Made myself a little sparker :3 judging from the spark gap, the output is about 6-7kV I guess. Can't measure it though, it's way too high for my multimeters to handle. Taser, beefed up bugzapper module, electronic cigarette lighter, so many possible uses for this thing 😋

Oo. Cool.

Have you ever considered open-sourcing your hardware creations on GitHub/lab/tea?

@ewpratten That's not a bad idea actually! This is just a little kit though, so I didn't design the circuit. And the seller didn't provide any schematics either. From the looks of it, it's quite similar to a boost converter. And I think that the output stage is a transformer, but no idea what its winding ratio is.. that thing is pretty much a black box 😅

6-7kV... What is the output for Ampere then? :D

@-ANGRY-CLIENT- oh wait, I know this one! Ahm... depends on resistance?

@-ANGRY-CLIENT- a couple milliamps probably. From my tests on the lab bench power supply, it seems to draw 2.1A from a 5V source. This 18650 cell that I'm currently using only provides 3.8-ish volts though (rises and drops as it charges and discharges) so the current draw from it will likely be less. That seems to correlate with the voltage on the output too, higher input voltage allows the spark gap to be wider. The current on the output on the other hand should be very low, because when you increase the voltage, the current drops (cuz you can't create power out of nowhere). I can't put any numbers though.. this output voltage is way too high for me to be able to probe it without a resistive voltage divider (which I don't really feel like building atm 😅).

@shellbug in a circuit where you connect a resistor across e.g. a battery, that's indeed the case! Higher value resistor causes current draw to decrease, lower value resistor increases it. However in this circuit here it's essentially a trading of the low input voltage with high current, to a high output voltage with low current.

@Condor prolly a few milliamps...
Man, that would be a cool killing machine, if you could add more amps to it :D.

@shellbug it also depends on the volt.
If there is no volt, there is no current.
You can imagine volt as a road.
The more volt you have, the more stable, longer, wider etc. will be the road.
And ampere as a car.
If there is a lot of ampere in a circuit related to volt, it is going to be very speedy on the road.

@-ANGRY-CLIENT- it already is 😛 that's the reason why I don't dare touching it either. 7kV can already easily penetrate through skin, and once you're through that layer it's pretty much game over. Even my previous accident where I put my finger into a 1.2kV bugzapper shocked me quite badly, with the jolt going all the way into most of my arm. So yeah 😅

@Condor you know, your rants make me realise that the 2 years I spent studying electronics in university were completely wasted. (I gave up and switched to CS.)

Well, not completely, as I started learning how to code there.

But yeah, 2 years and I don't know shit.

so.... you listened to your young "friend" to build him a electro shocker? 😉

@-ANGRY-CLIENT- if I remember correctly, anything above 1A can be lethal. 🤔

@Condor is not the amp that is the most significant to kill anything?
Or is it the Power (amp*volt)?

@shellbug that is what generally confuses me, as well.
Using the previous analogy, it should be ampere.

But how come is anything above 1A deadly and let us say 0.9A is not?

@shellbug that's why I ended up dropping out of my evening classes at some point 🙂 I'm not sure how most of the teachers in school are still able to do their job without getting complaints from their students. The Internet isn't always very accurate, but for technical topics I've always found it to be a far better resource than schools.

@heyheni haha, I was thinking of that too 😛 but no, this isn't going to be given to anyone! Way to dangerous to allow anyone else to use this. Even I don't think that I'd want to use it as a lighter when drunk (which is the only time when I light up a cigarette lately) because I might just accidentally electrocute myself with it. Same treatment as I give my bench power supplies when drunk essentially. Don't touch it and ensure that it's turned off before opening the bottle!

@shellbug far less than 1A. Anything beyond 20mA going through the body can result in cardiac arrest...

@-ANGRY-CLIENT- voltages are the killers, because that's what causes the current to flow. Coupled with resistance of the load, in case of humans that'd be skin. E.g. sweaty skin conducts way better than dry skin. So on sweaty palms I can clearly feel an annoying pain when touching 50VDC, but on dry skin I don't.

@Condor oh... thanks :)

@ngBuild indeed you're very lucky to still be alive then! Exposure time could've been the factor that saved you. A shock of a few microseconds doesn't do much to a healthy person.. it's the reason why ESD doesn't kill either, even though they're generally around 25kV and when touching a grounded object (door knobs etc) tens of amps flow. But because the timespan is so short, it only shocks but doesn't electrocute. Perhaps you were shocked back to your senses fast enough.. but yeah don't try your luck on that a second time.

@Condor this reminded me of a big shock I got when I was younger. (Edit: not as big as yours @ngBuild 😅)

I used to swing on street signs. One time I was swinging on one and found out there was a street lamp right after it. I grabbed it so that I wouldn't crash on it, while still holding onto the street sign, and zap. I got paralyzed, grabbing both posts until I forced myself to release them. My heart was racing and kept racing for some time.

Later on I used those posts to give some electric slap to my friends. 😁

@shellbug oh dear 😅 those street lights ride on the live wires from the grid! The grid itself is usually around 15kV so it's probably stepped down in the light with a transformer or similar (and some rectifier, control circuitry etc in case of power LED's) and fed into the light. Be careful around those! High voltage, low frequency, lotsa power.. those aren't a safe mix to touch 😧

@shellbug come to think of it though, it's the outside of the street lamp you touched and not any internals, right? It's pretty much electronics design 101 to ground any metal enclosures.. for that to hold a high voltage potential, what were the designers of those lamps even thinking?! It's like connecting the enclosure of a fridge to the live wire and shocking (and likely electrocuting) anyone touching it! 😨

Curious the result of tasing someone in the nipple with this (¬ω¬)

@cursee kinky.. mind sourcing me a (preferably female) test subject for this? 😏

@Condor the problem wasn't the street light itself. Touching it alone did nothing. The problem was touching both the street light and the street sign.

A few weeks after this the street sign got moved, so problem fixed I guess.

@Condor oh, I meant the post. No internals were touched.

@shellbug see, that's the issue. Birds don't get killed when sitting on the grid lines, because they aren't grounded. So they just charge up and equalize. And enclosing those to prevent the 15kV from messing with stuff.. it'd require a very thick enclosure which adds undesirable weight.

On those street lights though.. metal enclosure that isn't properly grounded and riding on the live wire, and the street sign that is grounded. Connect a body through that and you've got a deadly short. And I mean, a metal enclosure!! That should *always* be grounded so that it shorts out when a live rail touches it! Government contractors.. I guess their level of shitdesigns isn't just limited into their servers *ahem, mainframes*...

@shellbug anyway, it was fun turning to my friends and say "hey grab that street sign". They were like "wuuut..?" but still grab it. I would then quickly grab the street light post with one hand and their arm with the other and zap! 😂

@cursee now I regret not grabbing their nipples instead. 😂

@Alice , darling we need a volunteer for our little experiment.

┻┳|･ω･)

@cursee ooh, good suggestion! I'd travel to Germany for that 😏

some people tease their cigarettes and i just barely passed my electronics this last year 😐

@KennyTheBard It takes some time to learn, that much is for sure. Here I spent most of last year just on getting a hold of the basics and learning certain circuits to help me around. From Collin Cunningham (the guy from the Make: YouTube channel) I've seen that he keeps a sketchbook with schematics of common circuits around. Perhaps that could aid a bit. The rest of it is just some formulas (Ohm's Law and Kirchoff's voltage Law seem to be recurring ones) and for resistors I have a cheatsheet on the closet next to my bench. Helps to read the values quickly without having to deal with color to number mapping. As I mentioned to @shellbug earlier, I found schools to be rather worthless for technical topics though.. the internet is far better for these things. Do have a look at some of the various electronics channels out there!

@Condor
Thanks a lot! while in school i didn't have a problem with the theoretical part, i sure did with practical. I was nwver able to make calculations upon a vomplex system, with transistors and MOSSes. And eben when i was able too i felt like i was graded less then other studends who did the same. Which didn't help my confidence in this whole area of engineering 😕

When a friend takes its chinese 5v USB lighter thinking that he's cool.

You should take this out.

Restoring the chain of charge. ;-)

Awesome Job.

@ngBuild When I was implemeting security system inside ATM machine, co-worker accidently start power supply.

It hurts to much and important thing you feel you are loosing control on body.

after 2-3 minutes I realised I am 2-3 feet away from atm machine. :D :D

@ewpratten I just got in touch with the retailer of this HV module and they're okay with me doing pretty much whatever I please. So I guess that the GitLab repository will become a thing at some point. I'm quite curious about how exactly this works as well and it'd be a great introduction into high voltage electronics for novices, given how common its components are in the average (apprentice) electronics engineer's component box. I'd love to be able to put it on a perfboard at some point. Just the transformer is something that I haven't been briefed about, even after explicit request.. guess I'll have to link to the kit in the repo for that. Its specs would've been useful to know, but there's not really a point in winding your own transfo's when you've got the entire kit for 2 bucks anyway.. so yeah.

@shelladdicted … Not sure how I'm supposed to react to that. I don't think that I'm cool by doing this, it's just that I like how it's got high voltage (which is always nice) and I was actually able to complete it.. if you've been into electronics for any amount of time, you'll know that most projects result in a failure. It's not a USB lighter by the way, it takes way too much power for a USB port to be able to handle. If only it was that easy... This thing takes 20W whereas a common USB port shouldn't be expected to deliver more than 3W. Luckily this thing is designed to work with anything from 3V to 5V, which is perfect for a lithium cell.. which I'm powering this thing from.
Well, as for the "awesome job", thanks I guess :)

Can you fire gas with it?

@Pogromist Good question. I can burn paper and cigarettes with it, but I'm not sure if it can combust gas. Let me check real quick :3 hopefully without electrocuting myself.

@Pogromist Introducing my storm lighter without a flame didn't cause any combustion. It just caused the arc to displace under the wind pressure. What I can say is that it's far more stable under wind than my previous storm lighter is. So yeah.. drop-in replacement that uses the evil pixies rather than chemicals :3

@shelladdicted Sorry for my previous comment. My own stupidity amplified by tiredness and booze are to blame I guess. I'd love to take this outside and show off to friends with this thing, haha. There's always a risk though that a cop would mistake it for a taser (which essentially it is, right).. so yeah :')

@Condor relax and stay Creative*!
(Partial quote from GreatScott! ;-) )

@shelladdicted Thanks! Great channel by the way :D

*not gonna read all the Replies....

TASER? HELL YAHHHH

Have you tested it?

Please do, and do a video :D

Also...

Always had an idea If I ever did something like that...

Tasers lack... Distance...

One button on the front, plus timer.

Place the device inside an arrow tip (to protect) and arrow.

Make /buy a crossbow or potato gun.

.

Taser ammo...

@GyroGearloose not a bad idea actually 🤔 just that it'd be highly illegal, lol. With this thing I might get away with explaining it to a cop as an electric lighter, but I doubt that a gun with little taser modules in it would qualify as that 😛

hey @condor could you build me a heat exchanging ventilation window frame insert? 😄

so i can let in fresh air in winters cold in my small apartment without opening the windows.

@heyheni the price that I'd have to charge for that wouldn't be worth it when you can just open the windows though 🤔 but after a bit of thinking, why not let a servo open the window? Building a fan into the window frame on the other hand would be tedious for one thing (I'm not a woodworker and I definitely can't cut glass!) and then there's the issue of it only generating some wind, not a temperature differential.. and of course the issue of having no way to close the holes that the insertion of a fan would make, when you don't want to use it. And lastly there's the issue that this is generally not allowed in rented apartments. Even a servo which I'm considering to put on my front door so that it can turn my spare key to (un) lock the door, is kind of a grey zone.

@Condor awesome, thank you for your considerations. Much appreciated. 👍

i found something that i had in mind but it's always on horrible looking websites from some small ass company in deepest rural parts of germany. 😄

@heyheni hmm, I didn't think that it'd look like that.. but I doubt that if it's only available from such small companies, that I can find any meaningful information about it to make such a thing, and I'm fairly certain that I can't make it at the price of those companies (who already have the designs and access to manufacturers for it).. so yeah. Looks interesting though!