We say Size doesnt matter when it comes to the world of Sex Toys, but is that really the case?
Wayne from E-Stim Systems opens the doors on e-stim electrodes and tries to give you a little insight on that age old question does size really matter?
From the worlds largest, possibly to the worlds smallest, we discuss things big and small and even what happens if things get stuck. We drift over the guy with 26 piercings and wonder what an oven door handle has to do with it all?
Join us now for a real insight into the world of making SexToys.
"I make sex toys" is a the personal podcast of Wayne Allen, the Director of E-Stim Systems. The content of these podcasts are not designed to be Explicit or Erotic but we may discuss adult topics and therefore these podcasts are not suitable for children or those of a nervous disposition. You have been warned.
If you are interested in E-Stim Systems the company, or any of our products, have a look at https://www.e-stim.me/buy
We say Size doesnt matter when it comes to the world of Sex Toys, but is that really the case?
Wayne from E-Stim Systems opens the doors on e-stim electrodes and tries to give you a little insight on that age old question does size really matter?
From the worlds largest, possibly to the worlds smallest, we discuss things big and small and even what happens if things get stuck. We drift over the guy with 26 piercings and wonder what an oven door handle has to do with it all?
Join us now for a real insight into the world of making SexToys.
"I make sex toys" is a the personal podcast of Wayne Allen, the Director of E-Stim Systems. The content of these podcasts are not designed to be Explicit or Erotic but we may discuss adult topics and therefore these podcasts are not suitable for children or those of a nervous disposition. You have been warned.
If you are interested in E-Stim Systems the company, or any of our products, have a look at https://www.e-stim.me/buy
Hello, this is Wayne from E-Stim Systems and welcome to my podcast. I Make Sex Toys. Why is it called I Make Sex Toys? The simple answer is because I make sex toys and I've been running a business for the last 20 years making sex toys. Join me as I delve into the intricacies of running a business within the adult industry. Welcome to sizes and everything.
Wayne:Now, when it comes to sex toys, the one thing people first think about is size. How big are sex toys and how big are the sex toys that I make? And the simple answer is they're not as big as some people think. The smallest we do is about an inch. The largest we do is the Decimator. That is four inches in diameter and weighs 3.6 kilos and is at the moment, as far as we know, it's the world's largest commercially produced E-Stim electrode. It's a whopper of a beast and I guarantee that most people will look at it and go. There is no way that this goes inside someone, but I guarantee that it does go inside some people. Where do we get the idea of the decimator?
Wayne:Well, as lots and lots of companies do, we had an idea at the beginning of our inception to produce an electrode that was almost a display piece. You sometimes go into exhibitions and shops where you'll see a giant telephone and it was something along those lines. It was let's create something that nobody's actually going to buy this as a one off piece. It's going to be big and gives people something to talk about. And we actually created something called the OMG. Now what does OMG stand for? Oh my God, it's that simple. That's what OMG stands for. Now, the OMG is three inches in diameter. It's quite a beast.
Wayne:When we first started, it was the biggest electrode we did. The strange thing was, when we did events, people would come up and say how much is it? And it was like we hadn't really priced it because this was supposed to be one off. So we gave them a price and they turned around and said, yeah, I'll have one. So we sold the first OMG. So we had to build another one, and then another one and another one, and that's actually sounds like a lot of the things our company does. We start building one as a one off and then more and more people come along and buy it and you end up producing it. And now, strange enough, the OMG is made in the 10s.
Wayne:It's quite a popular electrode. As I say, it's not the world's largest electrode, but it's a popular electrode. So where did the decimator come from? Well, when you're in a situation where your electrode that was going to be a one off is a good seller, then you have to come up with something even bigger, and that's where the decimator came from. The reason it's four inches in diameter was originally that was the largest we could fit onto one of our machines. It was actually a machine by hand in a lathe and that was the capacity of the lathe. Four inches in diameter, it was a bit of a beast. Could we make something larger now? Yeah, we could. I'm not sure we're going to because the decimator for most people is too big, although we still sell probably one or two a month. You sometimes wonder if you're selling them to Prodom so they can put them on the shelf and scare their subs. But people do buy it and it works.
Wayne:Whilst we're on the subject of custom electrodes, we generally don't do custom electrodes anymore. We used to do custom electrodes when we first started because to a certain extent, that was us experimenting with what people were actually asking for. And there was a very nice gentleman at I believe it was the BBB, which is the Birmingham Bazaar Bazaar, which 20 odd years later, is still going. So if you ever want to go to a fetish fair in Birmingham in the UK, not Birmingham in Alabama, Birmingham, uk BBB fantastic place to go and still got quite a lot of friends who still trade there. Brilliant place. That's one of the places where we started.
Wayne:Anyway, getting back to the story, this gentleman approached us and said he wanted a sound. Now, sounds are something that is designed to go down the urethra of your penis. It's a metal rod. Personally, quite frankly, they scared the hell out of me. Sounding is something that I do not have any compulsion to try. However, I do have people on my team who love sounds, which is where the sound designs came from.
Wayne:However, this gentleman wanted us to do a custom sound for him and the answer was yes, what would you like? He wanted 16 millimeters in diameter, which is about the size of my thumb, so quite a large diameter, and he wanted it 16 inches long. Now, bear in mind, our normal sound is about eight millimeters in diameter and 175 millimeters long. 16 inches, which is over a foot, is a big, hefty sound, and I wasn't quite sure whether he was bullshitting, whether he really understood what he was asking for, but I was prepared to go along with it. So we agreed a price and he paid for it, which, if you're ever doing custom things for people, always try and get some form of payment upfront, because unfortunately some people will at the last minute turn around and go oh no, I don't want it, and you've spent all that time and effort producing a custom item. So we came to an agreement and I made it and I was quite shocked because it was bigger than even I thought and I knew what the sizing was.
Wayne:We were driving back to the BBB, because the idea was that he placed the order at one month. The next BBB that we attended. We would give it to him on the next one. And he turned up and when we showed it to him he was like that's exactly what I want. I was like phew, thank God for that. This thing was 16 inches long and it was 16 millimetres in diameter and it had ridges on it, because we do something called a dipstick, so we put a ridge every inch or so down. The idea is so you can see how far it's going down and it looks nice. This thing was massive and he took hold of it and he was like, yep, that's exactly what I want. And we're like, really, this, you're planning to use this, not as an anal insertable, but you can use down your penis. And he was like, yeah, yeah, I've got 26 piercings. Okay, certainly, he was definitely into the piercings, but he loved it and that was a custom item that we made.
Wayne:Why do we not do custom items now? Now we do get asked for custom items. We commonly have people saying, oh, can you take a, a mona, and can you adapt it, or can you change the size or can you make the next longer? And the simple answer is we simply do not have time. Firstly, virtually everything now is made in all CNC machines. Now, cnc machines,
Wayne:their benefit is they can mass produce. They can say mass produce, that sounds bad. They can produce lots of a single item Once they're programmed. The problem is you've got to program them to do that and that takes time. But typically we could be spending 10 to 15 minutes doing a setup and that's where the item that we know works If it's for something that's new. So when we're prototyping on them and I will talk about how we prototype in a later podcast. But if we're prototyping on them it can take up to an hour two hours sometimes to set things up, get the tooling right, and that's just not practical when we're running a business. It's not practical from a custom perspective. If I turn around to a customer and say, yeah, I can give you a custom mona with a different head, but it's going to cost you 300 pounds for a single item, they'll quite rightly just laugh and walk away when you can buy a mona for under 100 pounds.
Wayne:Simple answer is custom items. When you get into production, like us, we just don't have the capacity to do it. We don't have the time. Sometimes people just don't understand that. It's just a fact of life. I'm sorry we can't do custom items.
Wayne:We do always listen to people when they suggest custom modifications, for the simple reason that if we get two or three people asking for the same thing, you start to wonder is there an opportunity for us to produce it? Is there a reason they're asking for a shorter one or a fatter one or a larger one? We always pride ourselves on listening to customers and when they say can we have something that's different to what you currently have, we'll look at it and go. Well, there's more than one person asking this. Now there's three people asking this, now there's four or five people asking this. Okay, let's put this into initially small production and see how it goes. And that's how some of our designs have actually cropped up, where people have said could you try this? And we've gone yeah, let's try that.
Wayne:One of our electrodes, the MJ, is actually designed. It's a combination of a small torpedo and a flange base, but it was suggested by one of our couple of our testing who basically said we like the base and we like the head from the torpedo small torpedo, can you combine them? The answer was yes, we tried it and that's where the MJ came from and that's why it's called the MJ. It's named after their initials. We've talked about electrode size and unfortunately for a lot of people, sizing is the thing they go for. They immediately think that if it's larger, if it's bigger, then it must be better. And the simple answer is when it comes to Eastim electrodes, the answer is it isn't Eastim electrodes.
Wayne:Now what's an E-Stim electrode? If you haven't heard the previous podcast then you might not know. Basically, we as a company, we manufacture E-Stim kit and E-Stim electrodes, and E-Stim is basically using electricity to stimulate the body. We take a power box, we connect it up to an electrode, you insert the electrode or attach it to your body in some way, we charge it up and you get stimulation from the electricity passing through. That's how it works. It sounds really scary, but if you haven't tried it, try it.
Wayne:However, eastim electrodes have two or possibly three main criteria to create an electrode. Firstly, you need to have contact points. Now most of our electrodes are what we call bipolar, so they have two contact points. Generally that tends to be the head of the electrode and the base of the electrode, with an insulator in the middle. Now the critical things here in terms of sensation are firstly, generally how big the electrode will give you that fullness feeling. So if you've got a massive electrode and you're used to having massive insertables, then a larger electrode will probably work better for you because you're going to have that fullness feeling before you plug anything in. But then you also need to take into consideration what's driving the electrode. So if you're using lower end TENS units or some smaller power boxes, the surface area of the electrode will cause an issue. The more surface area, the larger the electrode, the larger the surface area, and it's the surface area that actually contacts the body, that gives you that conductive area for the current to pass. The second most important thing is the separation between the head and the neck, which is basically the size of the insulator.
Wayne:Now, all of our electrodes generally are what we call a top to bottom design. You will find other manufacturers doing a side to side design. So they'll have a conductor, they'll have a piece of insulator and then they'll have a second conductor and it'll be a side to side design. So if you look at it, it goes from left to right or right to left, depending on how you look at it, but our designs go top to bottom. The reason for that is why do they do left to right? Don't know. They chose that design. We chose our design because it works. Firstly, it's easy for us to manufacture and we came up with the design of the top to bottom and the way of assembling it and the way it's constructed, despite the fact that someone recently has produced, let's say, a direct copy of one of our electrodes. Thank you very much, but if you want the real one, come to us.
Wayne:The front to back or the top to bottom design basically allows you to have current flowing into the body through the spink to if you can use it annually and round the vaginal and labia area. So you end up with, almost depending on the program modes you use and depending on the power box, you can potentially get something called ghost fucking. Now, ghost fucking for a lot of people is the nirvana of E-Stim. It's what they're trying to achieve and basically you pass a pulsed voltage through the system and you feel as if you're being fucked. You can feel the electrode going in and out. It's not necessarily going in and out, although sometimes, if you look closely, you can actually see the muscles contracting and that draws the electrode in slightly and then draws it back out and draws it in. But if you can imagine someone holding the electrode and pushing in and out, that's ghost fucking. And to have that done from a power box, as opposed to your partner or yourself pushing it out, is quite an interesting sensation.
Wayne:It's quite unusual to get that from the side-to-side designs of electrodes, which is the reason we don't do side-to-side. Also, we just never got on with side-to-side. When we first started we had a couple of electrodes that did have side-to-side contacts. The infamous one was called a Veri Probe, which was actually a medical electrode used for vaginal tightening, and it just never really worked. I mean, it worked and we sold lots of them because they were cheap, but it didn't really give me anything. And for my partner and I don't know the test team it was like, yeah, it's one of those. Which is why we drifted away from that concept and moved towards the front to back, and virtually every electrode we do certainly all the bipolar electrodes we do have that front to back design.
Wayne:One of the other benefits of the front to back design is because of its construction. It can be taken apart so you can unscrew it all into its component parts and then clean them. Now, from the electrode that we offer with a lifetime guarantee and all of our insertables have lifetime guarantees to have the ability to unscrew it and then clean it. Perfect, that's what you want. You want to be able to clean these electrodes. The problem with electrodes that are glued together or sealed up in some way is, over time, they're gonna degrade, they're gonna delaminate, they're just they're not gonna last as long, which is why you can't offer a lifetime guarantee on an electrode that's stuck together.
Wayne:Now we have gone a little bit further into electrode design. We now do electro eggs which are fully insertable and they have a cable that is embedded inside the egg. You basically insert the egg fully and then you pull the cable out. And you pull the electrode out and when we first designed that people were like, oh, that's a really bad design. What happens if it gets stuck? Well, the answer is we put 16 kilos of diving lead onto the end of that cable and it didn't break and it didn't come out of the egg. So you've got to withstand 16 kilos of pull or try and retain 16 kilos of pull. If you can do that, then it's gonna be an issue. No human being can do that, unless you're one of these people who sort of does trapeze off your teeth, or off your vagina in this case, or Uranus. Having a cable that can withstand 16 kilos of pull, that electrode is gonna come out. It's not gonna be an issue.
Wayne:And talking about our other electrodes, all of our insertables are designed in a particular way, so they aren't designed necessarily to go all the way in. They generally have a neck and the idea of the neck is it goes in and your body naturally then grips around the neck area. Firstly, that gives you the ideal position for stimulation, but equally, it stops it going in too far. Yes, if you push one of our electrodes in too far, you can get it to go all the way in, so you could theoretically get it to disappear. We've been doing this for 20 years. I know of one person who's deliberately done it and it came out.
Wayne:A lot of people will look at some of these electrodes and go, oh, this is gonna be really dangerous. What happens if it gets stuck? And the answer to that is, firstly, relax, don't panic. If you think about it From an annual perspective, that is the area where stuff comes out of. Your body is naturally going to push against it. Your body is naturally going to push whatever you've pushed in out, especially with our electrodes, which are designed with rounded edges. They're designed to be in contact with the human body. There's no sharp edges there. There's no sharp corners. It's not as if you're sticking something inappropriate from, like a kitchen utensil. It is an insertable electrode that is designed to be inserted into the body. It's not going to be a problem. The first thing is don't panic. And if you really really have to go to A&E again, don't panic, because they've probably seen everything. In fact I know they've seen everything.
Wayne:I once went to a hospital museum. It was almost a museum of horrors and one of the things that in this museum was an old fashioned oven handle, which was a big silvery handle and it was like what's this? And attached to this label was a statement was removed from a gentleman's posterior. A guy had basically stuck an oven handle up his ass and it had to be removed. I wouldn't suggest you stick oven handles or oven utensils up your bottom Eastin electrodes. That's what they're designed to do. They're designed for vaginal use. They're designed for anal use. If they go in too far, relax, don't push them too far. But if they do go in too far, you've got slippery fingers. Just relax, breathe, they will come out. There's no panic there.
Wayne:Talking about panic and talking about inserting, we do an E-Stim sound. Now a sound is slightly different to a normal E-Stim electrode. Now we used to do a sound design that had a sleeve on the handle which gave you a little bit of insulated area to touch, and we had a gentleman from the States who contacted us quite concerned because he had been playing with the sound. He was now concerned that this sleeve had disappeared. He felt that this sleeve had been pushed down his penis and was now in his bladder, and he was about to go to A&E. The first thing you do when you have a customer contact you like that is you express concern because this sounds quite serious. And then you start to think about what this sleeve was made of, and the answer was the sleeve was made of plastic, but it's like, really, you think that you've managed to push this down into your bladder, down the urethra, which is a really sensitive tube. It was described to me once as having the consistency of wet tissue paper. It's not something that you're easily going to push down, and it was a case of yeah, I'm really sorry to say this, but I'm a little bit concerned. I don't think this has happened. Could you possibly check around where you were playing Maybe check any wipes or paper towels or anything like that and about 20 minutes later we get a message back saying, oh, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, Thank you. I found the sleeve in a paper towel and it was like phew, yes, you don't need to go to A&E, the sleeve wasn't going to come off and go down your urethra. Yes, he was going to come off, but you would have felt it gained any real rethra and it would have been very, very, very uncomfortable. Now, some people like the fact that it's really uncomfortable, but you would have noticed it. I mean it was about an inch long. It's something you definitely would have noticed.
Wayne:Sizing of electrodes generally is based around inches in diameter and then the length, and we sometimes talk about insertable length. Overall length is the overall length of the electrode. Insertable length is the amount of the electrode that is supposed to go in. So again, don't push it too far. It's not designed to go all the way in, unless it's an egg when it is designed to go all the way in. In terms of diameter, we give an inch diameter because most people hopefully know what two inches in diameter is, most people know what three inches, most people know what one inch is. In terms of electrode size, the Mona tends to be the most common electrode. It's certainly our most popular.
Wayne:You're looking at a flange base. The base is slightly larger than, say, a small torpedo and it's quite a pronounced flange. So again, there's that flange to prevent it from being pushed in too far and the head is about an inch and a half and for most people that's perfect. If you want something to start, if you're looking for something that's you just don't know what you like, the answer is go for a flange. The flange has the same flange base but it has a smaller head. The head is an inch diameter, which is about the size of a male thumb. That gives you a good starting point. We do more specialized versions, we do the classic electrodes, which the smallest one is literally about the size of your thumb and it's designed just for your spink to muscle. And then you get into the larger stuff, like the torpedo family, the magnums. We do deviance, which are a rippled head. The benefit of a rippled head means that when you push it in and out you actually get the sensation just from the ripples in the head, and that's before you even plug it in.
Wayne:One other thing about electrodes because we manufacture all of our electrodes from metal. In fact we use aircraft grade aluminium, generally with stainless steel fixtures. One of the reasons is because it's easy to clean, it's durable, easy to machine, but it's a metal and the nice thing is it warms up and it cools down, so you can add a little bit of spice if you warm it up slightly, and equally, you can add a little bit of spice if you cool it down. One thing I would say if you're going to start warming things up and cooling things down, whatever you do, please don't use radiant heat. So don't get them really, really hot, because you will burn yourself, you will cause damage. And equally, don't freeze them, because again you can get freezer burns. It's increased the temperature very slightly rather than sticking it in the freezer for three hours and it comes out as a popsicle. So that's about it.
Wayne:I think I've covered virtually everything I can think of in terms of electrodes. What have I missed? Connecting them, connecting electrodes to power boxes. Generally, we use four millimetre connectors. A lot of other manufacturers will use 10 pins. Why do we use four millimetre connectors? The simple answer is they're more robust. We want a connector that's going to go in and out, in and out, in and out hundreds of times. You stick a 10 pin into something 500 times and it's going to snap at some point and it just. They just don't work for us. So again, we used the solid four millimetre initially banana plugs, but now we have them custom made for us.
Wayne:We even do low profile versions. So there's a low profile connector on the power box and there's also low profile connectors that go into the electrodes. This means you can insert the electrodes and sit on them if you wish. If you're not sure about what sort of connectors to use, just give us a ping. That's what we're here for. We've got cables and we've got adapters that cover virtually every single power box in existence. We've got much of them in the office. We buy them and poke them and see how bad they are. If you need a connector for a particular box, just give us a shout. That's what we're here for.
Wayne:Anyway, hopefully that's given you a little bit of insight into the world of e-STIM electrodes. We will probably cover them in other podcasts. We're certainly going to look at how we design electrodes and there's a few other ideas cropping up. But if you have any questions or queries, then please don't hesitate to contact us. Contact details are in the story notes for the podcast, don't forget. Please do the usual things. Follow us on your favorite podcast channel. Please consider giving us a review. We've only just started doing these podcasts and it's actually quite fun. I'm literally here in the studio with a big microphone chatting for half an hour and it's quite good fun. Whatever you do, please enjoy yourself, have fun and be safe, and thanks for listening. Bye.