Re: Stun gun power supply

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Kevin Ottalini by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <ottalini-at-mindspring-dot-com>

Dan:
        I found stungun supplies to be very fragile and will
break easily.  I looked at 4 or 5 models from different
mfgs and they were all very similar.  In fact, there is
one key patent that virtually all stunguns are built from.

In a way, they already are Tesla coils, but with an inductive
secondary.  The small flyback inverters produce from 2kv
to maybe about 5kv which is rectified and used to charge
a small storage capacitor.

Then, there is a small spark gap (about .008") that drives
a 40x  potted transformer.  The "really good ones" have
a small value capacitor across the output electrodes.

Although these things claim 100kv up to 300kv, my actual
measurements gave a best case of around 80kv,
then the output transformer would arc across. in fact,
the output electrode gaps are typically under 1" so the
max output voltage is quite limited.

The designs are max-stress rated all the time since the
actual running lifetime is much less than one percent,
(maybe less than 1/100%) and draw such an overload
of current that they eat 9v batteries easily.

Every time I changed the gaps or any of the key components
I found that the inverter transformer would arc out ... very
cheap and no margin at all.

I wouldn't bother fooling around with them unless you
just want to learn more about them,  but it is important to
remember that since they are considered dangerous
self-defense tools,  you can get into a lot of trouble firing
them off in public.

Police may not know what a Tesla Coil is and give some
margin, but for sure they know what a stungun is and have
little patience (especially these days) with known
dangerous tools.

Kevin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
To: <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Sent: Monday, December 10, 2001 4:26 PM
Subject: Stun gun power supply


> Original poster: "by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<Boombast99-at-aol-dot-com>
>
> Has anybody tried using a stun gun as a power supply for a minature Tesla
> coil?I got a couple at a real good price and it appears that they feed
9VDC
> at a high pulse into a small tubular transfomer and then into a voltage
> tripler.Any help will be appreciated before I jump in. Dan
>
>
>