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Stun Gun / Portable HV Generator

This 'homemade' stun gun consists of four main parts; a power source (AA bat), a camera flash, and a multiplier. It was relatively simple to construct. It might not be classed as an actual "stun gun" due to the fact that it will not induce temporary atrophy of the muscles. However the output is around 2-3 kvdc and is quite painful. I can verify this due to an accidental personal shock from the stun gun, which was charged to full potential.

Isolating the Inverter

The first step is to modify the camera flash to obtain just the inverter circuitry. You must "reverse engineer" your particular flash in order to remove the xenon tube, trigger, and charging stage shown below.

Inside the blue lines to the left is the part of the camera flash that you need. Discard the rest. If you are still confused to where to cut just click on the image to see the back of the flash. After I finished the cutting the result was what is pictured below. Clicking on the picture will reveal the reverse side of it.

Constructing the Multiplier

These are what I used to make the cascade multiplier. 33nF 250v capacitors and 1000v 1A diodes. My suggestion is to use extremely low value capacitors to keep the charge time to a minimum. Although these capacitors are extremely under rated for this application they were free. For more on cascade voltage multipliers go here .

To the right I have pictured one completed stage. Keep in mind that the white stripe is the cathode. Also don't put the capacitors too close to each other because they could arc through the insulation coating to each other. Below is the completed multiplier with all of the rectifier leads trimmed. Click the image to enlarge it.

Putting it all together

I purchased a small project box and put all of the parts in it as you can see to the left. I used two screws as the terminals and they work quite well. At first I just had the output leads from the multiplier wrapped around the screws. However when small vibrations resulted due to the unit being dropped the wires would become disconnected so I decided to solder the wires to the screws. To make this job easier I recommend a relatively high wattage soldering tool and some acid flux.

Click on the picture on to the left to view the stun gun with the lid and pushbutton. I will post a picture of the unit all together as soon as I get my scanner working again.