Regarding the transients at turn on, that is a circuit issue. So to remedy, it is easy to add an LC filter at the output see picture below for new schematic. The LC filter acts to dampen any transients. Bench testing shows the ramp up to be 500ms, which is plenty to dampen any turn on pulses, but unfortunately not enough to prevent any flash that occurs with certain montages. At mouser.com, the L can be 22R105C and the C can be UKL1E100KDDANA.

via Insight, a growth project driven by tDCS: A little less Simple DIY TDCS circuit using CRDs.