Slashdot Mirror

Where do I order my 7 meter high Tesla coil? I think I want one on my lawn. Fer duckhuntin'...

Ask and ye shall receive -OK, I think the largest they offer on the site without going custom order is about 2 meters, but.. DAMN it is impressive!

HERF pulse guns have been around on sites like this for a long time now. DroneDefender haven't exactly invented anything new, they have just repackaged in a format more palatable to Law Enforcement and Military.

The problem is the average citizen can't, legally, get his/her hands on some SAMs. Plus, do you know how much a Stinger costs on the second-hand market? There is the whole import problem too. A directional EMP (if there is such a thing) would probably rank in the top ten list of weapons Joe Citizen is NOT allowed to own.

Sorry, but you can buy one right now. OK, for the "directional" bit to mean "directional enough to take out drones at altitude", you'll need to provide your own larger parabolic dish made of metal (foil or mesh), and for the models with reasonable power you'll need to get around their "Sold only to qualified research companies and personnel" policy (note this is a company policy, not a law as you suggest) or buy the unrestricted plans and build your own.

Shooting them isn't an option either. Most are too high, too fast, and shooting at them with automatic weapons would draw massive amounts of attention.

Not too high or fast, really. You have a good point about automatic fire, of course, but keep in mind that many current law-enforcement operators are using drones low & slow enough to be targeted with shotguns, whereas the linked document refers to larger and faster military threats, and to countering them with military weapons that don't get the multi-projectile advantage of shotguns. Given <100m altitude, semiautomatic shotguns are as good at filling volume of air with lead as fully-automatic assault rifles.

Then some smart arse drives around in a diesel van with a generator and an electro magnetic pulse generator http://www.amazing1.com/emp.htm and all your network security is for nothing. Of course now your network is 100% secure ain't no one getting in with nothing.

Psst tell the UK not to go to this naughty website http://www.amazing1.com/emp.htm. Building a EMP device seems to be a very popular topics indeed. China get's in on the game http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2011/07/24/china-developing-super-nuclear-electromagnet-pulse-bomb-future-war-41021/, I suppose when numbers are on your side taking the whole world back to the early gunpowder age makes sense. Of course in autocracies losing control really tends to blow up in your own face.

How well would a good set of earplugs or even construction style earmuffs protect against the sound of this.

A few years ago, a neighbor who wanted to buy the duplex half I was living in tried to chase me out. The first I knew about it was coming from deep sleep to full alertness in the early hours of every morning, with my heart pounding as though I'd just been shocked awake. It was devastating to my sleep patterns.

The first few times it happened, I had no idea what was happening. I thought I had some medical or psychiatric condition developing, but then one night I stayed awake but quiet until about 2am, when the wake-up trick happened. While I was awake, the jolt felt weird, but not unbearable, a little like standing near loudspeakers at a rock concert, but silent.

I was lucky, and had a full studio of sound and electronic gear, so over the next couple of nights I identified that the pulse was ultrasonic. A bit of research led me to these things, so I bought one of the quad transducer kits to see if it was the culprit, which it was. I did some experimenting, and found that while earmuffs do attenuate the sensation a little, the "body-throb" is still disturbing. If you don't control your mind, it really does produce a sense of alarm.

Once my neighbor realized she'd been twigged, she switched from the single wake-up pulse to random attacks with the sweep and nausea modes. It was bearable, but wasn't pleasant, so I called the police and tried to explain it to them. They were polite, and spoke to the neighbor, but decided the only laws which might have been contravened were noise limits. I asked the council noise inspectors to check, but their meters aren't capable of detecting ultrasonic.

In the end, the authorities didn't know how to deal with it, but the neighbor stopped using the device anyway, probably because of all the fuss.

TLDR: They'll use ultrasonics which cause a sensation of fear and alarm. It's manageable by individuals, but a mob will almost certainly run.

Find the physical jammers, hit radio shack, and take'em out: http://www.amazing1.com/emp.htm

Lol, yeah who's gonna build an EMP Generator?
Probably not for beginners anyway.
http://www.wikihow.com/Build-an-Emp-Generator

Some people know about the mechanics and pitfalls of an EMP generator.
http://www.gizmowatch.com/entry/howto-create-an-emp-bomb-of-your-own/
Some skip the trial and error and obtain plans.
http://www.amazing1.com/emp.htm
Much, much more out there on the subject in varying sizes and effective ranges including directional applications.http://servv89pn0aj.sn.sourcedns.com/~gbpprorg/mil/emp/index.html

Funny, yes!
Hell Yeah!
A netfull of geeks discussing and trading EMP tips and someones worried about homeland security.
Might as well take down the net. You can build many many controversial items with help from the internet. I suppose though that once theres actually a need for these items, it won't matter much if anyone cares about the legalities of such.

If you're worried about headbutts, use an infrared laser then - stuff from 400-1400nm can get to the retina, and visible spectrum is 390-750nm. And people also conveniently sell 1-1.5 watt laser pointers in the 800-1400 nm range: http://www.amazing1.com/laser_pointers.htm

I doubt the blink reflex works for infrared lasers.

The people with digital cameras or video cameras might detect your laser (see for yourself with an infrared remote control).

Anyway, maybe they can treat some laser eye damage, with light! http://www.warp-heals.com/pdf/DARPA_Soldier_Self_Care.pdf
http://oai.dtic.mil/oai/oai?verb=getRecord&metadataPrefix=html&identifier=ADA445026

Rig up one of these on a rotating platform with an x-ray detector and you can fry the whole car.
http://www.amazing1.com/emp.htm

Sharks can still use them, as long as the laser is head mounted and they point it at their above-water target, But I think the sharks would prefer one of these anyways.

Check out back issues of Electronics Now and Popular Electronics magazines. The articles are detailed and fun. Unfortunately they went out of business. However, there are still a few mags out there, such as Everyday Practical Electronics.

A good way to get some chops is to build some kits. By far the best is Ramsey Electronics. I also like Information Unlimited; they have a lot of high-voltage and other stuff. Quite an amusing website if you dig around.

Set up an area, because most anything you do will take time and if you want to get serious about the hobby you'll need a workshop away from wifes (oops, slashdot, not applicable) and kids, pets, etc. You might want some smoke removal for the solder as well.

Eureka Aerospace can call it "HPEMS", but really it is just another HERF device, and it is certainly not a new thing. In fact you can buy kits from places like this and build your own.

This is a High Energy Radio Frequency (HERF) gun not an EMP weapon, although the two are very similar in their final effects. EMP devices are omnidirectional and create a blanket pulse across a far larger portion of the EM spectrum. HERF affects a much smaller part of the spectrum, which allows the generating electronics to be tuned for higher efficiency and allowing the antennas to be directional. EMP devices are usually much higher power that fry the electronics, whereas HERF devices typically only cause disruption (requiring pulses to be sustained to prevent the normal function from restarting).

It will shut down the engine computers of most modern cars, but cars with carburetors and mechanical based ignition systems (ie. distributors) and diesel engines without electronic injection will be unnafected. While this may affect most cars and trucks made since 1970, it does not include them all.

To get to the power output that will stop a vehicle from distances usually seen in car chases would require a massive arrangement, capacitor bank, and a dedicated power supply to keep the HERF pulses sustained. This certainly will not be the kind of device that will be mounted on police cars any time soon.

I have to also wonder how effective it would be in an actual car chase (assuming they could find as way of making it mobile). They would typically be shooting it at the rear of the car where the bodywork would act as shielding for the engine computer, and there is nothing to stop portions of the RF pulses reflecting off the metal bodywork and disabling chasing police cars.

Not sure of the portal turret, but you can come damned close...

http://www.amazing1.com/ultra.htm

Place a few of the PPF40 units in housings aimed at the entry areas, then enjoy the writhing, screaming and contortions of the folks trying to get me to vote for their candidate... (just kidding - I think)

I've messed around with some of these circuits in the past and while fun to play around with, the amount of pain that can be induced would make a decent deterrent.

Yeah, there's a ton of variety out there. Good toy stores (like the one in my sig) have everything from those little block kits to the 500 in 1 electronic springboard kits (remember those). I think you might be looking for something a little more advanced.

I remember putting together a few kits from Ramsey Electronics, including the venerable FM10 stereo FM transmitter. They have a lot of interesting stuff there. Also Information Unlimited is a classic for fun stuff like high-voltage, etc.

The amount of thrust needed to be truly useful, is limited by the arcing from the higher voltages needed to produce that thrust. You have to limit the voltage to just below the arcing point, else your efficiency is robbed as you create lightning instead of airflow. You would also risk destroying your power supply as the sparks are basically temporary short circuits. Nor can you simply move the electrodes further apart to reduce arcing, as this will also reduce efficiency.

There are plans http://www.amazing1.com/grav.htm for a device that that uses ionic wind for levitation. The frame for the "lifter" must be extremely light and is made of balsa wood. Unfortunately the trust is so small, that it can't even lift it's own power supply. The power supply is separate and feeds the lifter via a high voltage wire. This wire also limits the craft's height due to the additional weight load as more wire is supported.

Theoretically, you could scale up the device such that it could support it's own power source and eventually a pilot. But it would only work on paper... it would quickly out-cost it's usefulness. The power required would make it hugely impractical and the required dimensions would likely be measured in miles! Additionally, you would not be able to control such a beast... you would be at the mercy of even the slightest breeze due to the interaction with the vast surface area of such a craft.

But... the model that I read about sure looks cool!
Though it's not very useful beyond that.

I used to check out http://freshmeat.net/ almost daily, but that was when I was only a few years into Linux and still on an endless search for software that did different things, and at the time it seemed simpler to just wait and see what came up on fm every day (you could easily tell how active things were that way, too). Speaking of fm---does anyone have a copy of that old butchered-meat logo fm used to have, waaaay back, before the beginning of the fm II theme?

About weekly, I'll check out http://amasci.com/ (amateur science and electricity stuff), http://en.wikipedia.org/ (duh), http://www.cray-cyber.org/ (free supercomputer access), http://www.hpcalc.org/ (HP48/49/etc calculator stuff), etc., to check for new stuff. I'll check my http://facebook.com/ and http://myspace.com/orangesquid (shuddup) messages about weekly. From time to time I might browse http://www.amazing1.com/ (catalog which has Tesla coils and stuff, though they're not actually the best place for parts/kits/devices) or search for scientific equipment or old unix systems on http://www.ebay.com/ (see the Used SGI Buying Guide FAQ, etc).

I also check up on some of my friends via http://os.livejournal.com/friends every few days.

Lately I've been choosing a new section on http://scitoys.com/ to read every few days. Every few weeks, I'll usually find a different information-type site to read through gradually, or pick a topic to research on wikipedia.

...cars that are pissing me off on the highway. ...cell phones of people in the grocery store with those stupid BlueTooth headsets. ...push-to-talk on cell phones. ...Blackberries. ...airplanes flying over my house at night that are too loud.

Hey, I think I know a solution to all of those. EMP!

The "Evil Genius" books available at major bookstores contain plans for EMP devices and other dangerous things. This company sells the books and actual parts kits. Explosive compression... couldn't bullets themselves be used to generate EMP?

And that's just because most beople can't afford A real EMP shock generator

Silly American, they aren't EMP "grenades", they're EMP "guns".

And if they ask, tell them it's for defending your State against the Federal government.

-S

>>how hard would it be for a terrorist to get a Class IIIb or Class IV laser capable of causing eye or skin damage

Here you go, took me about 1 minute to find it, just requires some basic paperwork and you could have it on your desk in about 1 month or less. Yep it's class - IV

http://amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm

Onepoint

Don't worry, there's no need for a detector - simply take pre-emptive action against any cameras that might be around with one of these.

No, a true geek would risk death through trying to build one himself in a kit (see bottom)

Yep, but what is really worries them seems to be the high-power jobbies. Get that 20w CO2 laser from these guys or a s/h medical laser and you could really make someone's day.

The REAL issue here is that very powerful green lasers have gotten extremely cheap ($59.00 to $99.00) so they need to throw the book at this guy to prevent the rest of us citizens from playing possibly dangerous games.

A more realistic thing to do is come up with a technological solution to prevent an airplane from being downed by a $100.00 device. A self-darkening wind screen, some sort of polarized surface, a one way mirror coating?

The use of the Patriot Act is a travesty. The guy is pointing out stars to his daughter and obviously Mr. Clueful was not exactly trying to hide the fact from the police helicoptor.

I understand the situation the LaserShoppe guy is in. As someone planning to start selling a 50-100 watt CO2 laser kit this summer(should be good for laser engraving and lightweight cutting of wood/plastic/cloth with a CNC table), this kind of news really worries me. A CO2 laser under several KW would pose very little threat to aircraft since regular glass blocks the beam, but if these incidents became bad enough to become "top stories", I doubt most people would make the distinction(including police/FBI).

The problem is that no matter how responsible 99% of the buyers are, there is still that idiot who does something stupid and gets hurt. I don't want to be at the center of any media/legal feeding frenzy. For the safety information, I'm thinking some "raw meat vs. laser" photos and a very clear safety description should help get the point across, but after reading some of the posts on the Amazing1.com forums, my faith in people's judgement is pretty low. Of course, that also assumes that nobody buys it FOR irresponsible/illegal purposes.

The CO2 laser is hundreds of times as powerful as the little LaserShoppe one and putting your hand in the beam is a big no-no(the above videos from Synrad.com probably make that clear enough). On the positive side, eye protection isn't as big a problem, since most materials will absorb the 1060nm infrared light. Regular safety goggles work fine.

I guess the biggest problem with selling lasers is that most people are nearly 100% clueless about them. A lot of people think lasers are something they aren't, don't understand what they do, and/or are just plain stupid.

being a regular viewer of candle power forums and such I've actually seen this before a while ago, as well as the laser's original manufacturer, which is here:
http://www.cnilaser.com/_private/ep_pgl3.htm

you can find a review of it here:
http://ledmuseum.candlepower.us/second/pgliii.htm

remember while this laser is a lot more powerful than a regular laser pointer it's a far cry from what a laser that's truly powerful can do. 190mW compared to a 20W Co2 laser (which is on the low side for CO2 Laser power) and the difference is quite substantial. Sure you could blind someone, but you certainly aren't going to be using it like some kind of stun gun or what not. I don't even think a Co2 laser would work that well for that.

"Hey mister, stand still! I'm trying to burn you here!"

if you wanted to do some real damage with something you could actually carry around, check this site out:

http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm

100mW? Ha!

Still, lasers are not a very likely terrorist weapon because they have historically used very low tech weapons (box cutters?) to achieve their goals. Trying to obtain and assemble a laser weapon would increase the chance for discovery, and that is what they are keen to avoid.

On the other hand there is this site http://www.amazing1.com/burning-lasers.htm

Class IIIa (>5mW) 532nm green laser pointer (ThinkGeek)

Class IIIb (>15mW) 532nm green laser pointer (MegaLaser)

Class IIIb 200mW handheld green laser (Information Unlimited)

It's even possible to get small, portable Class IV (potential instant severe eye damage, even from diffuse or reflected beams; this is the class of laser which also includes burning and cutting beams) lasers:

Various Class IV portable lasers, including a small battery powered 2W diode laser (Information Unlimited)

The front windows of a commercial aircraft and objects in the cockpit could easily reflect and refract a beam from the ground in ways that would be at a minimum very distracting and unsafe, and potentially damaging to eyesight.

Information about laser classes.

Class IIIa (>5mW) 532nm green laser pointer (ThinkGeek)

Class IIIb (>15mW) 532nm green laser pointer (MegaLaser)

Class IIIb 200mW handheld green laser (Information Unlimited)

It's even possible to get small, portable Class IV (potential instant severe eye damage, even from diffuse or reflected beams; this is the class of laser which also includes burning and cutting beams) lasers:

Various Class IV portable lasers, including a small battery powered 2W diode laser (Information Unlimited)

The front windows of a commercial aircraft and objects in the cockpit could easily reflect and refract a beam from the ground in ways that would be at a minimum very distracting and unsafe, and potentially damaging to eyesight.

Information about laser classes.

You call that geeky? How about a laser-controlled sound based pain inducer - only $550 to kit out your home and car ;-) I know it sounds like a joke, and to be honest reading that site leaves me feeling a little like it was designed to impress people into buying science they barely understand, but it's not too pricey and assuming it works as advertised it'll get rid of tresspassers without doing them any lasting damage.

if you check out Information unlimited, especially THE SIZZLER at 20 foot range
they have a device which is more like a traditional stun gun than a taser but emits an arc outwards... seems like a more formidable weapon against a mugger and less likely to be foiled by a heavy vest

NOTE: their site seems to be full of fake stuff but that is not so.... I have purchased from them before (got a Laser pointer from them 9 years ago when laser pointers were not common like they are today, and it came with a pamphlet with alot of the same stuff they advertise now so it is the same company as back then)

Information Unlimited sells Tesla coils. I can speak first hand of how effective they are at frying electronics. I built their BTC3K Tesla Coil when I was in 10th grade, it is fantastic. On days with low humidity purple sparks 10-12 inches in length are not out of the question. I figure that 250,000 volts is more than enough to fry RFID chips.

LK

Okay, let's work this out. He uses a 50kV at 4 milli-amp power supply. That's 200 W power supply. With that he creates approximately a pound of upward thrust.

You want to create 1500 lbs upward thrust. You'll need 300 kilowatts of power. Let's say you want to run it for one hour. You've used 300 kilowatt-hours (1.08 gigajoules) of energy.

According to here, you've actually used 8.19 gallons of automotive gasoline to power your device.

On the other hand, if your truck now weighs only 1000 lbs... you might be on to something!!

It looks like Parks is doing quite well with his light sabres... Has anyone seen some of the other companies selling light sabre replicas? Like Future Horizons or Amazing1.com

I'd be interested to know how they compare in quality of construction, durability, brightness, etc...

Oh please. I build stuff all the time at home and in the lab, last time I checked, places like Maxim have -free- sample quantities in packages you can work with if you have a good iron (SOIC, et al). Getting boards done in small volume is cheap, use a tool like Eagle, which is even available for Linux (but not OS X, doh!). Spend a few bucks and get a quality board done at a internet based low volume PCB shop.

There are evil packages, but the truth is a lot of the prototyping and test work is done on hand placed boards. Even evil packages can be used if you get an adapter board, there are a few of them out there.

What's more telling is that now instead of messing with token things, and "wow, I actually got something to show up on the display", you can do some real work with your computer and designs and instruments. I realized awhile ago I was spending far too much of my time tinkering with things and not enough accomplishing things.. but I guess some of that is the Linux mentality too. :) Now I figure out what I want to accomplish and use the best tool, rather than attempting to make everything into a nail for my hammer.

For $300 or so you can even get prototype boards for FPGAs if you want to do custom hardware. $150 will get you a decent micro development system, and AVRGCC is gnu, runs on linux and windows (but not OS X :), and lets you program cheap cheap cheap AVRs to do just about anything you want. Mix with ADCs and some transistor fed relays or PWM control to do whatever. You can get software to turn your PC into a function generator to test, or if you hunt around, you can get a nice old digital oscilloscope AND a real function generator AND a bus analyser suitable for 8 bit micros (or more) for less than the cost of a PC 4 years ago.

Same thing applies for most other scientific equipment. Be careful when sourcing chemistry gear, even broken stuff, or you might have the DEA paying you a little visit if you happen to live in the USA. If high voltage fun is your bag, there's companies for that. There are even companies that sell cold fusion experiment kits - although most of the magic there seems to be in the process used to create the electrodes.

I contend there's never been a better time to BE a amateur scientist! You can actually afford to have a decent lab since last year's gear can be tracked down on the cheap.. and accomplish real work, too! How many high res night shots could you store on a $200 80gb drive? Etc, etc, etc, etc.

Death of amateur science predicted! Film at 11.

Hell yeah!

Phazer crowd control Phasor Pain Field Generator for Mounting on a CAR!

Ultrasonic wave generator that causes nerve stimulation and overload to the point of writhing on the ground in such pain you forget to bef for it to stop!

Slippery slime will only piss people off because they keep falling. And how are the police supposed to go in and arrest or cuff these people if they're slipping around in it themselves?

I can just see rioters and police wearing golf/soccer shoes to get traction.

I've dealt with these people before to get some high voltage supplies and pieces. They sell all sorts of stuff from Information Unlimited - they're run as a mad-scientist like outfit, and they have all sorts of nifty stuff. If you like railguns, coil guns, EMP guns, water explosion, lattice cracking, etc etc.. this is the place for you. Some of the stuff isn't cheap, but everything that I've ordered from them has worked reasonably well.

Anyhow, there's lots of people working on this. Nobody's made one more efficient than a .44 magnum though :)

I have a right to property. You have a right to property. We both have these rights. But your right can only impede my right if I owe some special obligation to you because of a prior relationship or agreement (like contracts or marriage or whatnot). In fact, we don't have a prior relationship, so there is no "harm" done. Your version of the "harm principle" is quite disturbing, because it allows for no stopping point. Under your conception, every annoyance is a harm.

Great! I'll be the one parking the unmarked van with the Phasor Pain Field Generator mounted on the fender outside your house tomorrow morning at 3A.M., then walking away. Don't touch--it's my property, and we don't have a contract that says I won't do this. Sounds like a protection scheme, doesn't it?

The "special obligation" is that you live in a society, with other people, not on an island or in a shack in Nowhere, Montana. If this is too much of an infringement on your property rights, there is a place (formerly inhabited, but now devoid of human presence) where you can enjoy those rights to the fullest. Why not go there now?

Link is here
---

Pulsed high power laser system is hand held and battery operated. Device is labelled as a class 4 laser product and meets all NCDRH requirements. It uses a 3"x1/4" Nd:Glass rod with integral mirrors as the lasing medium. Design is intended as an advanced science project or serious laser demonstration product.

Output is 1 to 3 joules at a 500 usec pulse width equating out to a 6000 watt pulse! This is sufficient to blast small holes in the hardest of metals once the beam is properly focused.

However, real geeks' hoverboards are hinted at here. They are solid state devices, based on magnetic confinement of ionized air to form the air cushion. It might draw too much current to be practical, though. Anyway, I'm drooling on these to become practical, as they would be infinitely more k3w1 than the bulky hovercraft thingies.

But then again, they've had that "taser" that ionizes air to allow the transmission of electricity through air for a 2 years. And that's been verified. You never know...

-----------------------------

Sure, you could take a super soaker, fill it with salt water, and if it stays dry (heh), you could zap a remote target effectively with a stungun.. Probably get you, too, though.

Range, though. With ionized air, you can go potentially hundereds of meters (maybe even kilometers - a la star wars). Even a super-fine jet of water will succumb to air resistance and form droplets breaking the conductive path.

You can do some VERY cool effects with Tesla coils and conductive fluids, though. At your own peril, of course :)

Bill Beaty rocks.

For those of you interested in "wierd science", here's a great supplier, with kits that work (I've built a few), at reasonable prices.

Amazing Technologies...

Steve
n706@unb.ca