Electric fly-swatter

[CpTn_lAw]

Hi everyone, I bought an electric fly swatter for 2 euros, took the net off, and now have two lead that make a nice 5mm gap that is sharp cracking. I saw a topic a few years ago, where someone modded it to 9 volts! how do one do so?

[qwerty]

Cant you just use a 9v battery?

[CpTn_lAw]

I don't think this is going to last, because internal components are rated to a certain voltage and current i think.


EDIT Upping the input voltage doesn't do anything!

[kjjohn]

What do you mean by modded to 9v? Is it just modded so you can use a 9v battery, or is it a modification that gives the spark more power?

[CpTn_lAw]

More power to the spark! Some people talked about adding a cockroft walton cascade but.....don't know...

[jimmy101]

A bit'o info would help.

120VAc or 240VAC or is it already running on batteries?

If it is running on batteries, say a pair of AA's, then using a 9V instead is not a good idea. You'll almost certainly fry something. HV circuits, especially in a cheapo device, aren't all that robust. Boosting the input voltage by a factor of three (or more) is a big change to the circuit.

Best bet would be to keep the voltage the same and just use C or D batteries instead of the AA (or AAA). Though even that might cause problems. A fresh AA battery will source about 10 amps, A fresh C or D will do more than twice that. That's a heck of a lot of current (and power).

I know that many photoflash circuits, designed for 1.5V, will work for a while with a 9V battery. Fairly quickly though the circuit will get cooked.

[CpTn_lAw]

Ok i'll try that later, I can tell you it stings like
I'm going two weeks in the south-eastern france, and will be back !! see y'all soon here!

[jackssmirkingrevenge]

Interesting, if the cartridge hybrid thing takes off I might be needing more juice than a piezo for ignition...

[CpTn_lAw]

It works very well, the spark is louder than the one from a piezo, and much much brighter, but it lacks the voltage to do well! I tried dumping it in a step-up transformer, but the arc was only thinner and the same length.
It send up to 1000 volts now that the batteries are a little slower, but at the beginning the arcs were longer.
Some kind of few stages cockroft walton cascade could work...[youtube][/youtube]

[Insomniac]

Has anyone considered using a CDI ignition unit for RC plane use as an ignition source? I only fly electric, so I don't know how they work/how to wire them/what voltage they put out, but they're cheap enough for experimenting on...

http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/stor ... duct=10996

Your thoughts?