E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

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jack_sub
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E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by jack_sub »

Hello there, I have been a member for quite a while and this is my first post (like many others :P)

I was checking out the latest bondara sale and noticed there was an e-stim device on sale (link below). It has an audio jack that connects the butt plug to the control/power box.

Link: http://www.bondara.co.uk/fetish-fantasy ... sure-probe

I was wondering if you could possibly connect the butt plug into a PC audio jack and use it for punishments in the various BJ trainer programs? (using separate audio devices to the ones used for the sound)

I am skeptical myself as I have no idea if any actual power is sent down an audio jack, and if there was if it could power such a device.

Any knowledgeable answers would be great, I was thinking it would be fun to try if it was/could be this cheap and simple to set up :)
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by KinkInSpace »

The answer is yes and no.

Yes, you can connect this to your pc, but you won't feel a thing. Audio is sent as voltage, but the best it can output is only 1 volt. It doesn't need more, and with little volt, audio can travel better over a small cable without getting hot etc.

All it needs to do is power a very small magnet that will be responsible for creating sound waves.

That being said, it is possible to get e-stim punishment through PC audio, but you will need an expensive powerbox that converts the audio into something useful for e-stim. Keep in mind, that what is outputted is specially designed to stimulate the nerve endings. It will not exceed safety limits. Toying around with this (trying to do it yourself) really is not advised, unless you don't mind inducing a possibly deadly shock to yourself.

Keep in mind that our body uses electricity too in our nervesystem. Overloading this obviously is not a great thing.
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I'm not yet very comfortable expressing my love for kink from my private life. I will therefor hide behind my username KinkInSpace and not allow any connections to who I really am. I'm sure you'll understand.
jack_sub
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by jack_sub »

Thanks for the great advice, it did seem to good an idea to be true haha.

I may invest in something like it in the future but not at a high price now.

Thanks again :)
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sphere
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by sphere »

Everything just said was true but with a small mod you could use that device that you linked, you would need to get one of the fx relays that is talked about in the blow job trainer use the little control box for that plug but cut the common wire each side of the relay, then turning it on to a high setting, then let the software open and close the relay which then would make the contact and give you a shock as punishment, that would be a very cheap way of getting a blow job trainer controled device to give you a shock as punishment. .. just my 2 pennies worth :)
I use the Estim 312b , it has audio and that built into it :)
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by KinkInSpace »

True, but with every DIY post here, especially those involving electricity: Don't unless you know exactly what you're doing.

The reason there is a higher risk involved in doing the suggested is as follows: The shocks an E-stim unit gives follow a certain waveform. They are not on/off, but have rounded corners. This is so that the muscle has time to adjust to the electricity and not over-stretch itself. If the relay causes the electricity to start flowing while the power is on, it may cause a shock that does not have the on-ramp rounded corner. As a result it could damage the tissue/muscle/nervous system.

Not to mention that continuously opening and closing the circuit could damage the cheaper e-stim units, and the one listed here falls onto the cheaper types.
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0385
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by 0385 »

probably need an amp, like when you want to connect speakers instead of head phones. regulate the power with that.
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by KinkInSpace »

0385 wrote:probably need an amp, like when you want to connect speakers instead of head phones. regulate the power with that.
This comment shows that you have no idea what you're talking about. Please, for the sake of everyone's safety... If you don't know enough about the subject of causing punishment to yourself or someone else, don't give advise. You may inevitably causing someone to die, which is basically the same as if you were killing them yourself.

Don't think an AMP will work, but if it does, it is really really dangarous. So don't!!!
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I'm not yet very comfortable expressing my love for kink from my private life. I will therefor hide behind my username KinkInSpace and not allow any connections to who I really am. I'm sure you'll understand.
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Gregovic
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by Gregovic »

The only way this could work is by using one of the sound activated DESIGNED FOR THE PURPOSE E-stim units out there. Pipe the line-out of the PC into the line-in of the estim box and enjoy. Theres some really cheap Bluetooth audio receivers you could use to make the thing wireless as well.
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by BoundBG »

What's so special about estim boxes?
Can't I just play an audio file designed specifically for this (estim) with my toys connected to a headphone amp which is connected to my computer?
Of course I will test it beforehand and make sure the amp volume is not too loud.
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by Gregovic »

E stim unit have a lot of protection against high voltages and current. Standard amp circuits typically have high voltage harmonics in the signal that could be damaging to nerves and can easily exceed safe current levels
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leopard99
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by leopard99 »

Apart from Gregovic, who is making sensible suggestions, all the other contributions to this thread are at best untested and could be dangerous. Statements like: "Audio is sent as voltage, but the best it can output is only 1 volt. It doesn't need more, and with little volt, audio can travel better over a small cable without getting hot etc." are effectively meaningless.

I have no real idea what the maximum audio voltage from a PC's headphone jack might be. I could measure it if I wished (I have an oscilloscope, though a digital voltmeter might be adequate). The output of an amplifier that could feed loudspeakers could easily be dangerous. Depends on the power rating but there's no way I'd like to connect myself or anyone else to the output of an amp without doing some careful measuements first. In most cases simply touching it with your hands will be harmless but if you've got electrodes fixed to your body, or worse still an anal or vaginal electrode then it doesn't take much voltage to give a nasty shock.

NB: I'm a qualified electrical engineer with many years of experience. I've designed and maintained equipment that has used dangerous voltages and currents. I've seen too many "near misses" with electrical kit. Fortunately I've not had to witness or deal with serious injury or death. I'm not talking about kink stuff here, just normal kit being used and/or maintained.
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by ruru67 »

Yeah, you really want something built for purpose. An e-stim unit, TENS or whatever is a pretty simple thing conceptually - it's a simple pulse generator (with controls) and an amplifier to turn a low voltage signal into a higher voltage one that you can actually feel.

Your computer's audio output can produce pretty much any wave form you want - that's basically what it's for - but as noted, usually not with enough volts to be useful for e-stim.

E-stim safety is about current limiting - there's an old maxim that "it's the volts that jolt, but the mills that kills." ("mills" in this case being short for "milliamps".) E-stim & TENS units typically use voltages around 40V; body resistances are high so the current is usually well down into the microamp range; they also typically have a current limiting resistor to limit current to tens of milliamps in the case of a dead short. Under normal operation, the resistance offered by your body is going to dominate the series resistance calculation by several orders of magnitude, so the series resistor is mainly there to protect the device from accidental short circuits. But a 2k ohm resistor at 40V will keep the current down to 20mA in the worst case.

60mA or more across the centre of the body is considered dangerous.

I did some experiments a while ago and wrote them up. It's not about audio, but it goes into more detail about how e-stim works and how it relates to safety.

So, basically, if you hook up your audio output to an amp capable of delivering no more than 40V peak, through a 2k resistor, you should be fine. You'll need to tweak things depending on what you're doing - if you're generating TENS-style wave forms (which are typically short, square-ish pulses, where the frequency, duration and amplitude of the pulses control the sensation, but the power is actually only on a tiny fraction of the time), you'll want to configure your amp to maximum output when it receives maximum input to give your pulse generation full authority over the output. If you're using audio (where there's signal more often than not), you might want to turn it down a bit.

But really, it's the voltage peaks that you need to have tight control over; if you do, then Ohm's Law is your friend, and everything else falls out of that.

I'm not sure if an off-the-shelf audio amp has that property, which is why I'd suggest something simple and built for purpose. Basically, you need a power supply reliably delivering your target voltage, attached to a signal amplifier - the amp (with no extra coils or anything else that could boost voltage) will only deliver what it's given, or less, depending on the signal input. Add the series resistor and electrode leads, and your audio e-stim is done.

And if you don't know the properties of your amp, don't use it.
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by leopard99 »

@rur67, it was well worth writing that blog and doing the experiments. There are a couple of points that might be worth reviewing.

You write of "....current across the chest cavity...." Currents flow THROUGH something. Voltages are across. It's a common confusion in non-technical writing.

I would also take issue with 60mA as a safe limit. Standard RCDs (GFI in US parlance) are rated to trip at 30mA. In high risk environments 10mA RCDs are common. There are various published diagrams showing the effects of different currents through the body for different lengths of time. An example here: http://amstexas.org/blog/2013/11/12/ind ... ave-lives/ I certainly wouldn't want 60mA (or even 30mA) to be flowing through my body for any length of time. That's why RCD/GFI devices cut the current pretty darn quick. I've wondered how they got the evidence for those diagrams as doing the experiments would be highly unethical.

On an anecdotal level I often test 9V batteries by a quick touch to the tongue. I'm sure many others do too. I've never measured the current that flows but it's certainly unpleasant with a new or new-ish battery.
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by ruru67 »

leopard99 wrote:I would also take issue with 60mA as a safe limit. Standard RCDs (GFI in US parlance) are rated to trip at 30mA.
Which is a 100% safety factor over 60 mA.

(For those not familiar with them, an RCD (residual current device) or GFCI (ground fault current interrupter, same thing) basically compares the current outward to a device with the return current - if they're different, then at least part of current must be flowing some other way, possibly through a person, so the RCD kills the circuit.)

The fault current trigger level isn't just a question of whether the rated load will kill someone or not. It's about reliably detecting a fault current and killing the circuit. There are lots of reasons besides human safety that you want fault currents killed quickly - secondary damage, risk of progressive failure, fire et c. Thus it's going to be as sensitive as you can reasonably make it, given cost constraints and manufacturing tolerances, and also the risk of normal activity (including reactive loads that may delay current return) setting the thing off unnecessarily.

That said, the "safe" current is one of those cases where there is no "right" number - a current that kills person A might not kill person B, so you want to pick something unlikely to kill anyone. Someone posted a comment to my piece about smaller currents interrupting cardiac function if they hit just the right way; I don't know how good that info is.
I've wondered how they got the evidence for those diagrams as doing the experiments would be highly unethical.
I would imagine that safe/lethal currents have been determined through animal experiments and confirmed for human cases by forensic investigation.
On an anecdotal level I often test 9V batteries by a quick touch to the tongue. I'm sure many others do too. I've never measured the current that flows but it's certainly unpleasant with a new or new-ish battery.
I took 12V through the tongue for about a minute to pretty much answer that question. OK, not that specific question ... but having come up with a resistance of around 1,500 ohms through the tongue, that means 9V is going to give you about 6 mA. A pretty large proportion of that will be going through the fluid on the surface, so the current you're actually feeling will be much less.
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Re: E-stim punishment through PC audio jack?

Post by KinkInSpace »

I'm an audio engineer and a system administrator. Whenever a headphone speaker is involved the max voltage can't be too high or it would blow the headphone itself. A speaker works by having a magnet moving the tweater back and forth. It requires very minimal power to do so. Usually for clean volume levels, optimal levels would be around 1 volts. The highest level without destroying equipment is probably around 2 volts depending on the receiving end.

When I design Virtual Instruments, the internal audio signal is programmed in volts as well, and general rule there is to work at 1 volts too.

Furthermore, wikipedia has a nice article laying out the levels too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_level

Now, of course, even though the voltage leaving the pc is at maximum 2 volts, if it goes into an amplifier, the amp can send a higher setting to the speaker. The speaker obviously has bigger magnets and as such won't be destroyed by higher voltages the same way the small magnets will that are in in-ear phones.

Keep in mind that the post here is about the PC audio jack. It has no amplification in it, and thus will not exceed 2 volts, and thus will not be felt at all.
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I'm not yet very comfortable expressing my love for kink from my private life. I will therefor hide behind my username KinkInSpace and not allow any connections to who I really am. I'm sure you'll understand.
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