Officially, the term “taser” refers to a particular brand of projectile-firing electric stun gun. However, the word is also colloquially used to refer to just about any device intended for delivering electric shocks to an adversary. The taser ring from [Penguin DIY] definitely fits that description, though we’d strictly advise you not to consider building this at home.
The build is a hacky one. An arc generator circuit was pulled out from a jet cigarette lighter, and reconfigured to fit in a small ring-based form factor. It was hooked up with a power switch and a small bank of 30 mAh lithium polymer cell for power, and a compact USB-C charger board was installed to keep the batteries juiced. The electronics were then delicately assembled into a ring-shaped mold, which was injected with resin to produce the final ring. Once cast, a pair of small metal electrodes were installed on the outside. Activating the taser function is as simple as squeezing the ring—easy to do just by making a fist.
We’ve seen projects like these before; our advice is usually to avoid them unless you really know what you’re doing. Whether you end up shocking someone else or accidentally shocking yourself, the results tend to be bad. The latter seems particularly easy to do if you’re wearing this thing on your finger. Given it’s a ring, don’t expect to be able to pull it off in a hurry, either. It’s hard to see how that ends well.
“TASER” name origin == Tom Alva Swift Electric Rifle
I think Taylor Swift invented it actually
It’s worth noting that this probably doesn’t actually work well as a stun gun. There’s more to incapacitating someone with electric shocks than simply producing a few kilovolts. Real TASERs are tuned to disrupt muscle control making it impossible for your victim to fight back. Even cheap stun guns are usually designed to deliver a bigger wallop and cause enough pain for whoever you shock to stop whatever they’re doing. The electric lighter circuits this thing is based on can give you a tiny burn but mostly they’ll just sting. Not that it’s safe to hit someone with them.
All the more reason not to build it. The risk has very little reward.
Yeah this wouldn’t pose hardly any risk whatsoever, you’re more likely to seriously injure yourself with your soldering iron or chemical fumes while building it.
The debutante-fanning and pearl-clutching over anything that slightly resembles a weapon on this website is incredibly tiresome. Weapons are cool and people who know how to build stuff like building them… Why continue to be so Californian and squeamish about it
That is not at all the point I was making. This thing is based on the guts of a lighter. In other words it is specifically designed to burn things. It absolutely is dangerous and stupid to make.
I just wanted to point out that as dangerous as it is it’s probably not an effective deterrent. Anyone behaving in a way that makes hitting them with a stun gun seem like a good idea is probably going to shrug off the small burn this will give them. It’s not going to forcibly incapacitate them or deliver enough pain to stop them. What it will probably do is set your pants on fire before you ever get the chance to use it.
“Impossible” to fight back… hopefully.
Even with real taster, it’s not uncommon for the police here shoot someone a few times to get them to go down, and sometimes they have to resort to a conventional weapon.
Not commenting on the wisdom of creating such an object: It’s clearly cooked up for the clicks, but that’s pretty nice work. And good video production too.
I’d love to watch it because it’s probably one of the most amazing devices ever created, but when I click “play” NoScript says it contains \<media> element (a virus).
Weird that, as media elements aren’t viruses. You might need to rethink your approach to cyber security.
I 2nd the notion that a ‘stun gun’ (not a taser, which produces muscle contractions) is worse than useless for defense. See video linked below for a demo.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=me60gWzbMXw
Real tasers are legit though, I’ve seen division of wildlife staff taser a large adult bear (hazing it when eating trash) up close, and it knocked the bear down hard.
This thing is more likely to start a fire than do anyone any good, just yt content for the sake of content imo