reusable ECG electrodes?
Anyone have any experience with suction cup electrodes, or any other kind of reusable ones? Iāve been wanting to use my little ecg recently, but buying disposable ones gets expensive (and hard to hide), so I thought that getting something reusasble would be good. If I can get my hands on anything like that, Iād definitely be posting a lot more ECG content
If you have any recomendations, let me know :)
I DMed KG about theĀ āissueā but I thought I might want to share it with everyone since maybe it can be helpful for others as well. Well, I'll just tell you what experiences I made throughout the years ;)Ā
Reusing disposable ones (as someone suggested) works but not quite well. They aren't THAT expensive, too (well, depending on the quantity you buy). The last ones I bought were around 4ā¬ per bag. One bag contains 30 pieces. Means 3 of them (which you'd need for your device) cost less than 50 cents.Ā
Suction cup ones would be the "professional" type of reusable electrode indeed. They have a few cons though. Biggest one being that they leave nasty "love bites". Also they won't stay on forever. Also good ones cost quite a bit of money, I wouldn't recommend the cheap ones from china. And the better ones are around 15ā¬ per piece and up. Also I've so far only seen them for use with a banana plug whereas your device uses a push-button type connector.Ā
Another reusable type of electrodes would be TENS electrodes. They exist with the right connector for your device and work quite ok for ECG as well. Especially if you just want to get the "limb leads" (I, II, III, aVF, aVL, avR). The area they "cover" is a bit bigger because the whole electrode is conductive, it's a conductive sticky material so to say. So using these for chest leads might be suboptimal because they wouldn't be precisely "spot onā so to say.Ā
Another option would be converting chest straps for heart monitor watches. You'd actually need to have 2 though. That would give you 4 "electrodes". But it would require you to modify the connectors.
There are also all weird kinds of professional things that are "wearables" so to say. Some may be somewhat like a bra kind of thing, some just a rubber band with metal plates in it. I once modified a sports bra by attaching copper coins (with wire soldered on them) to certain areas and it actually worked ok.Ā
There are plenty ways as you see but I would give the TENS electrodes a try if I were you or just try to get a nice deal when buying disposable ones.
Here is a link to some TENS electrodes on amazon which would be compatible with a push-button type connector ECG patient cable.
