alexfayer wrote: Fri Sep 25, 2020 1:05 pm
I will not extend this tease any further, sorry.
Since BT Stim is not producing anymore I need to build myself a estim unit, but I don't know which guide to follow on here. There seem to be some variations and not a clear guide on how to build them. At least I couldn't find one. I need a high quality one, not one build from a 10$ sound card.
The E-Stim 2B is not suited at all for what I have planned for the next teases, so I won't be creating any more teases for this unit. The effort is much too high for what you get out of it.
It sucks that you've met frustration with the 2B, but the good news is building a solid unit yourself is fairly easy and quick. Most of the components can be sourced from Amazon, when I bought mine a few years ago that wasn't the case.
High quality and tested components, the DIY option for putting together the Midistim design found on
www.smartstim.com is a little over $100 in parts once you include shipping costs and it's easy to build. It's a design that's been around for a long time. Just don't say that Milovana sent you because the guy running the site doesn't like estim to exist off his website, he's like Smeagol/Gollum, he wants all of the precious(estim files) to himself inside of his pay-to-play walled garden. You don't need to pay to use the site or get the instructions for building a DIY setup. Apart from that, the actual people who helped design the Midistim and support the build in the thread are friendly. If you don't solder, the terminal blocks make assembly easy. Many people have opted to super glue the components to an appropriately sized aluminum plate to act as a heat sink, so you don't even need to drill the components to anything either. Just be sure to use thermal paste between the heat sinks and the aluminum paste, but the mounting legs can still be super glued. The assembly is literally securing purchased components in place and connecting wires to the right places.
The smartstim breaks down the suitable components for a Midistim, but here are the basics.
-Power supply that is double insulated with the right voltage and amps for the amplifier.
-Amplifier - The SMSL SA-36A Pro has been used for multiple years, they changed the design about 3 years ago and the Smartstim folks just figured that out now, they don't like the heat sink design, but the reality is there has been 3 years of use with nobody complaining that their amp died or had any symptoms of overheating. The new recommended amplifier is built by a different company, although I think the old one is still plenty good for estim use. I blast mine really hard including some constant high power routines four hours and it seems to be just fine.
-Headphone jack to RCA cable - Connects the amp to your computer or whatever audio source is.
-Speaker bullet connectors - These connect the amp to the resistor and the transformer. I bought one set(two wires in a set, red and black) and cut them in half because I only need the bullet end in the amp and this way I have a wire that connects to the proper spot on the components on the metal plate.
-Metal plate(or a metal project box like what is linked in the post right before mine is probably better) - You mount the resistors, transformers, and output connections to this.
-Two transformers - Speco T7010 on Amazon are the easy ones to get off of Amazon.
-Two 3.9 ohm 25 watt chassis mount resistors
-Terminal blocks to join the remaining wires for the components on the metal plate - although if you know how to solder, I actually consider this to be easier than trying to jam the nylon terminal blocks on to the resistor. Turns out the resistor leads for the resistors I bought were larger or the terminal block holders were slightly smaller. I ended up just squeezing the metal tab down with a needle nose pliers so they would fit. If you know how to solder, you can save a few bucks because these terminal blocks generally come in a huge bulk kit of 100+ and priced accordingly but you don't need that many.
-Output connectors to your electrodes - Since you are used to using 2B connectors, buy whatever jack that uses if you want to use the proprietary 2B cables that you were forced to buy, it'll be familiar to you that way. For everyone else, they would probably just use a raw wire end, in that case I suggest using Wago 221-413 Lever-nuts. These don't have the habit of breaking your wires or needing to fiddle with a screw terminal like the Smartstim folks deal with. I bought mine at the local hardware store for under $10 but are on Amazon too. They come in a 10 pack but you only need four. With these you can slip a wire between two of the terminals to make a common, each wire coming out of the transformer goes into one of the lever-nuts too. If you want to change your configuration, like swapping your common and a different channel, it's as simple as dropping the volume to zero, lifting the levers, swapping the wires, and dropping the wires down. The connections are SOLID and I've never broken a wire like I have with screw terminals or bullet connectors.
