I clearly have too much time on my hands. As a result, I’ll
be writing about stuff I did in my garage. Whoa, not THAT. Such activities are
generally reserved for tool sheds (yeah, no one got the Beavis and Butthead
reference, but I don’t care.) Before that brief mental detour to the gutter, I was
getting ready to tell you about my latest project. I’ve mentioned homemade
tazers at least once, but now I finally got around to making one. In the end, I
came up with three prototypes. Two of which actually worked.
The first was the
most ambitious (an obvious mistake). I set out to put all the components of a
tazer, (battery, transformer and capacitor) inside a dry erase marker. I pulled
all of these components out of a disposable camera. Inside the camera, the
battery goes to the transformer, which steps up the voltage, and then charges
the capacitor. The capacitor then powers the flash, or in my design zaps
anything that touches the two electrodes coming off of it. What I didn’t know
(IDIOT!) is that when increasing voltage via a transformer using direct current
(a battery), you need some mechanism (a transistor, resistor, diode or
something else. Further research is required) to cause the current to
fluctuate. A transformer NEEDS fluctuating current.
Plugging it into the wall for a
dose of alternating current would work, but it would defeat the purpose of the
device. (To build a tazer that runs on AC current, simply cut the end off of an
extension cord (NOT WHILE IT’S PLUGGED IN!!!), strip the insulation and touch the
two wires to your target.) Because the tiny little components on the circuit
board in the camera are poorly labeled, I was unable to rectify this problem
(yet).
The second design
was a return to the basics (I wanted to get it done quickly to watch the presidential
debate). I simply put two holes in the camera case, and ran wires through them.
I then soldered one of the wires to each of the posts on the capacitor. After I
closed the camera back up, turning it on charged the capacitor, and anything I
touched the wires to, got a good zap. Most of the designs call for you to
solder the protruding ends of the wires to screws, and then have those stick
out of the case. Again, I was in a hurry.
The third design
used essentially the same components as the last (including the complete
circuit board on the camera, but trades the case of the camera, for a glove and
a ton of electric tape (the initial design was difficult to remove from my
hand). For this one, I stuck the capacitor and the battery inside a plastic
pipe, with wires running to the circuit board. I put a button on one end of the
pipe (It took forever, but I built one using a couple bits of copper from the
camera, excess camera case plastic, a bit of cellophane from a cigarette pack,
a spring from a pen, and of course, superglue.) I attached the pipe to the
inside of the glove hand, and the circuit board ended up on the back of the
glove (secured by copious amounts of tape). I ran the shock delivering wires to
a pair of copper contacts (pre-1982 pennies that I reshaped) on the knuckles.
Now the whole
thing charges when I press the button with my thumb, and delivers a zap when I
touch the contacts to something. So far it works well on tools with rubber
handles, though with luck I’ll eventually get one of my dumber friends drunk
enough to let me test it properly. Realistically (especially given the number
of practice tests and the voltage drop due to distance travelled over thin
wire) the zap delivered is probably more like one of those novelty hand buzzer
things than a real law enforcement-grade tazer. At least probably (I’m not
ready to test it on myself.)
In conclusion,
electricity is fun. Also, I really need to get a job.
