Hello NeuroStim Enthusiasts!
It’s been a while… Over the last year, we have been busy revising the design of NeuroStimDuino. The main reason for modifying NSDuino2.1 was that one of its crucial components, the NMT0572SC high-voltage DC-DC converter from Murata, has now became obsolete and been taken out of circulation. Sadly, there was no alternative component that could take its place, though we spent months trying to find a replacement.

We finally had a breakthrough when we found the IH0524 DC-DC converter from XP Power. We had to redesign the board slightly to incorporate this converter. The downside is that the new converter only allows a compliance voltage of 35 V instead of the 60 V available in the previous versions. How will this effect your experiments? Well, it means that now you will have to take extra effort in minimizing skin impedance to deliver higher currents. But we have tried stimulating our arm muscles using this newer version, and it is just as effective as before. We highly recommend using hydrogel electrodes, as we have suggested before in the zucchini experiment.

On the upside, while we were redesigning the board, we replaced the manual high-voltage slide switch with an electronic switch (see below). So now you don’t have to worry about turning on the high voltage switch before activating the stimulator. Now, whenever you give the STIM command, the microcontroller will automatically turn the high voltage supply on and, once the stimulation is turned off, the high voltage supply will automatically switch off as well. Another benefit of adding the electronic switch is that it will reduce power consumption, since the high-voltage supply doesn’t need to remain on. Now that’s smart!

All the other features from NSDuino2.1, like ramping stimulation intensity, touchproof conenctors, etc., have been carried over to NSDuino3.0. Late in September 2025, we launched NeuroStimDuino v3.0 and shipped out the first batch to our distributor, Mouser. A big shout out to Crowd Supply and Mouser for consistently supporting us over the years. Some of you might have already received the newer version. Try it out and let us know how it goes!