Projects and Fun Stuff! | Electronic | Slug Buster Project
Discuss: Slug Buster Project
Disgusting Project Alert - Read at your own risk!1 comment · 
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Beech nut Associate 83 posts registered on May 18 2006 |
OK, here's the overall design. There is no resistor where D1 is because I used a cheap inverter which was basically a single transistor oscillator coupled through an audio transformer for voltage boost. The output resistance of the transformer is enough to protect the circuitry. You can get DC-DC converters like this (which are meant to power EL panels) from places like: 213/ELECTROLUMINESCENCE_KIT_.html I would suggest replacing the AAA batteries with something beefier, or better yet, finding an inverter with a 6V or 12V input. Don't forget to check out Safety Discussion Board. R2 is there to slowly discharge the capacitor when the unit is switched off. 100K and 330uF give a time constant of 33 seconds, so after about a minute or so, the voltage on the cap should be safe. The neon bulb is there as a warning that the cap is still pretty highly charged. After the neon bulbs goes out, I would wait for another 30 seconds or so for the cap to discharge to a safe level. If the neon bulb doesn't go out for more than two minutes after power off, I would guess R2 is not connected or the wrong value. The electrodes I used were just two small nails, approx 4mm apart, to get the little slugs. You'll probably have to wipe off the tip of the ground frequently to get rid of mucus. The mucus also shorts out the output, so you might as well release the button then. The short is indicated by the neon bulb going out, and usually you can hear the whine of the transformer sweep to a frequency too low to be heard. |
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