Clareblend or Silhouet-Tone

Hair Removal Methods Professional Electrolysis
#21

400 to 600 hairs per hour is pretty good and is probably in a flash mode. It would be pretty hard to get that fast in blend (at least in keeping it within the classic definition of blend that requires seven seconds of galvanic treatment energy.)

As far as the sweetener thing goes, I agree that americans are being force fed corn syrup in everything they ingest, while looking for sweetener alternatives that would be unnecessary if they would just find a way to avoid the corn syrup. Raw sugar, honey, and even white sugar are ok and I would have to go re-read about stevia to recall anything other than it causes diarrhea if you eat to much (as does xylitol)

As for clunking someone over the head, the Apilus Platinum can really take someone’s head off if one can hold it above one’s head and swing! :smiley:

#22

I disagree with the pinpoints for a couple months. I’m not seeing this. I use the VMC and it’s the complete opposite. You might have some minor skin manifestations that last for a couple days OR depending on other variables unique to you, it may take as long as a week or two. This statement about pinpoints is just not true. If it happens to you then perhaps she should change to a gold probe and use those less expensive stainless steel probes for consultation purposes only and skip the $2 charge altogether.

Look, she has great speed, she has a fabulous epilator, but I don’t agree with the pinpoint information for months information. Something needs to be changed and I thinking gold probe verses stainless steel??? I like the feel of gold probes and I am sure that they deliver a better skin reaction for the client because I have compared this. Something needs to change if all her clients get this kind of reaction. The Sequentium VMC will deliver a beautiful outcome IF IT IS USED CORRECTLY. It will do blend beautifully as well, so I don’t know why the older Clareblend is still an option of choice??? Sometimes it is hard to part with those things that we have loved for years.

Just realize that when we are destroying tissue below the skin, and we are removing 400-600 hairs per hour, you cannot reasonably expect to walk out of an office looking perfect. There will be some skin reaction, but is should subside within hours to days. Some people have no signs after 15 minutes. The beginning treatments are the worse reaction you will have because we are going after a lot of hair at once. The hair is usually thicker and closer together. If you want first clearance as soon as possible, then expect some skin reaction in those critical first sessions. If you want barely any skin reaction, then do a little at a time and prolong the outcome for years maybe. It will take much longer. Electrolysis does not have to be a slow process. Know that, if your skin heals within a week (on the face) then you are in good hands. Expect temporary skin manifestations and not perfection. Afterall, we are destroying hair growing tissue and the body doth protests when we invade it!

Dee

#23

Keep in mind also that use of a VMC requires one to leave behind the idea that the proper treatment energy is found by using the person’s sensation of pain as a barometer of treatment levels. One must use the level that releases the hair best without regard to what the client feels. It sounds to me like she may be setting the epilator higher than it needs to be in order to perform good treatments.

#24

With the Sequentium VMC, and maybe this holds true for the other brands of computerized epilators, it appears that when one switches from their older knob job machines to something like the VMC, they do not realize that the treatment energy delivered can be lowered and thus, the treatment made more comfortable. They are surprised to find that the skin looks good and the hair releases well. I found this to be true for myself during my adjustment period. I was amazed at the difference between the VMC and other brands that I had become familiar with. I was amazed by the powerfulness of the VMC for those man hairs. I was amazed by it’s gentleness for those, tiny middle upper lip hairs, too.

The Sequentium is a great workhorse. If your electrologist has this epilator, she’s got one of the good ones. Maybe she’s still in the honeymoon phase trying to figure it out? James has introduced another good point worth considering.

#25

True, if she flip flops between an older Clareblend and a VMC, she’s not really digging into the full potential of the VMC. Seems like she’s having a bit of hesitation fully trusting and getting into the workings of the VMC. The VMC is the way to go, choose that one, give her feedback, maybe you’ll both come out more the better.

Yes, I think the whole Splenda thing hides more than what they want us to know. These days, I just don’t believe that fooling the body like that can have no negative consequences. Somewhere, someway tricking the body like this is throwing the insulin/glucagon responses off. As for Stevia, I just think it’s near useless. It tastes nasty, to me it doesn’t taste sweet at all. It’s like baking soda or something. Honey -that’s good. Honey’s the perfect food. Too bad about the bees going extinct, -and they were smarter than us.

Mantaray

Ps: I think the Platinum with the printer option would probably deliver a more painful blow to the head, and it would have that little serrated paper-cutting thing to gouge. It would be one of those times you’d be glad you didn’t go with a Vector.

#26

The VMC is capable of emulating a clarablend if one learns how to do it.

#27

I have a clareblend ultrablend as a backup machine, and wonder why one would want to emulate it. The technology is just plain old. Can it perform electrolysis, that is certain, but when compared to newer machines out there, it does not have the advances that they are capable of.
Hopefully in a few weeks, I will have my move completed and be able to get back to my little project again. I am really excited about the capabilities that I see coming from this CB Conversion using a midi controller to adjust the different settings. Levels will be able to be adjusted every milli-second whether on/off or change in levels. Ramping of levels well become very easy as well. Control will be via either a laptop or desktop computer. Anything that has a USB-2 port. USB-1 might work, but cannot guarantee the milli-second timing, but it might still be close enough, but I have not tried the adapter yet with a usb-1 port.
At least I am back in operation with my electrolysis business again, after having to move suites. Still have some work to do though in getting everything as I want it. I can see this little device bypassing or emulating virtually any machine out there. And all at 27 mhz. Still have details however to work out, and testing to perform, but from what I saw on my oscilloscope, I am really happy with what this thing will be capable of. Just imagine the capability of seeing the actual waveform displayed on the computer screen as electrolysis is being performed. I expect that capability to also be available. A kit that will allow it, has arrived, but need time and space to assemble it and put it to use. Anyway, this is kind of my dream machine.

#28

You go girl!!!

#29

All of us geeks, wonks, (my university slang was “Throats” which evolved from cutthroat students who wanted to be number one at all costs) and wannabe home users can’t wait to be able to get one of your set ups in their hands.

#30

James and others;
Gee maybe when things are pretty much solidified as to construction, some on here might be interested in purchasing a unit for little more than cost, and give feedback as to treatment levels and kind of do test studies.

#31

So, will this be mimicking the Apilus Platinum? What is a litle more than cost mean? Do you need computer with this unit?

#32

As described in the section discussing the unit in detail, yes, it would hook up to the computer you already have. The beauty of this unit is it gives one the stuff that one doesn’t have, and makes use of the stuff you already have. It will also give new life to one of those desk tops or lap tops that you have collecting dust right now.

#33

Dee,
The CB can be purchased for less than $30, One will need either a 12v or 13.8vdc power supply for power, plus a 0-20vdc adjustable supply. I purchased a kit for less than $30 but need to make modifications to the filtering. One needs to purchase a Midi interface that plugs into a usb port. I bought one for about $40, and it is working wonderfully. The Midi controller costs about $60 and is used to control the various functions. I purchased a kit to deturmine what kind of levels will be required to sample the output level and feed the signal into an audio card to enable a oscilloscope program to display the output waveform. I have pretty much determine what parts I will use for galvanic currents as well. There will be a need for a small circuit card for misc parts used for the interfaces.
Commands are very simple for midi. Three groups of two hex bytes.
example 91 in the first group means turn on, next two hex bytes will be a note value like 27 which tells which logic output to turn on, and the third group tells a digital potentiometer where to place its wiper position. This potentiometer controls the voltage that is delivered to the final stage of the epilator.
This different codes can be manually entered, or they can be stored in a file for reuse. Thus making it easy for operators to share their settings with each other.
Foot switch will be connected to a usb port so that it tells the program to run. You will be able to check your settings before using them, by just running the program and looking at the scope to verify that it is what you wish to use.
Anyway, I believe that when all is said and done, the unit as configured now, should be able to be built for under $500.
I am working on this project as a sideline, and it is not my first priority by any means. Moving and getting my electrolysis business back in order take a much higher priority at this time. I have proven that I can turn on and off a pulse or multiple pulses each with one millisec timing. To ramp a signal it is simple as 91 27 1f 91 27 2f 91 27 3f 91 27 4f 91 27 5f 91 27 6f 91 27 7f. That produces a ramp from near 5vp-p to about 90vp-p to 100vp-p. Reversal of the numbers would provide a ramp down as well. Each set of 3 groups equals one millisec in time duration. I have not started on the auto epilation modes yet. Getting the galvanic working will be ahead of those worries. But that will be looked into down the road.
The aim is to be able to perform any modality of any kind one can imagine. It will require the electrologist to know what they are wanting to do, verses Apilus just saying chin level 3 etc. Those types of settings would require a much larger and extensive test base than I can provide from my modest business. But if enough electrologist were interested in giving feedback, then something along those lines might become possible. Thus that would be a testing phase to find best settings for persons/probes/areas treated etc.
This started out, for me to just compare 13.5 mhz epilation vs 27 mhz epilation, but has grown to kind of become my dream machine.

#34

Thanks Martha for that information. You’ve done some great undercover work here, so much so that some epilator manufacturer might want to hire you.

#35

Dee;
My main desire in this project is to help others. It is not to find a job. I had a very high paying job for 27 years at Boeing. I am kind of burned out on electronics, but I am willing to take on little projects such as I am working on. I find that I get my most pleasure out of helping others. If a company were to come to me, I would give them consideration, but it is not something that I wish to pursue. Besides, I find the electronics field to be kind of glutted right now. I get much more satisfaction, working with my clients. What gets to me, is that it should not cost $10,000 for any epilator. There is not $3500 worth of electronics in my Clareblend Ultrablend either. Compared to other electronics - like a cb radio. It is packed full of electronics, and I could not even begin to build even a section of the radio for the cost that they sell the entire unit. The principles that I an using with the midland will work with I believe any CB radio out there, but needed to purchase one in order to share details with others. So I choose the least expensive one that I could find. I have proven to myself that this project will work. It has plenty of output power and the switching times work wonderfully as well. But it is a project that I only spend a small amount of my spare time on.
I am pretty sure, that most manufactures of electrology equipment want the information that I am freely sharing to be kept secret. Like it is some kind of magic inside their box that only they can sell you. But in reality, One microsec pulses is only 1 thousands of a second or a 1000 cycle per second waveform. That is smack dab in the audio frequency band. Not rocket science by any means. I wish more electrologist understood the electronics that they are using. It would not be such a mystery about the settings or modality. So while the apilus and other manufacturers are out making their boxes with just preset settings, my aim is provide a box that can be made to do basically anything an electrologist would want to use. I imagine that after many many hours of use, settings will probably boil back down to those like apilus and others to settings where one will have their preferred settings and basically just use them. An advantage of this project, is that if someone wishes to add or change settings, they can either define a new waveform themselves, or download a file that is being shared by another electrologist. No requirement to send an epilator into a factory to change eproms any longer. Also, if an electrologist wants to save records of each clients session, it is already on the computer and should become easy to save. Granted, efforts remain in the software side of things to be resolved, but I have a volunteer on here who is helping in that regards. Just imagine, someone on here can come up with a treatment waveform that works wonderfully and within moments it can be shared with others and feedback given on its success. Rather than just relying on what manufacturers which to provide on their displays.
The units will require some form of computer with a usb port, and to have a sound card if they wish the scope function. Only connections between the unit and the computer will be USB and mini-phone jack for the scope. A conventional mouse could be used to cause the program to run, but plan to have a usb footswitch to make things conventional to epilators now in use. Maybe after auto mode is built, a footswitch will not even be required, but become just an option. The box will plug into the wall and have a plug to put a probe cable onto, but I do not see anything else besides the usb and mini jack. Just a plain box. Everything controlled and recorded via the computer. At least that is what I am working towards.

#36

Well, do keep enjoying this project at your own pace, indeed. This is all so very, very interesting. I feel deceived. Yes, why do professional epilators cost so much? Is there really that much research and development $$$$ involved in the final product that justifies a $10,000 price tag? Material-wise, I get what you are saying. You’re onto something better??? and I’m thinking that someone may try to steal your idea.

#37

Dee;
The difference in price is probably due to the fact that they do not sell many units, so any profit that they are going to make must come from just a few units. Time invested in trying to design a unit and selling only a few hundred units, raises their price a whole lot. I am retired from Boeing, collecting a pension, and kind of like linux, offering up my ideas for the betterment of those interested. The fact that my ideas are posted on the computer, does give proof of the date of my posting, that the ideas were mine.
As far as better, that statement will always be in the mind of the holder. But the apilus syncro mode, uses published durations of 0.002 seconds or two milliseconds. I have shown that by using the midi controller, that I can have pulses on for 0.001 then off for 0.001 and then turned back on again if desired. That is half the duration of the Apilus Platinum in syncro mode. In the time period of that modality, I could actually have two different levels, either rising or falling waveforms. As I have said previously, the frequency that the apilus is using is identical to Channel 14 on the CB Radio. CB shares this frequency with Medical Devices. Personally, I like the features that I am designing into this project. I like being able to view the waveform. Not everyone can afford or even know how to use an o’scope even if they had one. But one day, I found programs on the web on being able to use a sound card as a cheap scope. Since the pulses are 1 khz max, they will be able to be viewed on the scope. You will not be able to see each cycle of the 27 mhz signal, like I can on my Textronix scope but you should be able to see the timing pulses. If I can somehow get DC coupling, I will also be able to display galvanic currents as well. I have on purpose, tried to keep this project to already available kits, in order to make it easier for others to duplicate. The biggest hurdle, may be the software development. But there are programs already on the web that I am able to use.
One I am using is Bome’s SendSX, which allows me to send hex strings to the Midi adapter. Later on, I might make use of other midi software, especially if longer pulses are desired. In that case, duration will be determined by music representation. Meaning change in tempo will speed up or slow down the timing. That has caused me to try and learn a bit about musical representation. But the specifications were so much better with midi controllers than were available via sound boards, that direction changed to using midi instead of a sound card or trying to use a function generator. All of my tests so far, have left me very happy with this choice. Time will tell. I guess something can still come up to hamper this project, but for right now, this does seem to be extremely doable.

#38

I will say that the R&D on the Platinum was quite a lot. It was done in conjunction with a college and there were years of research that went into it.

#39

James,
I suspected that they did need to run extensive tests in order to come up with the setting that they did. They have colleges up there that teach electrology I believe. I am told that they have electrologist on almost every corner. College would be a very economical means of getting the testing phase completed. I agree these things are not created over night. It does take extensive testing and evaluating of circuits in order to get it to where there are no mishaps. Like I found with the manual pulse generator I tried. It would fire not only when foot switch was depressed but also when released.
In using my midi controller, there is something that happens with the software I am experimenting with. If I put in a line of code, and then use an enter key to separate lines, the new line sometimes creates a delay that is not consistant. I believe that the software is off doing other things when a new line is created. For initial testing, it is not a problem, Just make sure the last command on a given line is to stop pulse. Go to the next line and start pulse again. Luckily the lines do allow very long strings, doing it this way, is not a problem. When I get to creating the graphic users interface, all this must be taken into consideration. Set up the entire buffer space and then even very long strings should be able to be executed the same each time. What this software seems to be doing, is buffering one string and then sending it, and then buffering the next string in order to send it. Sometimes the delay in getting things set up is longer than the previous string took to process. And that time varies as the operation system also has tasks that it is doing. But anyway, as that program is designed, it does create a minor consequence, but that must be addressed long before actually taking probes and using it on a body. Before anyone else should use this device, I should have tested with test equipment and on myself, first. I also appreciate feedback from others. Some extremely good ideas have some from another volunteer on here who has offered their help in their expertise.

#40

Yes Martha, the R&D was quite a lot.

They even had a problem with the power supply that took years to fix. In trying to find a power supply that was both powerful enough and yet could be regulated so that it could do the small bursts, they fried a lot of demo machines and motherboards.

Making the machine reliable took a whole lot of R&D. They also redid studies to prove that electrolysis works, and more importantly, they did studies to see just what LASER actually did accomplish and compared that to electrolysis. (They found some very interesting information on why LASER has limits to what it can and can’t do) In all, the R&D that went into the Platinum took close to ten years to yield the machine we have today.