Disposable Camera Taser
I was talking to some friends at a party, and we ended up talking about projects I have done such as a 360º pan/tilt camera controllable over the internet, and a firework launching system, and a friend reminded me of a disposable camera taser I made a few years back. We all go really interested in it, so I decided to make one. I started looking around the house for a disposable camera, but I could not find one. I quickly drove down to CVS and bought the cheapest camera I could find. I bought a pack of 2 cameras for $9.99.
When I returned home, I quickly soldered up my taser and we had a good time. Not shocking people that is, but just the sheer amazment of the giant sparks that fly when you discharge the capacitor to a metal object, such as a hardened steel screw driver. Below is an example of the power this make-shift taser has.
Yes, those are burn marks around craters created by a disposable camera taser. This thing has some serious power. I pulled out my fancy multimeter and tested this thing out. With the camera I bought, I charged up the capacitor for about 5 seconds, and measured the DCV and mA in the capacitor. I was shocked at what I found.
This thing was at 330v and 400mA only after 5 seconds of charging. I kept my multimeter probes on the capacitor and watched the numbers. It kept climbing, slowly but surely.
When I made these years ago, I shocked a few people, including my self (by accident). This thing is pretty painful. It left 2 black burn marks on a friends hand for 6 months. This isn't a toy to shock people with. Its more fun to charge it up and touch the 2 discharge points to something metal and see the sparks fly.
This is not new. These have been around for a long time. I am just demonstrating you exactly how to build one. There are other places online that tell you about them, but few actually explain how to make it! There was also a video on YouTube, a video demonstration on how to make a taser, but it was removed.
Before I begin on the construction of one of these bad boys, I must do the usual warning...
WARNING!!! This is NOT a toy. Do not do this at home unless you know how to stay safe with electricity. If one has a pacemaker or other electronic implant that they rely on to safe one's life, DO NOT play with this thing! 400mA is plenty to do some damage to somebody with a weak heart or electronic implant.
With that being said, lets continue!
Materials:
1 Disposable camera w/ flash (MUST have flash!)
1 Toggle Switch
6" hookup wire
Tools:
Solder Iron
Wire Strippers
Small flat screwdriver
Now lets begin the modification of the camera.
Here is the camera I bought.
Rip off the cardboard any way you feel fit. I prefer the tear-it-off-as-fast-as-possible-without-killing-yourself method, but that is just me.
Grab your smal screwdriver and pop off the top plastic case. There are 5 points; 2 on the left, 2 on the right, and 1 on the top.
Now that you have the top off, we need to take out the circuit board. There is small plastic clip in the midle of the circuit board. A picture is not needed for this, but if you cannot find it, look at the wiring diagram.
Now that you have the circuit board out of the camera, it's time to solder! All we are doing is bridging 2 gaps to bypass the charge button you have to hold, an the shutter release button you press to actually make the camera flash. One bridge will be a solder bridge. The other will have a switch inbetween so you can turn this sucker on and off. Also, you will need to solder on 2 wires at the 2 solder points where the flash bulb is connected to the circuit board. These 2 wires are the discharge wires and are what you will us to shock your friend (I mean your metalic object).
The wiring digram below will help you determine where and what you need to solder. (This may be different on some cameras, but I have made many tasers with many brands of camera and they are usually all the same, or very similar)
(Click for a higher resolution image)
You should have everything soldered up now. Below are 2 picture of what your board may look like at this stage.
(Sorry for the crappy soldering job on the bridges, I was distracted...this was at a party)
Now that everything is soldered up, you need to remove the flash bulb and its housing. This can be a bit tricky. On other tasers I have made in the past, the bulb has shattered and there is tiny peices of glass everywhere. However, on this build, that did not happen.
To remove the housing, there are 2 small plastic push things on the front, and a copper plate soldered to the board on the back. Simply squeeze the two plastic things in the front, and clip off the copper plate. Below is a picture of the plastic squeeze things and the copper plate.
Now that the housing is gone, and everything is soldered, put the battery back into the copper holders and give it a test!
After about 20 shocks to a hardened steel screwdriver, the copper discharge wires were pretty banged up. They had craters and burn marks on them.
(Sorry for the fuzzy image, I just couldn't get a sharp image with such thin wires on macro mode)
Well now that you know how to make an awesome taser out of a disposable camera, go have some fun, but I cant stress this enough. 400mA is quite a lot of power. It may vary on each camera, but its still gonna be somewhere around there. These things are fun to see sparks, but lets just leave it at that.
On a special note! These things are so small, that if you went to RadioShack and bought a 4AA housing, the flat ones with the switch on them, you can actually fit this entire thing inside of it. I would recommend doing this so you dont touch the two solder points on the capacitor and give yourself a nasty shock.
Until next time, have fun!