Taser final voltage?

[paul cotter]

A taser produces a nominal open circuit voltage of ~50kV which will obviously drop significantly when a circuit is made through flesh. Any ideas on what the final voltage is?

[mzzj]

A taser produces a nominal open circuit voltage of ~50kV which will obviously drop significantly when a circuit is made through flesh. Any ideas on what the final voltage is?

https://www.pathologyexpert.com/lectures/pdf/EMDD%20Physiology%20and%20Protocol.pdf

2 to 10kV

[Electrodynamic]

A taser produces a nominal open circuit voltage of ~50kV which will obviously drop significantly when a circuit is made through flesh. Any ideas on what the final voltage is?

I have built lots of devices similar to a taser and you need to be very careful. The voltage isn't what gets you it's the stored energy as capacitance.

For example, I have a Van De Graaf and have no problem with being zapped by arcs at 500kV. Add any amount of capacitance and it can be lethal. So the voltage isn't really the problem.

This seems like a decent article, https://legalclarity.org/how-much-voltage-is-a-taser-and-why-its-not-everything/

[Halcyon]

When I was in the police force, we used the Axon Taser X26P (which is now end-of-life and is replaced with the Axon Taser 7).

Open circuit voltage on the X26P is 50 kilovolts. When the probes are discharged and the circuit is complete (through a person's body), the voltage drops to 1200 volts. Current is around 2 mA. Each pulse delivers 100 microcoulombs.

[Buriedcode]

The voltage at the secondary of a CD driven taser is essentially a current source - so the voltage will be whatever it takes to allow current to flow. The reason they have a spark gap is to limit this so it doesn't cause repeated breakdown of the insulation of the transformer - which will ultimately fail. It won't be "infinite" but can be remarkably high.

So the voltage will vary depending on - distance from each probe to a conductive surface - and that surface's conductivty.

[paul cotter]

As a teenager I once had my hand to hand resistance measured by a hand cranked megger(painful!) and it was ~10k. This was with dry hands and I assume a much lower resistance would present with darts penetrating flesh, considering blood has plenty of electrolytes. Even going with 10k, a voltage of 1kV would produce a peak transient of 100mA, which seems very high. I am not disputing any of the contributions, I just find the quoted voltages to appear high. I once repaired a mains powered electric fence driver for a friend and I was stunned by the output: open circuit it produced triangular pulses peaking at 2.5kV and loaded with a 1k resistor 2.2kV, ie 2.2A (with considerable waveform distortion).

[Buriedcode]

The average power is kept low - the pulses can have high voltage and high peak power, but very brief, so the duty cycle is tiny.  Older ones had longer pulses at a lower voltage and as a result could cause significant burns.

[MathWizard]

When I was a kid, I put a 9V battery on my tongue, I sort of remember it, and I don't ever want to try it again.

[pardo-bsso]

Usually the ones for cattle have larger/bigger pulses to cope both with the animal strength and also the losses in the long wiring and moisture/plant growth around the posts.

[Electrodynamic]

As a teenager I once had my hand to hand resistance measured by a hand cranked megger(painful!) and it was ~10k. This was with dry hands and I assume a much lower resistance would present with darts penetrating flesh, considering blood has plenty of electrolytes. Even going with 10k, a voltage of 1kV would produce a peak transient of 100mA, which seems very high. I am not disputing any of the contributions, I just find the quoted voltages to appear high. I once repaired a mains powered electric fence driver for a friend and I was stunned by the output: open circuit it produced triangular pulses peaking at 2.5kV and loaded with a 1k resistor 2.2kV, ie 2.2A (with considerable waveform distortion).

I have a couple electric fences on the acreage, the wire usually gets me running down my back as I try to go under them on the quad.

The biggest factor is the ground path and moisture relating to conductivity. On a really dry day I can grab it with my hand but on a wet day it will drop me too my knees just touching it.

[Buriedcode]

Taser^TM, "Cattle Prod" and "Electric Fence" are all very different things for different purposes, and so deliver different voltages/currents/waveforms.