Yeah, that's not much, but don't be the guy who blows $300 on his first project and builds a pillow that gives his face hypothermia on the first test run.
Once you get some basic know-how, and you're beyond the flashy mods and ready for something purely functional, check out shape or volume mods. These will actively keep your head at the perfect elevation. JB_Artgow is well known for his expertise in this area. I'm using his Face-Lover v3 mod (Affectionately also known as "Face-Fucker v3") every night. That's where Serta hijacked their FaceHugger brand name from. Allegedly.
The Face-Fucker involves inflation and deflation of semi-rigid water bladders to redistribute the pow's volume. It sounds complex, but it's easy if you buy a parts kit. It uses a silent pump and osmotic gradients to work. You can calibrate it based on both your head's weight and angle. Unlike many other volume mods, this is one-mod-fits-all, so you don't have to design around your giant noggin.
Artgow also has a ebook on Amazon (It's only $2), with instructions for something like 100 mods. He doesn't make money on the book, but he does make a few pennies if you buy parts kits from him directly. This beats the poo poo out of finding a Radio Shack that still stocks diodes and capacitors.
Now I'd like to brag for a bit and talk about some of the more exciting, extreme pillmod possibilities, some of which I just warned you against doing. I'm in the middle of building a custom, arduino-controlled pow with about 12 different mods. Although piezoelectric coolers are all the rage right now, I'm sticking to good old fashioned microducting for cooling. However, I'm using infrared LEDs for heating. The latter are normally expensive, but Dealextreme sells them in bulk for cheap. I think they're sold out recently thanks to jerks like me, however.
I don't like a warm face. The heating mod is just for camping in the cold or when I want to use the pillow as a heating pad for sore muscles. Also: sheer awesomeness.
Here's a schematic (not mine):
As for straight-up ducted cooling, the next image is my take on how one spiderwebs their coolant ducts. You have to be careful here not to bend the tiny tubes more than about 60 degrees or put them in a position where your noggin might bend them. That might look complex, but I used only 4 channels with a coolant turnover (in this case, just water) of 2 seconds for the entire surface to cycle.
By the way, medical tubing works just fine, but make sure that it's both flexible and a directional heat conductor, like Vekspan, which is used for anastomosis. If you buy non-direction stuff, hose down the pow-side with some plastidip from your hardware store, or just throw down a layer of aluminized cloth. The lovely crinkly stuff costs a whopping $1 at Dollar Tree, labeled as an "emergency blanket." You can pilfer the softer stuff from a BBQ apron.
Once this thing is done, I intend to stress test it by running both the heating and cooling systems and letting them fight it out to the death. Of course, in a battle of the PCS vs PHS, I suspect the PHS will win and then torch my pillow.
This pillow is directional, obviously. Because I can't flip it over, I've build the base and core layers from flexible expanded polystyrene and ceramic fibers, which will probably give me mesothelioma eventually, but drat if I won't be well rested at least. I was inspired by a dude who made a low-rent version of aerogel so that he could win an award for "Lightest Pillow" at Pillowcon 2010. My pow, without the mod gear, weighs 2 ounces. 
Now, uniquely for me, because my bed is up against a brick wall, I need a pillow that can deal with a little bit of moisture. I like the brick wall for it being a huge heat sink, but it causes moisture to condense on pillows, especially fancy modded ones. This problem is solved by the combination of my core layers and a rechargeable dessicant. During the day, the dessicant tumbler is turned and heated, thus expelling moisture. It's so powerful that it'll suck the sweat right out of my massive head, but at least I'll never again have sweaty pillows.
Speaking of which, at Pillcon 2011, I was the massive fucker who won the door prize of John Cezrik's faux rabbit fur surface:
You'd think that such fur would be irritating against your face after a half-hour or so, but Cezrik's material has microcapillaries built to certain OCT ranges (OCT is optimal cheek temperature). It's like sleeping on a cloud of baby buttcheeks.
Speaking of babies, I actually enjoy the sound of water pumping through the coolant tubes right next to my ears. It's very soothing. Babies, apparently, are calmed by the sound of water swishing in your mouth right next to their ears, and that's what this is like.
Also being built into this pillow o' mine will be some alarm aromatics. Not only can I wake up to a gradually-brightening, sunny pow, but the aroma of my choice (Bacon) can also waft out.
And if the gentle sound of the water pumping isn't soothing enough, I've got three speakers and the Arduino can easily generate some white noise or play sounds of various environments like the motherfucking ocean. I prefer low-range, soft brown noise. I'll have none of that hissy poo poo that store-bought machines put out.
The nice thing about having noise generated in your pillow is that the sound doesn't permeate the rest of the room. So if your significant other likes a dead quiet room and you need some noise, this is a fine solution.
Of course, all those mods result in an awful lot of wiring:
That's enough pillmod talk, I suppose. gently caress it bitches, let's glow this joint:
If this kind of thing appeals to you, there's also the blanketmod community. However, I tend to stay away from them due to it being populated by perverts who essentially make sex toys out of their comforters, which they call, obviously, "cumforters." Pillmodders are, in essence, nerds who are poor sleepers. Blanketmodders, in contrast, cut dick-sized holes in blankets with anime patterns on them and think they're engineers.
There is, however, a clever mod that came out of that community that involves a mere $30 in parts and makes your bed vibrate like the "magic fingers" machines found in crappy motels. It's really just a few off-balance weights powered by scrap motors, but entertaining.
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Jan 8, 2016 01:12
