Remote Stun Gun

[rational611]

I saw a news clip on www.bbc.co.uk at http://news.bbc.co.uk/nolavconsole/shared/player/player.stm?title=Amnesty%20calls%20for%20inquiry%2 0into%20stun%20guns&clipurl=http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/news_web/video/40579000/nb/40579181_nb_16x9.ram&cs=news
today on stun guns and now I want to buy one myself. However I am new to stun guns. The ones I saw on BBC were remote stun guns ie they worked from a distance whereas the ones I looked up on various sites including ebay work only on contact with the attacker. However I found taser guns which work from a distance. I would like to know if there are stun guns which work from a distance or the guns used by the British police are actually taser guns? If there really are stun guns that work from a distance, can someone tell me where I can buy them?

[shadow2501]

guns used by british looks like being M18 taser they were created a while ago but they use air cartridges to send wires to the victim up to 20ft, i dunno about the time it takes to reload the gun by replacing air cartridge and wire but basically if there's mre than one opponent you'll not be able to stop all of them with only one of these gun.Heard about a wireless version of thoses gun that should use ionized laser to make a close loop between the gun and the victim, anyone have more info about this project?(oh by the way if you want one of these just make a google search about "M18 air taser" you'll fin hundreds of sites like this one http://www.personalarms.com/tasers.htm)

[rational611]

shadow2501: Could you tell me where you heard about the wireless version of stun gun? Did you read about it on the internet?

[Boomer]

Never heard about air ionisation via laser, but there seems to be a version that shoots two conductive streams of (salt?)-water towards the target. The range is shorter than with wires, due to dispersion of the water jets.

Forgot where I read that though.

[Chris The Great]

The military also has a tesla coil based taser now, which is used because it can go from target to target, without having to reload saltwater/gas canisters/wires. Of course, these are quite large, and probably use a large amount of power. Also, the technology is, as far as I know, basically a solid state tesla coil developed with millions of dollars in government military research.

http://www.defensereview.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=516
http://img4.exs.cx/img4/8914/1096622992502.jpg

Not really practical for self defense, but it certainly would be fun to use against riot police. Assuming you could get one, that is.

+++++++++++++

I'd like to see a picture of this "Bolt of Lightning" that's supposed to come out of this thing. If anything'd impress people, it'd be that. But it does look like a bunch of cardboard tubes taped together. :p

[Silentnite]

Do you mean like standing 20-30 feet away and shocking them or do you mean setting up something with a remote so if you rigged something to say a chair and being in another room? It seems like the rigging and leaving would be vastly more easy to construct then the sending of the charge that far away. Heck a neat idea would be to convert a pager or something, so that you could call it and it'd shock the person holding it. But that's probably one of those ideas that there's a better way to do it.

Just my 1.29 cents.

[Chris The Great]

It is supposed to shoot a lightning bolt from the tip which conducts the taser pulses to the target.

I'd like to see a picture just as much as you, but as of yet it's only claims made by the two companies working on this technology (and the military, as they're giving these companies grants).

[Cyclonite]

That guy in the picture isn't even military....doesn't even look like a tesla coil

[c0deblue]

Thie technology for using an ultraviolet laser to produce ionized conductive channels in the air has been under development since at least 1997 by HSV Technologies. Their website has some good descriptive articles and the patent describing the system in detail:

http://www.hsvt.org/

Applications include a portable device to be used like a wireless taser to stun or kill the target (depending on the strength of the current delivered), and a platform mounted device to disable vehicles by blowing out their electronic engine control systems. Range for the experimental versions is 100 meters for the portable unit and in excess of 1 km for the platform mounted version.

Ultraviolet lasers have been very expensive and thus limited to research and medical applications, but great strides are being made in the field that should reduce cost and increase availability. For example, Pioneer has announced a new UV laser diode that will allow disk storage of 500 Gb. Granted that this particular laser is far too puny for anti-personnel applications, but the advance is indicative; it shouldn't be too long before we can cobble together a reasonable facsimile of the real McCoy. Heheh - always wanted my own "Death Ray". :)

The only downside to these gadgets appears to be that the ionization channels created by the 193nm laser glow a sort of iridescent green and thus provide a visible track right back to the user. In many situations this won't be important, but in others ... Oh well, can't have everything!

[Silentnite]

Granted that this particular laser is far too puny for anti-personnel applications, but the advance is indicative; it shouldn't be too long before we can cobble together a reasonable facsimile of the real McCoy. Heheh - always wanted my own "Death Ray". :)


"Death ray. On sale. Any bids? No? Come on people. Enslave the entire human race for 500 dollars. 100? 5? Free? Ok. World domination completly free? No? ok into the trash" All the while stewie is jumping up and down saying "ME OH GOD ME!! Stupid fat women"-Family guy

If it can be done with ultraviolet, is there any chance that it could be done with anything else? Obviously microwave is out, unless your in for some cooked soylent greens. Gamma is bad. And they already have ultra sound. Could you perchance alter the design that tesla had for transmitting power over long distances or would that need to have a recepticle located on the target?

[rational611]

Using ultraviolet laser beams to transmit electric pulses is certainly a novel thing and sounds fantastic. However one cannot refrain from observing the fact that most ,if not all, of the content on HSV Technologies' website is more than four years old. What has happened during this time? Why have they not come up with the final product, even if it was suitcase sized? Have they found fault with their technology and have they abandoned their invention?

[Silentnite]

Why have they not come up with the final product, even if it was suitcase sized? Have they found fault with their technology and have they abandoned their invention?

Or did they perfect it beyond their prior idea, and therefore the government hushed it? I'd believe that before i'd believe that it 'just didn't pan out' Because even if it wasn't suitcase sized, i'm sure they could figure out a use for it.

[rational611]

Ionatron, a company working with laser induced plasma stun gun has announced the successful demonstration of its of its proprietary Laser Induced Plasma Channel (LIPC) technology.
The full press release can be read at http://www.ionatron.com/default.aspx?id=48
A link to a video of the demonstration has also been provided on their website. However the link is not working for me and is throwing up an error in Windows Media Player. Is it working for anyone?

[Chris The Great]

Yeah, works for me, although it's only little snapping lightning bolts going straight across a hallway in James Bond style kinda sercurity.

It looks like the technology has promise though (in that it works).

[c0deblue]

The ionized channel thing has been used experimentally for attracting cloud to ground lightning in the same manner as small rockets trailing a grounded conductor. In this application, the laser is protected by being installed (off-axis via a beam splitter or prism) at the bottom of a long, heavy-walled, grounded copper cylinder, the bore of which is only slightly larger than the laser beam. Lightning discharges attracted by the device strike only the copper cylinder and are thus shunted to earth long before they ever reach the laser. The biggest problem as I recall was the necessity of having to restore or remachine the "strike end" of the cylinder after each strike. The bolts are so powerful that they make a localized copper puddle where they hit, often occluding the bore.

However, this amply demonstrates that ionized channels created with UV lasers DO in fact work. Actually, if a powerful enough power source is used - i.e. powerful enough to sustain and expand the ionized channel during discharge - the laser itself could be quite small since its only job would be to open a weak "streamer" channel to the target. Just as a lightning bolt is attracted by a weak ionized streamer from the ground to the cloud, the main ionization channel is formed by the lightning discharge itself, and is self-sustaining until the energy is totally discharged to ground.

I guess the challenge in that kind of approach (since electrical discharges will always take the lowest impedance path to ground) would be to somehow insure the energy isn't discharged backwards through the laser and its associated electronics (not to mention the operator), although this might be easier from an airborne platform than a ground-based one. There's also the problem of where and how to couple the high-energy source into the laser-ionized channel, remembering that any conductor - ionized channel or not - conducts equally well in both directions.

In any case - appropos of recent incidents where green lasers were aimed at aircraft - it's probably not a good idea to aim UV lasers randomly up in the air in the vicinity of overhead power lines. ZAAAP!!! Instant crispy critter! On second thought, what a marvelous way to shut down a whole regional supply grid. If, at key locations, small UV lasers were carefully aimed at those REALLY high voltage cross-country transmission lines and triggered remotely by cell phone or some such, the resulting overloads would trip the failsafes at the control centers thereby disabling the grid. Additionally, the cables themselves might break at the discharge points, putting the grid out of commission until repairs could be made. This might all be possible with the tiny UV lasers coming soon in the new Pioneer hi-capacity hard drives, since only a weak streamer is needed to initiate the discharge and the source potential of long distance transmission lines is probably equal to or greater than that of most lightning bolts.

Call for independent researchers to test the concept by using a bow and arrow to fire a very fine strand of copper wire up and over a million-volt transmission line. That ought to replicate the condition of a weak ionized channel. I'd do it, but ummm ... let's see, uhhh, I don't live near any of those giant towers ... yeah that's it. :p

Any volunteers?

[Arthis]

I don't think bolts have a lower voltage nor power than a high power electric line.

Or they would have been used long ago as a source of electricity.

And if voltage was the same, the intensity isn't: think as an electric arc of one kilometer. It would make a nice spark between the two parts of the broken cable... :) think about the rabbits near it at the time it breaks ;)

"eat'em while it's hot, son !"

[Arthis]

I don't think bolts have a lower voltage nor power than a high power electric line.

Or they would have been used long ago as a source of electricity.

And if voltage was the same, the intensity isn't: think as an electric arc of one kilometer. It would make a nice spark between the two parts of the broken cable... :) think about the rabbits near it at the time it breaks ;)

"eat'em while it's hot, son !"

[Arthis]

I don't think bolts have a lower voltage nor power than a high power electric line.

Or they would have been used long ago as a source of electricity.

And if voltage was the same, the intensity isn't: think as an electric arc of one kilometer. It would make a nice spark between the two parts of the broken cable... :) think about the rabbits near it at the time it breaks ;)

"eat'em while it's hot, son !"

[Silentnite]

Voltage involved in initiating a cloud-to-ground strike: 100 million to 1 billion Volts
Average peak current in a cloud-to-ground lightning stroke: 100,000 Amperes
Average peak temperature of a lightning channel: 50,000° F (27,600° C)
Comparison- Average temperature of the sun's surface: 11,000° F (6000° C)
Average duration of peak current in a lightning discharge: 1/1000 sec.

I couldn't find a comparison for a power line. But lets safely assume that it is substatially less then that provided by our local thundergods.

[Silentnite]

Voltage involved in initiating a cloud-to-ground strike: 100 million to 1 billion Volts
Average peak current in a cloud-to-ground lightning stroke: 100,000 Amperes
Average peak temperature of a lightning channel: 50,000° F (27,600° C)
Comparison- Average temperature of the sun's surface: 11,000° F (6000° C)
Average duration of peak current in a lightning discharge: 1/1000 sec.

I couldn't find a comparison for a power line. But lets safely assume that it is substatially less then that provided by our local thundergods.

[Silentnite]

Voltage involved in initiating a cloud-to-ground strike: 100 million to 1 billion Volts
Average peak current in a cloud-to-ground lightning stroke: 100,000 Amperes
Average peak temperature of a lightning channel: 50,000° F (27,600° C)
Comparison- Average temperature of the sun's surface: 11,000° F (6000° C)
Average duration of peak current in a lightning discharge: 1/1000 sec.

I couldn't find a comparison for a power line. But lets safely assume that it is substatially less then that provided by our local thundergods.

[nbk2000]

A small mortar loaded with a lead ball attached to a steel cable would be more than adequate for shorting out a high-tension powerline.

That video was cool, but such a thing would be useless for security, as a simple ground conductor could be placed in the path of the lowest beam, defeating the purpose. :p

Though the voltage change could be used to set off an alarm.

Remember the promise of room-temperature superconductors?

I remember reading how a SC in the shape of a circle should indefinately hold a charge of infinite capacity (don't ask me why).

Well, thought I, why not pump a few megawatts of power into such a thing, then use an ionizing laser beam to direct the energy pulse into your target?

A few years later, after I got out, I played Quake I, and lo' and behold!, they had a lightning gun in it. I thought that was soooooo cool. :D Just the thing for taking out those pesky shamblers, and their porky-blue minions. ;)

All we need know is room-temp SC's and we're set. :)

[nbk2000]

A small mortar loaded with a lead ball attached to a steel cable would be more than adequate for shorting out a high-tension powerline.

That video was cool, but such a thing would be useless for security, as a simple ground conductor could be placed in the path of the lowest beam, defeating the purpose. :p

Though the voltage change could be used to set off an alarm.

Remember the promise of room-temperature superconductors?

I remember reading how a SC in the shape of a circle should indefinately hold a charge of infinite capacity (don't ask me why).

Well, thought I, why not pump a few megawatts of power into such a thing, then use an ionizing laser beam to direct the energy pulse into your target?

A few years later, after I got out, I played Quake I, and lo' and behold!, they had a lightning gun in it. I thought that was soooooo cool. :D Just the thing for taking out those pesky shamblers, and their porky-blue minions. ;)

All we need know is room-temp SC's and we're set. :)

[nbk2000]

A small mortar loaded with a lead ball attached to a steel cable would be more than adequate for shorting out a high-tension powerline.

That video was cool, but such a thing would be useless for security, as a simple ground conductor could be placed in the path of the lowest beam, defeating the purpose. :p

Though the voltage change could be used to set off an alarm.

Remember the promise of room-temperature superconductors?

I remember reading how a SC in the shape of a circle should indefinately hold a charge of infinite capacity (don't ask me why).

Well, thought I, why not pump a few megawatts of power into such a thing, then use an ionizing laser beam to direct the energy pulse into your target?

A few years later, after I got out, I played Quake I, and lo' and behold!, they had a lightning gun in it. I thought that was soooooo cool. :D Just the thing for taking out those pesky shamblers, and their porky-blue minions. ;)

All we need know is room-temp SC's and we're set. :)

[Jacks Complete]

As ever, you are ahead of the curve a little NBK!

You can pump massive amounts of power into a superconducting ring, and then use the magnetic field to good effect as a seriously powerful magnet. Blow the ring apart with high explosive, and you can get a hell of an EMP! 200+ Teslas peak field.

The upper limit is the field strength causes the superconductor to break under the pressure, much like a diner plate will break if you park a car on it, or a laser diode's frequency changes a bit with the temperature.

You don't need an SC though. Just use a big capacitor! Charge a few hundred joules into it, and bang! Arc that down the channel, and it will easily kill whatever's at the other end.

As for the power line idea, that is genius, c0deblue. Do it from an aircraft that can see for 40 miles in all directions, and just sweep the beam as fast as you like! There will be dozens of bolts striking down... They might even be self-sustaining, since the power is there to keep the channel open for a few seconds, and that much power will ionise the air anyway...

That would be serious ownage of the power grid.

[Jacks Complete]

As ever, you are ahead of the curve a little NBK!

You can pump massive amounts of power into a superconducting ring, and then use the magnetic field to good effect as a seriously powerful magnet. Blow the ring apart with high explosive, and you can get a hell of an EMP! 200+ Teslas peak field.

The upper limit is the field strength causes the superconductor to break under the pressure, much like a diner plate will break if you park a car on it, or a laser diode's frequency changes a bit with the temperature.

You don't need an SC though. Just use a big capacitor! Charge a few hundred joules into it, and bang! Arc that down the channel, and it will easily kill whatever's at the other end.

As for the power line idea, that is genius, c0deblue. Do it from an aircraft that can see for 40 miles in all directions, and just sweep the beam as fast as you like! There will be dozens of bolts striking down... They might even be self-sustaining, since the power is there to keep the channel open for a few seconds, and that much power will ionise the air anyway...

That would be serious ownage of the power grid.

[Jacks Complete]

As ever, you are ahead of the curve a little NBK!

You can pump massive amounts of power into a superconducting ring, and then use the magnetic field to good effect as a seriously powerful magnet. Blow the ring apart with high explosive, and you can get a hell of an EMP! 200+ Teslas peak field.

The upper limit is the field strength causes the superconductor to break under the pressure, much like a diner plate will break if you park a car on it, or a laser diode's frequency changes a bit with the temperature.

You don't need an SC though. Just use a big capacitor! Charge a few hundred joules into it, and bang! Arc that down the channel, and it will easily kill whatever's at the other end.

As for the power line idea, that is genius, c0deblue. Do it from an aircraft that can see for 40 miles in all directions, and just sweep the beam as fast as you like! There will be dozens of bolts striking down... They might even be self-sustaining, since the power is there to keep the channel open for a few seconds, and that much power will ionise the air anyway...

That would be serious ownage of the power grid.

[Dr. Chaos]

As of 1993 when I was trained as a power distribution transformer factory worker the highest voltages used in long distance power transmission lines was around 750 Kv with research into using voltages up to 1.25 Mv.
USE
The system we used to surge test finished assemblies was capable of 1.2 Mv and it was able to arc six feet easily. Under the right conditions I think it could go considerably further, but who would want to be inside a building with an undirected (read uncontrolled) lightning bolt?
PARAGRAPH
The apparatus to generate the HV consisted of a line powered step up transformer that put out maybe 40 or 50 Kv and used that to charge up a bank of high voltage capacitors in paralell. The capacitors were then subsequently discharged in series through a dielectric tube fitted with discharge electrodes arranged down the length of the tube.
BREAKS
Discharge was initiated by a small "spark plug" that apparently caused just enough ionization of the air inside the tube to cause all of the electrodes to arc over, one to the next, thus completing the circuit and dumping the capacitors charge into the object under test.
NBK
P.S. According to the National Weather Service, some lightning bolts can contain enough power to run NYC for about 45 seconds. Wow !

[Cobalt.45]

Grease monkey "stun grenade": Charge up an automotive condenser from a 12 VDC battery. Identify dupe who's to "get it". Holding either the case or the pigtail, gently toss the capacitor to them.

Endless fun on a slow, rainy day when we couldn't race...

[grendel23]

12V is lame. Try the cap out of a disposable camera instead, 250-300V. Charge flash until light is on, then carefully take apart camera while cap is charged (I said be careful). Toss it to your soon to be ex buddy and laugh your ass off.:D

[c.Tech]

12V is lame.

Not if you have amps, voltage is useless without amps to carry it.

[grendel23]

The resistance of dry clean skin is about 50 kOhms. This fact means 12V will not give a shock under normal conditions.
The "dry clean skin" part of the previous sentence is critical; I have seen a man get a heavy shock from 24v while his hands were wet with photo fixer, very conductive.
Ohms law says current equals voltage divided by resistance, I = V/R so it is meaningless to speak of amps as an independent value.
The ability of the power supply to maintain output under load is called compliance; this is probably what you refer to as "amps", the ability to source large currents into low impedance.
Even with a compliant power supply, current is still limited to I=V/R.

[Cobalt.45]

The only thing that 12VDC has to do with anything I've said, is that 12VDC was used to "charge" the condenser (cap.).

If you don't think that small an amount of voltage (used to saturate a capacitor) will shock dry skin, why don't you consider a stun gun?

[grendel23]

If you charge a cap with 12V, it has a charge of 12V.:rolleyes:
I have worked with electricity for almost 20 years, up to 480VAC three phase and DC over 1000V. I know from intimate experience what will shock me and what will not.
BTW, I do own a stun gun and am in the process of building a tesla coil which should produce ~40" sparks when completed.

[Diabolique]

I saw a crane back into a 2.5 kv line in the late 70's. The driver had the sence to jump well clear of the cab and not climb down.

When the electric power people pulled the power cable away from the crane, there was an arc that reached nearly two meters before it quenched. The breakdown voltage of air is 2-3 kv per cm, but once an arc has formed, it requires only about 20 volts per cm to maintain the arc.

I have heard of some power mains that use 1 Mv out west where they have to cross very long distances. Power (watts) is voltage X current. Power loss due to resistance is resistance X (current)^2, so it is obvious why they want very high voltages.

It may be possible to use the power system to destroy itself. Interupt a power line temporarily, and the power grid will reroute the power. If the reroute is several hundred miles longer/shorter, then when you restore the line, and they didn't cut it, the power will be out of phase, and the power grid will eat itself. This is why they have very precise proceedures to protect the grid.