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Banned on 4/6/2011 for unsafe, irresponsible behavior. Registered Member #3442
Joined: Fri Nov 26 2010, 04:09AM
Location: ....
Posts: 114
I have made a camera shocker (would call it taser, but you know) on a glove, and the capacitor it discharging weirdly and I suspect it's damaged, it's 330v 80uF, what can I use to replace it, I have a couple other similar caps, does it have to be 330v because thats what the transformer is putting out?
Registered Member #3610
Joined: Thu Jan 13 2011, 03:29AM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 506
What are you doing with it? A photoflash capacitor charged to ~300V can kill a person under the right conditions, the term "shocker" is rather scary in this context.
Registered Member #3610
Joined: Thu Jan 13 2011, 03:29AM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 506
Just because you've done it a bunch of times without injury doesn't make it safe. I've been shocked too many times by 120V from the wall and I'm still here, but plenty of people have been killed by the same thing. All it takes is a bit too much sweat, or touching just the right part. If I recall correctly, 10mA across the chest can cause cardiac arrest and a capacitor that size can easily supply hundreds of times that.
Something like 0.1uF will still shock and is probably safe. Don't screw around with this stuff unless you really know what you're doing though. It's all fun and games until you stop someone's heart.
Registered Member #2893
Joined: Tue Jun 01 2010, 09:25PM
Location: Cali-forn. i. a.
Posts: 2242
Well, it's the volts that jolt and the mills that kills. An 80uF cap can certainly supply enough mils to hurt someone, so if I were going to make an electroshock weapon I'd go for a higher voltage rather than a higher capacitance. It'd hurt more, and it would be less deadly.
Registered Member #2063
Joined: Sat Apr 04 2009, 03:16PM
Location: Toronto
Posts: 352
i've never touch the mains or any charged caps higher than 1uF. I was making an electro-magnet with the secondary of MOT and when I disconnect the power to the coil, its magnetic field collapsed and gave me a really bad shock.
Registered Member #3610
Joined: Thu Jan 13 2011, 03:29AM
Location: Seattle, WA
Posts: 506
They're not regulated, generally they charge up to anywhere from 200-300V but it varies depending on battery voltage and many other things. Actually you're probably better off with no capacitor at all, as it's the capacitor that accumulates the charge and makes possible such a powerful (and dangerous) shock.
I highly recommend a resistor on the output. 100K will limit it to a few mA which ought to be safe. You should still be extremely careful with this stuff though. By the time you figure out a shock is too powerful you're already dead. No second chances.
When I was playing with this stuff as a kid, I used small power transformers connected backwards and touched the secondary leads to the terminals of a battery to give a zap. I wasn't allowed to play with HV capacitors back then and I might not be here today if I were.
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Camera taser?
