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Will Femia is a Weblog enthusiast who, through good fortune and dumb luck, was introduced to the form as his position as chat producer for MSNBC.com careered into obsolescence. On any given day, Will can be found having already spent an unhealthy amount of time squinting at a computer screen.

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How to turn a disposable camera into a taser

Posted: Friday, September 01, 2006 4:45 AM by Will Femia
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Cool just for the spark.  Who knew disposable cameras packed that kind of juice?  And they allow those things on planes?

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I used to work in a theatre where I made I would make old camers that were "flashable" at the push of a button from disposable cameras.  I would tell the actors to be carefull not to stick their fingers in certain places and occasionaly actors would not listen and touch the wrong thing, as actors are apt to do.  They would get a nasty jolt (as I got several times while coming up with this hack) but were never seriously hurt...

Kyle Scarpelli, Brick, NJ (Sent Friday, September 01, 2006 11:53 AM)

The shock you would get from that thing is no worse than you would get from touching a door knob on a dry day in New Mexico (after petting your dog, combing your hair, and rubbing your feet on the carpet).  A real taser would pack a lot more punch and has a very fast discharge/recharge cycle.  The most you could do with the camera is say "Oooh! Look at the pretty spark!  Now wait like ten seconds and I'll show you again."

Tim Ibarra, Albuquerque, NM (Sent Friday, September 01, 2006 5:43 PM)

A friend of mine once built me a weak taser that I used to shock myself for entertainment purposes. Any battery carrys A LOT of energy in it. All you really need to get a big spark out of one is a nice capacitor. And of course cameras have one to set off the flash (needs a lot of energy to get bright enough). Of course it does take time to build the charge, so you could probably zap someone good only every few seconds (notice when he does it quickly, the second spark is very weak).

Ajin (Sent Friday, September 01, 2006 7:04 PM)

I didn't think it'd be a Rick Sanchez special (http://youtube.com/watch?v=Tg66d7ff2ME), but surely more than a static electricity spark?  The idea mentioned in the video of using the spark as an ignition for a potatoe gun or something was interesting.  Good plot device for a crime novel.

Will Femia (Sent Saturday, September 02, 2006 2:27 AM)



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