Hi all -
I'm interesting in monitoring some EMG activity.
My basic understanding is that most of the EMG "add-ons" out there are essentially just high-powered amplifiers that get connected to a differential pair of electrodes, with a third electrode attached elsewhere as a "reference."
The most popular and readily available seems to be the "MyoWare", which attaches directly to the electrodes, bypassing potential noise in the signal lines that might be encountered with longer cable-based connectors. Online, these are always depicted as measuring muscle activity in a bicep - but I would be interested in measuring muscles at other locations on the body as well.
There seem to be a lot of options, though - and I'm curious if anyone has had any experience with these and can recommend somewhere good to start.
You can put the electrodes anywhere you want, but some understanding of basic human physiology is needed to determine the best electrode locations, as well as to make sense of the readings.
Do you happen to know if there any major benefits to using the propietary Sparkfun stuff, as opposed to generic AD8232-based designs available elsewhere online?
Sparkfun has a good reputation for supporting its products, and with a few exceptions for off the shelf modules from other manufacturers, all are open source, with nothing "proprietary" about the designs.
I think one of the keys here is the filtering performed at the amplifier. If my EKG response time is indictive of the EMG response times, you want to filter out all but the low frequencies. This includes both circuit design and physical design of the circuit board (or prototype board).