High Voltage Circuit

[Nubby]

Back in the 1970’s the, now deceased, publication of “Popular Electronics” printed a construction article using readily available components to build a device that used battery power to generate a high voltage spike to electrify a piece of wire. An electric fence if you will. I built it, at the time, so my employer could train his dog not to urinate on his flowers. I was told it worked great. I again built the circuit, years later, to test the capabilities of another design to suppress voltage surges. The schematic for the circuit is long gone and so is the publication. We called it the “Dog Zapper” when we initially built the circuit. I’m not sure that was the name used in the construction article. If someone out there can give me some information on the circuit or the month and year of the publication that contained the construction article it would be greatly appreciated.

[CeaSaR]

You can try http://swtpc.com/mholley/index.html to see if he has or knows of the issue or article. However, it may be a wild goose chase as the page was last updated in 2006.

CeaSaR

[Dean Huster]

I have nearly every Popular Electronics issue publilshed. But going through 120 magazines for that one circuit is a bit time-consuming. Can you zero-in on the title of the article? Annual indices were published in the December issues on-and off and there may not be any help there. The SWTP site won't be a lot of help as they were just zooming in on the article concerning SWTP products.

[haklesup]

was it a diode ladder or step up transformer based circuit? If it zapped dogs, I would expect an AC voltage output favoring the transformer. Just about any DC powered oscillator and audio matching transformer will do. Those high turns ratio audo matching transofrmers are far less comman today than back then. A DC diode ladder may give an initial jolt but will not give a sustained zap in most cases once loaded.

[Dean Huster]

I've been wanting to catalog the PE contents and decided to begin now. The circuit isn't in the Jan, Feb, Mar or Apr 1970 issues. More later.

[Edd]

.



Hey you guys ! . . . . .



How abouts someone checking out the June 1970's AIR PURIFIER article, since that would be a involving a HV circuit.
And for safety sake (UL inspection aversion), it might designed to be be run from a LV supply from a wall wart.
That aspect thereby would be indicating a battery operational voltage range.


73's de Edd
[email protected]. . . . . . . . (Interstellar~~~~~Warp~~~~Speed)
[email protected]. . . . . . . . (Firewalled*Spam*Cookies*Crumbs)



Speak softly and own a big, mean ole' doberman.



.

[Dean Huster]

That air purifier circuit used a 1X2 or some other HV rectifier and wasn't a compact circuit overall.

No other HV circuits in 1970, 1970 or 1972.

Some of the extra history of Popular Electronics surfaces in these issues. In 1970, they started dumping long-time columns such as "Short-Wave Listening" and "Amateur Radio". The magazine format changed and there was a promise that there were going to be mostly larger construction projects rather than little one-transistor gizmos. A year later, some issues had only two or three rinky-dink projects and the remainder of the mag was long boring articles that were of no hobby value at all. Odd since Don Lancaster and SWTPC were starting to publish a lot of material.

[MicroRem]

I so miss Popular Electronics and Electronics Illustrated. Two mags I got for years as a youngin' that helped get me where I am today... Wherever that is anyway.

Best to all and thanks Dean, You made it what it was!

Tom

[jwax]

Perhaps you could use, or hack this HV source:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/7-8-million-Vol ... 4ac089c68d

Can't go wrong with 7.8 million volts! (sigh)

[Dean Huster]

WITH LED FLASHLIGHT, no less! But alas, unless it includes a can opener, I don't see buying it.

Maybe a better item would be dual use also: Push one button for a spritz of perfume, another for a blast of pepper spray.

But really, 7.8 millions volts? And how did they measure that? And how did they insulate all the components inside? And realistically, with that much voltage (which I doubt), how to you keep it from zapping you, considering 100KV will jump the gap as the prongs. A true 7.8 MV would jump from the end, through your hand and back to the innards of the device. If the batteries are capable of 12w, that's only be maybe less than 2µa at the business end. Doesn't sound very intimidating to me. I can get that kind of voltage and current combing my hair on a dry day.

[jwax]

Dean, here we're dealing with marketing wizards where reality takes a back seat to wizz-bang astronomical numbers. Bigger is always better. Right? 7.8 million volts has to be better than a mere 500,000 volts.
As an aside, have you ever read the story of the guy that tasered himself, to see what it would be like? Hilarious. Imagine if he used the 7.8 million volt jobbie!
http://www.snopes.com/humor/follies/taser.asp

[gerty]

Here's someone that did it on camera http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juEhuDfbPLo

[dacflyer]

my friends dad used to work with the sheriffs dept...
my friend and his brother... used to play tazer tag.. they'd zap each other til one cried mercy...lol

[Dean Huster]

OK. I've been indexing my collection of PE's and decided, because of the original request, to being with January 1970. So far, I've indexed through September 1975 and still no high voltage circuit as described. I'm not done yet. In fact, it's been one of my goals to index ALL of my magazines, and this is a good start. The end of year (sometimes semi-annually) the mags did an index, and that's OK, but I'm doing a bit more, providing some extra information, such as whether a construction project is tubes, solid state, IC or µP; if it uses any now-obsolete ICs (unobtainium); all of the letters written to the mag concerning the indexed articles and circuits including the Out-Of-Tune stuff; all the pages the articles consumed, not just the starting page; and I'm also noting the issues and pages of equipment: test equipment, hi-fi/stereo, ham radio, kits -- most anything but CBs since that was such a volatile market -- just because sometimes, you want all the info you can get on an item of equipment.

In the process, I'm picking up the magazine history and will be doing a write-up on that as well. For instance, did you guys realize that the late Herb Brier, who wrote most of the Amateur Radio columns in Popular Electronics has been paralyzed since the age of seven and wrote his columns from his bed?

[jwax]

Did not know that about Herb! Who knew? He, like many others, are missed. They helped plant the seeds of curiousity and interest in learning and building circuits at an early age.

As for HV circuitry, just finished repairing a hair dryer for a daughter, and found one of these inside: http://www.sdyouji.com/en/displayproduc ... oID=240304
3,500 volts, 120 VAC in, and 1 cm X 2.4 cm. One watt, but enough to ionize air to prevent static while blow drying hair. Can't help but wonder what's inside this tiny package.

Dean, we look forward to seeing your efforts published!
John