E-STIM 2B tear down review
Posted: Mon Nov 02, 2015 10:27 am
Now, I know you're not meant to open the box to have a lookie see inside but, why not? Well we'll get to that later.
I don't know how long this post will stay on this forum, because the powers that be might not like what I have to say,
but this is only meant to be taken as constructive criticism.
The general look and feel of the 2B is okay but there is room for improvement, it does not rattle like some of the
competition but that is only down to a piece of foam to hold the battery in place, a quick mod on any other device
with a bit of foam and double sided tape.
The box itself is quite heavy for what it is, and heavy normally means quality right? Well no not in this case, the box
looks to be an off the shelf unit modified slightly to accommodate the 2B, and looks rather dated.
I found on my unit that the centre knob is off centre in the hole and I'm guessing other units are the same, and the
spindles on all three knobs have been crudely cut with what looks like side cutters, although you would not see this
in normal use it did not inspire confidence. The knobs themselves are what look and feel like cheap plastic but with
what looks to be a copper friction type fitting that does look rather nice, it's a shame they are hidden and it is also a
shame they are being used on those awful spindles.
On the inside, what did I expect to see? Well for the price you are paying for the 2B I was thinking some nice SMD
(surface mount devices for those that do not know) on a nice SMT circuit board (surface mount technology) but sadly
no. The only part that is SMT is the display but that is an off the shelf component at £5.67p plus vat each, if you buy
in quantity you could get them for as little as £4.16p plus vat each per 100 units.
The only other board in the unit is a double sided through hole design and I think E-STIM are paying more for this than
they need to. The whole board is etched leaving only the tracks between components, I think it would cheaper
to leave most of the copper on the board as a ground plain/heat sink as it would cost them less for the etching
process.
The soldering of the components looks fine with no dry joints that I could see and no large blobs of solder either but,
what I did find is flux and lots of it, maybe a little PCB cleaner would come in handy. Because of the weight (and cost)
of the 2B you would think there would be lots of goodies inside but again you will be sadly disappointed, two ic's, one
is an op amp, nothing special at 76 pence plus vat each and the other is the microcontroller at £3.45p plus vat, of course
you pay less for these if you buy in volume like most other electrical components. Other components on the board are
about half a dozen what look like tantalum capacitors, around nine suntan branded (suntan brand I'll get back to them)
electrolytic capacitors, about twenty to twenty five resistors one variable, around half a dozen transistors, one tactile
push button, the three control knobs, the on/off switch, the power supply input, the two output sockets along with the
input socket, the battery lead, two what look like pull up transformers and the display.
The 2B has clearly been built down to a price, the passive components I would not expect to pay more than £5 for,
and I would not expect to pay much more for the active components either. The knobs, switches and sockets would be
the most expensive though but I would still not expect to pay much more than £10-£15.
Suntan branded capacitors, not what I would call a premium brand, more like el cheapo, one hung lo China crap but I
guess they work for the limited time the 2B is used for. Another thing I found inside was a sticker stating calibration
void if broken, the only part that can be adjusted is the variable resistor and if you notice the hole drilled in the back
of the 2B, that hole sits directly above that variable resistor so what was - is the point of that sticker?
The knobs are soldered directly to the PCB so if the unit is dropped and it lands on a knob it is likely to break the PCB.
So what do you get for the RRP of £299? A box worth about £50! yes £50 is about all it costs for all of the components
to make this unit. So where does the other £249 go? well profit and of course the programming of the microcontroller
and the updates if you have the 2B digital link interface, but that costs a further £69 if you did not buy it with the 2B.
And that is another thing with the E-STIM 2B, updates, the last update 2.104 was released on or around the 08/04/2013
that is 19 months ago at the time of writing this, an update that a fair few people have stated is to spiky and have said
so for about 18 months and two weeks and I have to agree (more on this next), but still no update, 2.105 is still in
beta for those who wish to risk it not bricking their ic and is only available on the forum if you first know the forum
even exists and then only if you first make three posts (This is my first post and maybe my last if I get thrown off of
the forum) and you're either or wish to be a developer and you still have to ask, and I've just read 2.010 is available???
isn't that a backward step?
I haven't even turned the 2B on yet in his post so lets do that now.
Now everybody's sense of touch is different that is true, I for one find cold painful but heat even up to 400 degrees C
although still painful I can tolerate in places. Now it has been said by a fair few people that they find the 2B spiky, is
that just their perception or is it real? I find the 2B to be spiky as well especially when compared to other products
that are used for the same purpose like the Electrastim or a slendertone so I compared them, yes they felt different
but that could be put down to my perception of them and that was not good enough, but there is another way, a way
to take the human out of the loop so to speak, and that is to use an oscilloscope now you don't have to rely on a feeling
that changes over time, you now have a waveform that you can see, a waveform that you can repeat time and time again.
Now I don't know if I will ever be allowed to post on this forum again after this review but if I am and if I can post pictures
I will at some point write a post on the 2B with pictures showing the waveforms from not only the 2B but the Electrastim
and the slendertone as a comparison.
But for now I will only deal with the continuous mode setting but the other settings on the 2B also show the spiky waveform,
someone on this forum (insert name here) stated that continuous did not feel continuous and I would have to agree, and the
waveform on the oscilloscope also shows this, the waveform fluctuates randomly, both on the battery and on the power
adaptor. The spiky feeling is also random and fluctuating and even changing the adjust knob by just one click changes the
waveform wildly. the spiky feeling is present throughout the adjustment range from the lowest setting all of the way through
to the highest,. Although at the highest 10-15% of the range the frequency of the spikes is seen to decrease for the other
85-90% of the range there is very little change, the only change is in the waveform, the frequency and amplitude remain
almost the same with only maybe a few milliseconds difference on the timing.
And I can confirm as someone (insert name here) on the forum stated on some modes there is no output until about 40%
even with the oscilloscope turned down to measure 20mv I was not able to see any output until about 38%.
The E-STIM 2B is let down by the 2.104 update as a result. The frequency and amplitude of the spikes should increase or
decrease in a linear fashion from no spikes at the lowest setting to very spiky at the highest, also the power setting should
increase in the same way, to have some settings giving an output from one but others only giving an output from power level
38 means it is only a matter of time until you forget or your master or mistress forgets and you get a very painful jolt to your
most intimate area. It might be easier said than done though given the microcontrollers limited memory of 32k flash, 16384
#single word instructions with 1536 bytes of SRAM and 256 bytes of EEPROM. (Yes sad I know, I read the data sheet).
The E-STIM 2B could be so much better, the use of better plastics is one area, the knobs and switches could be a better design,
easy for master or mistress to adjust but hard for the sub. A cable retainer on the back to stop the cables from being pulled
loose when the sub is struggling, the unit itself could be made much smaller, even with the existing components it could be
made about half its size, having a belt clip built in is not an expensive option and maybe using a better battery like a li-on or
li-po to give a longer run time.
I know it is like comparing oranges with apples but look at what a Gopro hero 4 black gives you for about the same price,
4K video at 30 frames a seconds, 12MP camera at 30 Fps, glass lens (not plastic), better plastics, waterproof housing, Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth plus software and updates. And yes they do cater for a much larger market but it is only an example of what
about £300 of electronics looks like.
Maybe E-STIM should talk to me about product design.
I don't know how long this post will stay on this forum, because the powers that be might not like what I have to say,
but this is only meant to be taken as constructive criticism.
The general look and feel of the 2B is okay but there is room for improvement, it does not rattle like some of the
competition but that is only down to a piece of foam to hold the battery in place, a quick mod on any other device
with a bit of foam and double sided tape.
The box itself is quite heavy for what it is, and heavy normally means quality right? Well no not in this case, the box
looks to be an off the shelf unit modified slightly to accommodate the 2B, and looks rather dated.
I found on my unit that the centre knob is off centre in the hole and I'm guessing other units are the same, and the
spindles on all three knobs have been crudely cut with what looks like side cutters, although you would not see this
in normal use it did not inspire confidence. The knobs themselves are what look and feel like cheap plastic but with
what looks to be a copper friction type fitting that does look rather nice, it's a shame they are hidden and it is also a
shame they are being used on those awful spindles.
On the inside, what did I expect to see? Well for the price you are paying for the 2B I was thinking some nice SMD
(surface mount devices for those that do not know) on a nice SMT circuit board (surface mount technology) but sadly
no. The only part that is SMT is the display but that is an off the shelf component at £5.67p plus vat each, if you buy
in quantity you could get them for as little as £4.16p plus vat each per 100 units.
The only other board in the unit is a double sided through hole design and I think E-STIM are paying more for this than
they need to. The whole board is etched leaving only the tracks between components, I think it would cheaper
to leave most of the copper on the board as a ground plain/heat sink as it would cost them less for the etching
process.
The soldering of the components looks fine with no dry joints that I could see and no large blobs of solder either but,
what I did find is flux and lots of it, maybe a little PCB cleaner would come in handy. Because of the weight (and cost)
of the 2B you would think there would be lots of goodies inside but again you will be sadly disappointed, two ic's, one
is an op amp, nothing special at 76 pence plus vat each and the other is the microcontroller at £3.45p plus vat, of course
you pay less for these if you buy in volume like most other electrical components. Other components on the board are
about half a dozen what look like tantalum capacitors, around nine suntan branded (suntan brand I'll get back to them)
electrolytic capacitors, about twenty to twenty five resistors one variable, around half a dozen transistors, one tactile
push button, the three control knobs, the on/off switch, the power supply input, the two output sockets along with the
input socket, the battery lead, two what look like pull up transformers and the display.
The 2B has clearly been built down to a price, the passive components I would not expect to pay more than £5 for,
and I would not expect to pay much more for the active components either. The knobs, switches and sockets would be
the most expensive though but I would still not expect to pay much more than £10-£15.
Suntan branded capacitors, not what I would call a premium brand, more like el cheapo, one hung lo China crap but I
guess they work for the limited time the 2B is used for. Another thing I found inside was a sticker stating calibration
void if broken, the only part that can be adjusted is the variable resistor and if you notice the hole drilled in the back
of the 2B, that hole sits directly above that variable resistor so what was - is the point of that sticker?
The knobs are soldered directly to the PCB so if the unit is dropped and it lands on a knob it is likely to break the PCB.
So what do you get for the RRP of £299? A box worth about £50! yes £50 is about all it costs for all of the components
to make this unit. So where does the other £249 go? well profit and of course the programming of the microcontroller
and the updates if you have the 2B digital link interface, but that costs a further £69 if you did not buy it with the 2B.
And that is another thing with the E-STIM 2B, updates, the last update 2.104 was released on or around the 08/04/2013
that is 19 months ago at the time of writing this, an update that a fair few people have stated is to spiky and have said
so for about 18 months and two weeks and I have to agree (more on this next), but still no update, 2.105 is still in
beta for those who wish to risk it not bricking their ic and is only available on the forum if you first know the forum
even exists and then only if you first make three posts (This is my first post and maybe my last if I get thrown off of
the forum) and you're either or wish to be a developer and you still have to ask, and I've just read 2.010 is available???
isn't that a backward step?
I haven't even turned the 2B on yet in his post so lets do that now.
Now everybody's sense of touch is different that is true, I for one find cold painful but heat even up to 400 degrees C
although still painful I can tolerate in places. Now it has been said by a fair few people that they find the 2B spiky, is
that just their perception or is it real? I find the 2B to be spiky as well especially when compared to other products
that are used for the same purpose like the Electrastim or a slendertone so I compared them, yes they felt different
but that could be put down to my perception of them and that was not good enough, but there is another way, a way
to take the human out of the loop so to speak, and that is to use an oscilloscope now you don't have to rely on a feeling
that changes over time, you now have a waveform that you can see, a waveform that you can repeat time and time again.
Now I don't know if I will ever be allowed to post on this forum again after this review but if I am and if I can post pictures
I will at some point write a post on the 2B with pictures showing the waveforms from not only the 2B but the Electrastim
and the slendertone as a comparison.
But for now I will only deal with the continuous mode setting but the other settings on the 2B also show the spiky waveform,
someone on this forum (insert name here) stated that continuous did not feel continuous and I would have to agree, and the
waveform on the oscilloscope also shows this, the waveform fluctuates randomly, both on the battery and on the power
adaptor. The spiky feeling is also random and fluctuating and even changing the adjust knob by just one click changes the
waveform wildly. the spiky feeling is present throughout the adjustment range from the lowest setting all of the way through
to the highest,. Although at the highest 10-15% of the range the frequency of the spikes is seen to decrease for the other
85-90% of the range there is very little change, the only change is in the waveform, the frequency and amplitude remain
almost the same with only maybe a few milliseconds difference on the timing.
And I can confirm as someone (insert name here) on the forum stated on some modes there is no output until about 40%
even with the oscilloscope turned down to measure 20mv I was not able to see any output until about 38%.
The E-STIM 2B is let down by the 2.104 update as a result. The frequency and amplitude of the spikes should increase or
decrease in a linear fashion from no spikes at the lowest setting to very spiky at the highest, also the power setting should
increase in the same way, to have some settings giving an output from one but others only giving an output from power level
38 means it is only a matter of time until you forget or your master or mistress forgets and you get a very painful jolt to your
most intimate area. It might be easier said than done though given the microcontrollers limited memory of 32k flash, 16384
#single word instructions with 1536 bytes of SRAM and 256 bytes of EEPROM. (Yes sad I know, I read the data sheet).
The E-STIM 2B could be so much better, the use of better plastics is one area, the knobs and switches could be a better design,
easy for master or mistress to adjust but hard for the sub. A cable retainer on the back to stop the cables from being pulled
loose when the sub is struggling, the unit itself could be made much smaller, even with the existing components it could be
made about half its size, having a belt clip built in is not an expensive option and maybe using a better battery like a li-on or
li-po to give a longer run time.
I know it is like comparing oranges with apples but look at what a Gopro hero 4 black gives you for about the same price,
4K video at 30 frames a seconds, 12MP camera at 30 Fps, glass lens (not plastic), better plastics, waterproof housing, Wi-Fi
and Bluetooth plus software and updates. And yes they do cater for a much larger market but it is only an example of what
about £300 of electronics looks like.
Maybe E-STIM should talk to me about product design.