diy 410757864530_dead_follicles • 3mo ago • 100%

sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #9: i have ✨issues✨

heyyy friends  It's been longer than I wanted it to be, I've had a hard time lately, everything from work stress to coming out to my highly conservative family to some particularly nasty dysphoria, had me cruise right into a nice little light to moderate menty b - I'm fine, it was a growth opportunity, sometimes you just indulge these things and get in your car and drive with the music up real loud and hop out somewhere you can watch the sunset and you cry alone for a while and you savor it and you come out of it cleansed. I'm good. Being a girl is hard. Still figuring it out. <3 This is a light update in terms of work I've accomplished but it's a big update in terms of how this project becomes something more community related. the title of this post is actually a double entendre, you see - not only do I have issues, but the sphynx project also has an issue tracker.  **Issue tracker for `sphynx` (the electronics): https://todo.sr.ht/~_410bdf/sphynx?search=status%3Aany** **Issue tracker for `sphynx-site` (the website, both content and style): https://todo.sr.ht/~_410bdf/sphynx-site?search=status%3Aany** This changes a lot. I've been stressing with each post about ways I can ask y'all for help, because I 1) want to take some of the load off of myself, and more importantly, 2) turn this into a truly community project, where people all across the world leave their mark and have this be something we do as together as we can. Now that I have an issue tracker, I can start unloading my brain asynchronously from these posts, providing all the information in a neat compartmentalized fashion per issue, and teeing things up for community members to take on. It also serves as a great work journal, I still make, comment on, and close issues that I work alone, so it's a good place to check in to see that I'm still doing things (even though it's been a minute ) I've done some electrical work since last post too, pretty much just bug fixing and improvements from RC1, and if you'd like to read about it, it's all (albeit very tersely) captured in the issues! Go dig around and have fun! The site is a little fresher too! Just a bit, it's still not inhabitable yet, but we're getting there. https://sphynx.diy Huge shoutout to [@Edie@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/Edie), it put in a really a lot of work and sent me more than a few patches, including fixing some bugs I had spent kind of not a little time on, plus, of course, doing the entire original Jekyll port and the entire original CI pipeline. You're real for that, thank you  **OH! And message me on matrix??? [@410bdf:matrix.org](https://matrix.to/#/@410bdf:matrix.org) say hi! I love hearing from y'all! Or say hi here!** Huge shoutout _again_ to [@Edie@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/Edie) for reaching out on Matrix and talking with me and hyping me up and talking about the project together with me! Not much else, this is a quick one to let y'all know I'm still alive and to share out the issue tracker so I'm more confident to ask for help and have it be effective. As usual love y'all. I've been using RC1 and it still works but it's only getting better from here. Byeee 🫶

diy 410757864530_dead_follicles • 3mo ago • 100%

sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #8: using it, and a website 🌐

Hi comrades! I'm back! Sorry for the delay! I've been keeping busy, with this project, with work, and with getting familiar with a new town. This update is fun because it's actually entirely devoid of electrical engineering nerd shit! Since last update, I've focused on two things - getting the framework of a website together, and actually getting usage hours on the device so I can know how it handles, what it's missing, what it does well, etc. I'll break this update into those two sections. ## Device usage I think I have about 5 hours in the device so far, with I'm guessing a couple thousand or so pulses. I've tested my face, eyebrows and beard, I've tested my hands, I've tested my arm, I've tested my leg, and I've tested my chest. The general routine is as follows: - Get clean and get comfy. - Get all the peripherals in order and get the board set down somewhere stable. For me, this is getting good direct bright lighting, getting the foot pedal in a good spot, getting a clean (or at least clean_ed_) probe in the probe holder, getting the return electrode connected [1], and for some work areas, particularly with vellus hairs, getting a magnifying headset on. - Dial in estimated power levels. The thickest and darkest hairs I've tested on like about 2 mA at whatever voltage it takes to feel the burn, usually >= 10V, and pulsing for the whole 10 second duration. I've gotten facial hair kills at 1 mA/6 V/6 seconds, and vellus hairs on my hands can typically take 0.5 mA/6 V/5 seconds. These are determined by trial and error and I almost always fiddle with them multiple times in the middle of a session; there's no rigorously defined science besides the Units of Lye calculations, which are very loose. More current leads to faster kills but it hurts more and it's easier to accidentally overdose and get a hyperpigmentation scar. I've never managed to do this accidentally, only on purpose, see below. - Put in the probe and hit the pedal. Wait out the indicator light [2], feel for the burn, and at the end of the pulse, pull out the hair. - Repeat! Some areas are clearly not regrowing, others, it's too early to make a call, but I'm pretty confident that it'll be minimal, possibly even better than salon electrolysis, due to a number of advantages to self-work that I'm finding that I'd love to detail here. There are some cons too. - pro: you can feel the power. You very quickly get a feel for what a good follicle kill feels like. A well killed hair will cause a burning sensation strong enough that it lasts for a few seconds after you stop applying current. You can also feel overkill - I did this a couple dozen times to experiment, the follicle isn't any deader than any of its neighbors, but one or two of the deliberate overkills has what appears to be a hyperpigmentation scar that looks like a freckle. They're already fading, but they might be permanent and might not. I have never accidentally overkilled but it's definitely possible to do so, especially if you have a healthy appetite for pain and/or are working impatiently. An overkill probably takes at least 3 times the current*time that the minimum safe kill does, so it's not super close. - pro: you can feel the pluck from both sides. I do have minimal testing on another person and feeling the hair pull on one side is helpful (a dead hair slides out with a pretty constant slide, a live hair tends to hold on and hold and hold and then break loose all at once). However, when you're both feeling and plucking, you can feel for the signs of a killed hair more effectively - killed hairs tend not to hurt on the way out and you can give them a light test tug and not feel it. A hair that hasn't been killed will hold on and cause a little bit of pain with a test tug, allowing one further way to check your kills. I strongly recommend both parties having experience (just a couple hairs) on both sides when doing co-work to foster this kind of mutual understanding that allows for better communication. - con: obviously you're not getting a lot of your body. You need a friend to get everywhere, particularly a lot of the spots that are really important. My biggest issue has been trying to self-work my neck. It just doesn't wanna go, the angles do not hit. I believe it's an area that will be possible with more practice and dexterity, plus a smarter setup - I'm going to try a mirror setup to see while lying on my back, but it's frustrating. :angery: - con: fatigue. When you're working on someone else, you can get comfortable. When you're working on yourself, you're very often uncomfortably contorted. This poor ergonomics greatly shortens session time and poses an issue for our comrades with disabilities. My DIY sessions usually last an hour tops; I have some pain issues in certain positions and this does NOT help. I also have some notes on equipment: - [1] - I had a good idea that I'm a thousand percent recommending for self work. Salons typically use a holdable piece of metal for the return electrode. I am using an ECG electrode. For partnered work, this is nice because it allows your recipient to get more comfy and do things with both hands, but for self work, this is almost indispensible - it lets you keep both your hands free. I'll put instructions for making and working with both on the website. - [2] - Visual cues suck. You do not take your eyes off of the hair for the whole cycle. I initially had the lights hard-wired and the buzzer switched - the lights absolutely should be switched, they're not useful most of the time. I'm working without a buzzer due to the soldering mishaps in the previous post and it sucks, the beep cue is almost certainly a thousand times more useful. - Pedals are great for a salon-like context of a laying recipient, a seated operator, and personal space. For every other configuration - standing in front of a mirror, laying on the couch next to your bestie, etc., you probably don't want a pedal as much as you want a hand switch or a bite switch. This isn't all inclusive, but I'm definitely happy to get thoughts down prior to starting work on the manual! which leads us to... ## The Website It's on jekyll now! We're finally ready to start hosting actual, real content there! So, so many thanks to [@Edie@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/Edie) , who actually single-handedly ported the old single page splash screen to Jekyll and on top of that pushed out a bunch of fixes for my sloppy half-assed jekyll code. I really, really appreciate you, you're genuinely helping both to motivate me by both making indispensable contributions, and also just by being a person out there in the world doing this with me.  The appearance and organization are both super preliminary, and there's not any actual content, and the design is also very much a prototype. The important thing is that now I (or anyone else!) can just write markdown and have it reflected online in an easily readable and shareable format. Email patches are a great way to get both code and content on the page, I try to review them at least twice a week or so. Now that things are set up, it's extremely convenient to put content up. I think to pilot the website, I'm going to make a more formal tutorial for the pencil based probe to start. The one I made per [@YearOfTheCommieDesktop@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/YearOfTheCommieDesktop)'s instructions is still doing phenomenally, thank you for your research and development. Similar thanks for being a part of the project in a meaningful way and making this a team effort.  Come take a look! [https://sphynx.diy](https://sphynx.diy) ## What's Next So the project is hitting a bit of a fork, where we finally have multiple parallel work streams at a time - the online manual needs to be designed/written, and the RC2 version of the PCB needs to be designed and ordered. I have a list of changes from working with the RC1 that I'll be rolling in, that'll be the next post. I'm also going to start using https://todo.sr.ht to track issues, both to keep myself organized and to publicly advertise what we need to get done in a neat encapsulated way. I'll have details for that up on an #8.5 post in a couple days. For now, honestly I feel bad for drastically overrunning my two week timeline and leaving y'all in the dark for so long, so this post is going up ASAP. I've been busier than usual and probably busier than I plan to be in the future, so I'm more optimistic for a timely #9 post, although that may be in three weeks and not two due to some plans of mine. I love y'all. RC2 might be the release. We're just weeks away from other people benefiting from this project materially, it's just refinements from here. Thanks for the support, and you know the drill, stop by, say hi, ask questions if you want to understand things better, make suggestions, all of it. See ya next time. 

diy 410757864530_dead_follicles • 4mo ago • 100%

Sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #7: look at this fucking thing it's rad as hell

it's in and it's built and it FUCKING WORKS, at least like 80% of the way - I haven't fully put it through a full round of testing yet but every single functionality I've tested - including things that were first-time builds that I hadn't prototyped yet, like the adjustable LDO on the output and the double schmitt trigger falling edge detector, all seem to work! I even splurged a little bit and got some trans knob caps  . ## What I've been up to  I don't know what to tell you, read 'em and weep. The board is built, you see it, it goes hard. Pretend my soldering isn't shitty and I cleaned the flux off.  Full list of things that work: - Output voltage control knob works, tested open loop (top end is supposed to be 16 and it's closer to 15.5, I might just not worry about it.) - Output current control knob works, tested through a 1K resistor. - Timer and knob work from 2 to 10 seconds. - Lights work*, although I think I killed the 555 timer by soldering near it with the board powered . It worked great for a few minutes and then I soldered in S1 and it stopped working. - Foot pedal and probe work. I don't know if it has any new bugs when specifically connected to a human being. I suspect that if I were to try to use the current sink on the low side of the probe, which I'm bypassing right now, it'd be whacky - I never made an effort to resolve that bug, and I think I might just descope that to get this thing done at all. I'm already longing for a fresh start on some things that I think I can get by launching into the microcontroller-based version of this. There are already enough redundant safety measures in place for me to feel comfortable, although I'd really like to test the JFET current limiter, which I didn't populate because I couldn't source a good JFET and I also couldn't be assed to determine the correct resistor value. I'd really like either that or a current limiting diode on the high side of the amplifier before I call this done. That's going into the next rev. There are also some non-breaking bugs that I still need to design out, like for example I designed in 20K potentiometers for the current and time control, but Alps Alpine only makes 20K potentiometers in audio trim, meaning the knob angle isn't really one to one with the output. I need to replace those with different values. Other little things like that too. ## Next up I'm going to work with the board for a bit and see how it handles! I need to get some hands-on time with it to truly learn how it works, what it's missing, and what I need to change. I'm also kind of just looking to reap the benefits of this thing personally to be honest, I'm getting really tired of shaving  (plus i'm meeting some girls who are kinda into this thing and might wanna go hour for hour on some mutual aid electrolysis time over comfort shows and snacks on the couch  ) I think the "alpha" model of releases was a mistake. Because of the nature of hardware development, I think I'm going to change to a "release candidate" model - it makes it clear that any RC board isn't ready to be used, and it allows me to promote any one at any time once I've designated it good enough. So, I'll begin work on RC2 once I'm deeply familiar with this board! I'm also deeply neglecting the site, mainly [@Edie](https://hexbear.net/u/Edie)'s jekyll port that I really deeply truly appreciate and I never figured out how to apply the patch for. I'm sorry friend 💔 Can you work with me to get that patch applied? I tried to tackle it on a super low executive function day and I just made so little progress applying your patchset and I wanna have it up so bad but it was fighting me and I needed rot time and I quit trying after like twenty minutes  ## Any ways to help? There are kind of a few things actually! In no order of priority, with loose guesses at difficulty: - Getting the library I'm using updated with 3D models. It's not super necessary but having cute renders is always cool, and it'd be handy for anyone who wants to design an enclosure. Not hard, not easy. - Fixing some of the footprints, particularly making sure all the knobs look the same, making the font nicer, etc. Not super easy. - Doing a JLCPCB cart catalog audit. I think I'm close to everything being in JLCPCB's catalog? I'm not sure though! If there's anything missing I'd love to know so I can try to design it out in RC2! Kinda boring but not too difficult. - some more?? i'll edit them in in the morning i'm up LATE If any of these things sound like a thing you want to make an attempt at, let me know! I'll work with you to get you started. sloppy post today, this is deeply not accessible for non-technical audiences and leaves a lot out, so please let me know if you want deeper explanation on anything and i'll add detail! I just wanted to make sure i got my post up to let you know I'M STILL FIGHTING BABY  i'm still very not settled with the move, and burnout is closing in with my job and my new trans social life, but I'm at equilibrium, I'm okay to keep spending the amount of time I am on this, but I wish I could be spending just a little more. Life is okay though. Great, even.  --- As always, stop by, hang out, say hi, ask questions, tell me what you've been up to, design review me, however you'd like to be involved is good by me! I'll see you in the comments 🥰

traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns 410757864530_dead_follicles • 5mo ago • 100%

Sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #6: first alpha of Lite board done 🙌

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2679948 things are HAPPENING besties 

diy 410757864530_dead_follicles • 5mo ago • 0%

Sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #6: first alpha of Lite board done 🙌

hello comrades! It's been a minute! I'm back with my first tech update since upending my entire life and getting re-settled! Let's talk  # What I've been up to See for yourself, pictured is the first alpha of the Sphynx Lite. [Schematics are on git](https://git.sr.ht/~_410bdf/sphynx), go check it out (and if you want to set up KiCAD to view or edit but aren't quite sure how, say so in the comments and me or someone else will help you out!) Issuing guidance on the usage of these things is complicated. I'm always going to be a little apprehensive recommending that people use this, because I'm a very cautious person. For now, I think my official guidance is: - you should understand the circuit - you should have basic debugging equipment - you should have the time to work with it extensively - if you meet all of the above, I provide this with no warranty and no guarantee, knowing you full well have ideas as to what you might want to use it for - If you have a decent working knowledge of electrical engineering and want a walkthrough, I might make a Matrix so I can actually communicate with people looking to get it going?? As it gets more mature and I revise and revise until I drop the alpha, I'll trust it more. This was a push across the finish line. I optimized for getting something testable done with the correct topology, layout is a little dicey (cut off silk screen in the bottom right ) and subject to change, I just needed something to test on. I was gone for over two weeks from my last post here, mainly because it was just a lot of work with nothing intermediate to report. But now it's here! This has all the working parts of the last boards merged into one, with the new additions of: - power conditioning - 9V battery holders - additional safety measures, like the redundant current limiting JFET - configuration jumpers! and test points!! !!! Oh, and I whipped up a cute lil logo. :3 ## Schematics ::: spoiler schematics in here    ::: ## Board Layout ::: spoiler board layout in here   ::: ## Board Renders ::: spoiler board renders in here   ::: # Next up I have a lot of really good work from y'all that I need to capture and incorporate. Particularly, my immediate plans while this board is fabricated and shipped are to: - Incorporate [@ComradeEd@lemmygrad.ml](https://lemmygrad.ml/u/ComradeEd)'s patchset porting the site to Jekyll - really thank you so much for this, I've been extremely focused on the board, and now that I have a minute, I can get the site going so I can use it to show off, post guide, aggregate educational resources, etc. This is going to be absolutely necessary for the project to have the reach and accessiblilty I'm hoping it gets. Thank you.  - Build a probe per [@YearOfTheCommieDesktop@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/u/YearOfTheCommieDesktop)'s [work into coming up with a probe holder](https://hexbear.net/comment/4739736). I have a handful of the Yasutomo's to experiment with. This is going to be a game changer, currently I'm doing self-work with an alligator clip and it's extremely irritating. An ergonomic and reproducible probe with an extremely cheap parts list is critical for the project to function. Thank you.  - More of you provided meaningful help than just these two, these are the two who's work I'm directly interacting with this minute. Thank you to everyone who has stopped by and made suggestions, I've read them all.  The next post will be me building this out and reporting on how well (or whether) it works, and documenting changes for the Lite Alpha 2. I also badly need to make a BOM. With some effort, anyone who's built a board together can buy all the parts for this and make one, but it'd be a thousand times easier if I just made a single cart that you can buy that includes every single component. If you want to make an alpha board for fun or debugging, maybe hold off until I have that out. # Any ways to help? Honestly, those of you who are following this pretty closely have a good read on what's going on, what's needed, and what's upcoming - keep being interested! If anyone wants to make one, I do recommend waiting until I release a BOM, but very soon we miiight be at the point where other people besides me get one of these in their hands. I could also use some polish on the logo. It's _fine_, but it could be cuter, and the lines are a bit funky. I'm going to put SVGs on git soon and if anyone feels like cleaning them up, rearrange the kitty cat face so it's cuter, fixing my wonky paths, let me know! Also, and I simply cannot stress this enough - when I've been exhausted, when I've been deep in executive dysfunction, when I've been not feeling up for it, I've read through all your encouragement and support throughout the duration of this project and it's helped me to keep pushing. I would unquestionably not be this far without y'all. Thank you all so much.  --- As always, stop by, hang out, say hi, ask questions, tell me what you've been up to, design review me, however you'd like to be involved is good by me! I'm thinking I want to make the expected cadence of posts once every two weeks, just because I'm busy and I don't want to cause alarm when I miss a week. I can always surprise y'all with more frequent posts too. --- P.S. - I have no hair regrowth in test areas. 

traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns 410757864530_dead_follicles • 7mo ago • 100%

Sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #5: the most annoying bug ever; also a website

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2191451 somewhat disappointing post for the day but it happens 

traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns 410757864530_dead_follicles • 7mo ago • 100%

Sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #4: boards but IRL this time 🦾

we're back besties  [Sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #4: boards but IRL this time 🦾](https://hexbear.net/post/2141809) on !diy@hexbear.net

traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns 410757864530_dead_follicles • 7mo ago • 100%

Sphynx electrolysis development journal entry #3: More boards, more safety, and we're on sourcehut 🎉

New electrolysis doohickey project development journal up! This one is pretty technical and terse but feel free to just come thru and say hi in the comments! cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/2085333

traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns 410757864530_dead_follicles • 7mo ago • 100%

cross-post: DIY electrolysis doohickey journal entry #2: Timers, trajectory, and a real project name

Hi, [!traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/c/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns)! My second post of the doohickey is up. Read about it here, and in the future, let me know if y'all would like regular cross-posts here, or if you'd just prefer to be individuals on the tag list. https://hexbear.net/post/2050796 Sending the gayest, queerest, transest, most genuine love. 

diy 410757864530_dead_follicles • 8mo ago • 100%

Hi! I'm working on a DIY electrolysis hair removal solution that addresses the issues of existing options.

**Hi! Did you bump into this post from the pin on [!diy@hexbear.net](https://hexbear.net/c/diy)? Check on my current progress on my [user posts](https://hexbear.net/u/410757864530_dead_follicles?page=1&sort=New&view=Posts)! This account is a dedicated alt for this project alone, sorting by my new posts will show the latest on this project.** Hey 🥰 I'm a transfem who's been working on something that I think might be of interest here and I'd love to share, because I believe that we can share a very mutually beneficial relationship. This post is about permanent hair removal. *I am going to use the term "transfeminine" in the following as an abridged version of "transfeminine, non-binary, and any other individual, queer or not, who would feel more confident and affirmed with less facial or body hair". This is a project for everyone.* A little bit of background on permanent hair removal: Really, the only two options on the table are laser/IPL and electrolysis. Speaking to the former first, laser/IPL is without a doubt the most accessible of the two options, but it comes with a lot of drawbacks. For one, laser/IPL is neither permanent nor complete. This may sound like an immediate dealbreaker, but the ability to delay and diminish hair growth down to light wisps for months to years at the cost of only a handful of sessions makes it a valuable instrument in transfeminine gender affirming hair removal. The drawbacks don't end there though; another serious and deeply unfortunate drawback of laser and IPL hair removal is that they don't work on all skin tones and hair colors. The mechanism of action depends on light passing through the skin and being absorbed by hair roots (which then heats up the follicle, damaging it, hopefully, to the point that it is unable to continue growing), meaning both light skin *and* dark hair are requirements for eligibility. This is deeply unfortunate for all but People of Pasta.  There are other drawbacks, like an increased incidence of adverse skin reactions relative to electrolysis, but the two issues noted above make it a non-starter for black and brown folks and extra-bleached-flour crackers. These issues in mind, laser/IPL is a tool that can be relied on at times, but for trans folks, **laser/IPL is a non-starter for bottom surgery preparation due to the incompleteness and temporary nature of the procedure.** Electrolysis is permanent, 100% complete, works on all skin tones and hair colors, and has a lower incidence of skin-related side effects. Perfect! What's the catch? Electrolysis is expensive as *fuck*. Where a complete course of bikini area laser or IPL may cost hundreds of dollars, the same area with electrolysis will cost thousands, [sometimes as high as tens of thousands of dollars](https://www.transgendermap.com/guidance/medical/hair-removal/how-much-does-transgender-hair-removal-cost/), due to the fact that unlike laser/IPL, which takes a second per exposure and can be done in areas of hundreds of hairs at a time, *electrolysis must be done hair by hair*, which is a lot of time to spend with a licensed cosmetologist/electrologist. Costs are similarly prohibitive for facial electrolysis, and even more wildly exorbitant for body hair removal due to the large surface area, so much that it is virtually never even discussed as an option for this. This won't do either. What is to be done?  The mechanism of action of electrolysis hair removal is to insert an electrode in the form of a fine needle down the hair shaft and pass a current through the electrode, into the hair root, and out through a return electrode elsewhere in the body. This causes an electrochemical reaction in the hair root that produces a few nano/microliters of lye, which super, definitely, for sure kills the hair. (if you know the difference between galvanic, blend, and thermolysis, you're way ahead of the class, good eye but I'll bring it up again later.) [At home electrolysis exists, but it is not easy or cheap as it currently stands.](https://www.transgendermap.com/guidance/medical/hair-removal/electrolysis/do-it-yourself/) Issues with machine quality, battery consumption, and power make this an option, but an undesirable one. My hope is that we can make it easier, cheaper, and safer, by designing an option that is more robust, more available, eats through fewer batteries, operates with greater power, and is designed with constant dynamic community dialog. One thing I didn't lose in my transition is my audacity: surely *I* can make a device that applies a small current through a fine needle-like electrode in a short burst, right? So I got to researching. Can I buy professional-quality electrolysis needles without a cosmetology license? ([yes, I can!](https://www.ebay.com/itm/255570617942)) Are there readily accessible schematics for precision low-amperage current sources widely available? ([yes, there are!](https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/technical-articles/how-to-design-a-precision-current-pump-with-op-amps/)) Are there resources available not paywalled behind cosmetology/electrology programs to learn to use this thing once I have a prototype? ([yes, there are!](https://www.sterex.com/resources/perfect-electrolysis-insertion/)) *Has anyone tried to do this before?* ([Yes!!!](https://www.reddit.com/r/electronics/comments/8ek9dt/i_built_an_electrolysis_machine_epilator/) [Twice!!!](https://github.com/IvanBarayev/hair-o-matic) [More than that!](https://hairtell.com/forum/c/hair-removal-methods/do-it-yourself-electrolysis/33) Reddit user /u/abbxrdy, Github user ivanbarayev, the folks on the Hairtell forms, and Andrea James at Transgender Map, I have so much love in my heart for you. Here's to hoping that your work forms the foundation to bring accessible hair removal to all.) My goal is to make a highly buttoned up, safe, accessible, and presentable electrolysis solution for transfeminine people to use on themselves, each other and for others to use on them. I want to cut out the cosmetologists, or specifically those in the electrolysis chain that take the surplus value from transfeminine people, like salon owners and machine manufacturers. I also want to avoid reliance on [sparsely available, weak, and poor quality machines](https://www.hairfacts.com/tips/home-electrolysis-purchasing-info/), which are the current sole option for at-home electrolysis. Ultimately, the goal is to bring **safe, highly effective, and accessible** electrolysis hair removal to all. Currently existing solutions generally fail on at least one of these. My objectives are as follows: - Develop a circuit that can administer a 0.1 to 10 second pulse of current between 0 and 2 mA at a voltage between 0 and 25 V through an electrode upon each press of a button, foot pedal, or even [bite switch](https://www.airturn.com/products/airturn-bite-switch), with no wall plug-in for safety reasons - battery power only. - Make it into a printed circuit board that can be ordered and built out with no more than a soldering iron and YouTube tutorial level soldering skills. - Develop a design for a probe that can hold an electrolysis needle, that can be actualized at home, without any advanced tools. - *Create a high quality and easy to follow manual for the build and usage of the device.* This is missing with all current DIY solutions. This has to be something that is truly accessible to all - no electronics knowledge, wiring, debugging, multimeters, or anything else like that necessary. - We're shooting for a budget under $100, but in general, cost is a deciding factor. It's not accessible if it's expensive. - For now, my intention is to start with a galvanic only electrolysis machine. Blend and thermolysis produce *much* faster results, but I don't feel as confident working in high frequency electronics, and with galvanic being the most reliable option, despite being slower, it's the obvious pick for the 1.0 version. If this takes off, the plan is to continue with a blend or a mode-selectable version, which would *really* democratize electrolysis. If this works, blend electrolysis provides ten times faster hair kill time, and it's next on the menu. 👀 Here's what I'm capable of doing by myself: - I'm an experienced multidisciplinary engineer. I have the skills to see through a basic version of this project to completion. - I can also write a nice assembly and usage guide, I have experience in guide and technical writing for laypeople. - I can bankroll all R&D and prototyping. Here's what I would definitely benefit from community help on: - I work *terribly* alone. I find it hard to get motivated if I don't have a team to share the work with or at least bounce ideas off of. I'm also not *deeply* experienced in this, and community collaboration will get rid of a lot of stumbling blocks that are probably easy avoidable. If you're experienced in analog electronics, you're the number one type of person I'm looking for, but I'd also love to work with digital/embedded folks when it comes to interface/UX time, or additionally anyone with electromechanical design experience for the probe. - Saving the above, I still do much better with folks on the sidelines cheering me on, asking me questions, and keeping me accountable than I do alone, even if I'm working by myself. - If you're a professional electrologist, I'd love to know what you like and don't like in a machine, what features are mandatory, what features are nice to have, and what features are pretty useless. If you have any other tips and advice, let me know! - If you've tried DIY electrolysis before, please tell me how it went and how I can do better than whatever your most recent attempt was! - I need help discussing the licensing. Do I want to go hardline GPL to prevent this from being picked up by manufacturers? Do I make it as open as possible with the hopes that someone can fabricate nice ones? Do I allow for manufacture with the provision that royalties be paid to some entity, which can then be redirected to some mutual aid project/charity/Maoist insurgents? Maybe even use a personal use only clause so I reserve the option to sell units as a worker's cooperative? This is all cart before the horse shit, but it's stuff that needs to get worked out before I make a github. - What do I call it??? Going forward, I plan to post regular bi-weekly updates to keep this alive, days of the week pending Maybe Thursday and Sunday?. Look forward to the first journal entry/post tonight where I show off what I have so far! I think /c/diy is the most applicable place to post due to the comm purpose, but this initial post is getting cross-posted to /c/traaaaaaannnnnnnnnns due to the relevance in that community. Let's stay in touch! This is an alt but I'll be checking it frequently. Thanks for being an awesome online community and I hope this can happen in a way that results in material good for my comrades.