i don’t know how but while i was turning the dial on the on touch electrolysis kit it became light and i realises its snapped of the thing that turns the resistor below it. ive opened up the thing and it seems inpossible to glue it back together again.
has this happened to anyone else and how do i fix it?
i could turn the resistor using a pin but its hard to tell what power level it is on.
Those parts are very small and I found no way to glue the dial back on. If you can dig out the original plastic from the variable resistor, it is easy to adjust with a fine screwdriver. You may be able to make markings on the case with a permanent fine pen. If you have an Ohm meter, you can mark off at 1k increments, otherwise the original resistor is very linear and you can just use even spacings for a working reference.
It was pretty much at this point that I bought a small project box at Radio Shack, a Potentiometer (variable reistor, the one in the One Touch unit is 11k) and beefed up all the wires and made them with banana plugs to fit in the jacks I put on the project box. Much sturdier than the original unit and later I replaced the stylet with a professional one that works much better and the probes are cheaper (on a per unit basis) and don’t bend quite so easily. More details at www.NoHair.info
Trying to pick the plastic out of the resistor is hard but i’ll see if i can do it.
you say the levels on the resistor go up at 1k increments do you know what 0 was in terms of k because from that ill be able to work out what number its stuck on now. (i don’t think its 0k because theres a slight current when the dials set at 0)?
The potentiometer in the One Touch unit I had was an 11K. So at the 0 setting, it provides 11K ohms of resistance, which I believe is counter-clockwise. The highest setting provides 0K resistance, meaning that you are pretty much connected straight to the battery and therefore maximum current! I = V / R or Current equals Voltage divided by Resistance, so the more resistance in the circuit, the smaller the current.
Although I could withstand the greater tingling sensation at the higher settings, I eventually trimmed back to only using the 0 or maybe 1 setting and just applying for a longer period of time in order to reduce the chance of damage to the skin. So you could just turn the dial to the lowest setting (maximum resistance) to keep the current to it’s lowest and just apply for the correct amount of time, depending on the depth and thickness of the hair and the moisture content in that area, generally 20 to 40 seconds.
thanks for the information i’ll check with my ohm meter.
just to make sure do you place the two pins from the ohm meter either side of the resistor on the small metal plates?
The One Touch devices are certainly not of the best quality (another reason I recommend getting it done professionally).
While some of our readers are experienced enough with electrical engineering to fix and modify their devices, I would not recommend this unless you have a lot of experience doing this sort of work. You could greatly increase your chances for injury.
[ August 27, 2002, 12:33 PM: Message edited by: Andrea ]
NoHair, how do test how much resistence the unit has?
ive got a testing device with 2 rods, one black and one red. where do i place these to see how much resistence there is?
This is the simplest of an electrical Direct Current circuit, a single loop. The first week of a high school electricity class would cover this, not much electrical engineering knowledge. In this case there is extremely little chance of injury since you are not even changing the circuit. The worst a rewiring job could do, assuming you don’t short circuit the battery itself which would damage the unit and not you during treatment, would be to short the resistor entirely, which would be the same as the highest setting with the dial. The low quality of the One Touch units simply results in them becoming prematurely nonfunctional, they will not unexpectantly throw out large amounts of current.
When measuring resistance, it does not matter if you interchange the position of the red and black leads of an ohm meter. If the ohm meter has a maximum reading setting, set it to include 11K (e.g. 20K). The One Touch unit places the variable resistor between the negative node of the battery and the stylet. Thus it may be simplest to put one lead on the smaller of the two posts on the battery clip and the other on the stylet tip. The positive battery lead connects to the band where your finger contacts. Your body completes the circuit from your finger to the hair follicle. No other sophistication is happening within the device.
Again, my recommendation is to turn the resistor down to it’s lowest setting (highest resistance) and just leave it there for all treatments.