Hi David, et al,
First you have to consider who is buying these things and why they are buying them. For 99.99% of the buyers, it is to cause pain and disability in another person. As long as it does that, they are satisfied with performance and could care less if produces 49 megavolts or 49 millivolts. To file a claim, you have to have a dissatisfied buyer who can show to the bean-counters at ebay that it does not perform as advertised (ie it does not stun). Ebay will then refund your money; case closed. As long as the device performs its main function, ebay doesn't care how it does it.
If it were advertised as a high-voltage generator, then you might be able to get your money back on the grounds that it did not perform as adveretisewd, and if enough people did it, that one vendor would be suspended. The other possibility would be to call the FTC and talk to their bean-counters but to have standing, you would again have to be a dissatisfied customer.
Quackery is rampant on the internet and will be for some time.
Matt D
-----Original Message-----
From: David Rieben <drieben@xxxxxxx>
To: tesla <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Mon, Dec 29, 2014 5:46 pm
Subject: [TCML] Stun-gun Tesla coil circuit (and ridiculous voltage claims)
Hi all,
I came across something today and I hope the moderators will allow a bit of
latitude here and let me get some feedback from the genius-level collective
think tank of this illustrious list. ;-) It is my understanding that a typical
stun gun uses a small solid state pulsed circuit to produce the high voltage
discharges - similar to an OLTC circuit (or is it more akin to a Marx bank?).
One thing that I can't help but notice though is how the voltage claims of
commercial stun gun manufacturers has reached ludicrous levels and was wondering
if anyone else has noticed this trend? 50 kV, 100 kV, 200 kV, 500 kV, 1 MV, 5MV,
and now - 49 MV? Just how much voltage does it take to "stun" someone, anyway?
:-D
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Silver-Scorpion-X-High-Voltage-Stun-Gun-LED-Light-Rechargeable-USB-Cable-/121525955612?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item1c4b82ec1c
I'm thinking "49 million volts" should be in the same range as the potentials
seen with real lightning :-) I do realize that the nature of the voltage source
as well as radius of curvature of the electrodes, along with atmospheric
conditions can cause some widely varying spark discharge lengths vs. a given
potential, but the stun gun manufacturer voltage claims have gotten to the point
that they insult the intelligence! Obviously, there is little or no verification
or oversight to the outrageous voltage claims of these devices. Thoughts?
David
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