Jim Elbrecht wrote:
"HeyBub" wrote:

dgk wrote:

-snip-

From two D cells? Well, I failed physics in the Rainbarrel thread,
so I'll try again. How can 2 D cells produce enough
voltage/amperage/whatever to shock a person?

Quite easily. The three volts is fed to an oscillator. The output of
the oscillator is fed to a 10,000:1 transformer. You end up with
30,000 volts (give or take) across the transformer's secondary
winding.

There's really no practical limit to the voltage output than can be
had from a 3 volt input.


And while it is the "amperage that kills you"- all those volts sure
get your attention in a hurry.

Oh-- and the best ones we've gotten so far use 2 c cells. The D
cell ones we have either have flakey switches or a weird
oscillator/transformer-- you can hit the bug for a while and nothing
happens--- then it goes crazy when you shake it and nothing is on it.

Heybub-- is 10K:1 the actual transformer on one of these-- or is that
a guesstimate?

I have not idea what the actual voltage in a fly swatter might be. I picked
10,000:1 as an example of stepping up a DC voltage.

I've seen the reverse, too. In making a home-made spot welder, you might use
a 1:250 ratio transformer to convert 120v down to 0.5 volts at 200 amps.