[Noisebridge-discuss] Anyone here ever build one of these new-fangled fancypants neural stimulation headbands the kids are talking about so much today?

[Micah Zuorski]

Hey,

My friend and I were just trying to cobble it together out of what we had
already to hand, so we used the multimeter to measure the resistance of the
circuit (basically the resistance of my head) and then calculated the
expected amperage from a 9V battery. It seemed like we should have gotten
about 1 mA, but once we hooked it up the amperage was higher than expected
(we broke the circuit once the multimeter went past two mA, almost
immediately), so it seems like the initial resistance reading was wrong, or
the resistance of my brain changed once it had a current flowing through it
(my guess is the first option). In any event, I don't really know
electronics very well yet, so I'm taking the easy route and trying to
reduce the amperage by reducing the voltage instead of increasing the
resistance.

Instead of sponges we tried putting the conductor paste onto squares of
tinfoil and then connecting the squares to the wires, that part actually
worked pretty well.

Micah

On Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 11:46 AM, Caitlyn Meeks-Ferragallo <
caitlyn at flutterverse.com> wrote:

> Hi Micah,
>
> Cool! I really want to try this too.
>
> Did you not have the LM317 and resistors on there?
>
> What did you use for electrode sponges?
>
> Cheers
> Caitlyn
>
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 5, 2012 at 12:46 PM, Micah Zuorski <mzuorski at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I built a cheap, super low-tech version yesterday using a 9-volt battery
>> and a multimeter (the multimeter was to measure my bodys' resistance before
>> completing the circuit to estimate the amperage we could expect, and to
>> monitor the amperage in the circuit once it was completed). The amperage
>> was higher than 2 mA (it felt like a mild carpet-static shock, it seemed
>> like the circuit had a variable resistance for some reason), so today I'm
>> going to step down the amperage by hooking up a few AA batteries in series
>> for a lower voltage. FYI, you can make a cheap electrode paste out of a
>> half tablespoon each of Aveeno (or other water based lotion) and salt, with
>> a few drops of water added.
>>
>> Disclaimer; Despite how easy, fun, and awesome it is, nobody should ever
>> do this ever ever ever.
>>
>
>
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