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A Shocking Controller For The Xbox
An anonymous reader writes "This is freakin' awesome - Kevin Rose from TechTV has built a 20,000-volt shocking Xbox controller. Imagine playing your friends in Mortal Kombat now... you can actually feel the pain. Seems easy to build and runs about $40 in parts."
Maybe if it was 20,000 amps. Then I'd be worried.
Check out Tekken Torture Tournament
why anybody would want to do this I dunno..
I read every post and saw several pondering the why question, and like you every one did not mention the obvious answer:
The purpose (and fun part) is not to shock yourself, but to shock the person with whom you are competing. It's like gambling with pain -- it's a blast to see your friend get zapped, and it's a great motivator to do well if you'll be shocked when you don't, and that's suspense and fear and thrill and excitement, and that's what gaming is all about.
Remember how much scarier Doom was than Wolfenstein? The tech made the better graphics which made a better (more real) experience. People who don't like to be scared might ask "why would you play a scary game? being scared is uncomfortable!" (actual quote from such a person who I know).
It's extreme yes, but I think it would very fun (excepting the video game chosen, perhaps, but that's easily changed) assuming 2 controllers are available. It would also be cool to have a bigger range of shock-levels (with both controllers linked to the same control, of course), so players could agree beforehand on shock level (wager) for thier duel (gamble).
This could also force a more realistic blocking delay. If you arranged the electrodes so that not touching them would make you unable to control your character, you could defend (i.e., not get shocked) by letting go of the stick. You avoid a shock, but you can't move your man, and there's some delay before you can move competently again because you have to re-grip the stick. Very cool.
I think this is a great idea that could be fairly well-accepted if the available shock voltage range is wide enough. 20kV, even at only 0.002J, seems like a lot for minimum settings.
everything in moderation
You might be thinking of the award winning Rez' Trance Vibrator for the Playstation 2.
This post was compiled with `% gec -O`. email me if you need the sources
Actually, even a tiny static discharge after rubbing your feet on a carpet can hae a potential difference of up to 20,000 volts. The current is just so low that it's harmless. This is the same thing. Haven't you ever played with a Van de Graaff genetator?
Don't knock it unless you have the first clue about electricity. Go take Physics 101.
Repeal the DMCA!
This is just a preemptive response to all the misinformed posts about how many "volts" it takes to kill you.
:)
It's the AMPS that hurt, not the volts. But it takes VOLTS to overcome your body's resistance. If the current passes across vital organs, it's a different story.
E=I*R
Or DEATH = VOLTS / RESISTANCE
It takes about 100mA, or 0.1A, through the chest cavity to kill you. A couple of amps from one finger to the other will cause extreme damage and pain, but probably will not kill you.
You can stick your tongue on a 5V, 100A power supply and nothing will happen. You can also put you hand on a tesla coil producing a few KV, and you hair will stand on end but that's it.
But touch with each hand to a source capable of delivering 1+ KV at 10mA or more, and prepare to be zapped out of your gourd or maybe killed. A common stun gun generates a few KV but it is DESIGNED not deliver enough current (electron movement as opposed to "pressure") to kill. Same goes for this xbox mod - I'd have a go at it.
The voltage doesn't matter. It's the CURRENT (read: amperage) that kills you. Not voltage.
Well, before they zapped him he said, "Another episode of slugheads.com" I just found it. Search for stun gun on kazaa or similar and it's the first one that comes up.
Electric fences are often around the 10-20 thousand volt range. However, keep in mind that it's not the volatge that kills you, it's the current.
If that 20,000 volts was unregulated, then yes, it'll kill you, however. The charge (in Columbs) for a electric fense is such that if you short the system through your body, the 20,000 volts goes away VERY quickly, and does not attain then necessary current to cause damage... it just HURTS LIKE BUGGARY.
Nah it was on the PS2 and it was calledRez
As for getting a high enough voltage to kill a person, it's not that hard. While dry, clean skin has a fairly high resistance (~100Kohms, not millions), any water at all on the skin picks up the salt excreted out of your pores and becomes an excellent conductor right down into those pores and into your body; your cross-body resistance drops to around ~10Kohms. Through the body, resistance is much, much lower (remember that blood, being basically saltwater with cells in it, conducts electricity well). Although the stories about people being killed by 9V multimeters (one probe in each finger measuring their internal resistance) are probably urban legends, doing the same with 120 VAC would almost certainly stop your heart.
Finally, voltage sources in the thousands of volts aren't that hard to find, even in the average home. The CRT you are probably sitting in front of as you read this runs on about 10,000 volts, and your microwave runs on similar high voltages. While asking either for high enough current to kill you will probably burn them out, they will most likely work long enough to stop your heart.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
Despite what the infomercials say, those things aren't really useful for burning calories or building muscle tone. While they are used in physical therapy, it's more to bring the muscles to a level where the patient can begin to use them for small tasks (like getting an atrophied bicep to lift a few pounds). Daily use builds far more muscle than any TENS machine. Think about it; how is a slight twitching going to help build lots of muscle? If you want to get buffed or lose weight, there's no substitute for exercise.
That's it. I'm no longer part of Team Sanity.
Most likely you just reacted badly -- typical response is to instinctively jump away from the source of the pain... Try harder to hold still next time : )
It's also possible that if you were playing with batteries and water, you created some Hydrogen and Oxygen; which you then ignited...
The most common "low voltage" electrical injuries are some kind of cardiac arrhythmia. The 60-cycle current that is the standard in the United States is just right to cause your heart to fibrillate at fairly low amperages. Presumably this is where the old "don't let the current go across your heart" expression comes from.
Once your heart is fibrillating, you rapidly lose consciousness, and are in cardiac arrest... just like the 70yo cardiac patient who collapses in your local Wal-Mart. You have about ten minutes to get defibrillated, or receive some kind of CPR before your odds of any kind of recovery are slim-to-none. The sooner you get defibrillated, the better (odds of survival go down roughly 10% per minute of unresuscitated cardiac arrest). What you require is direct-current defibrillation via your nearest AED, or friendly neighborhood EMS agency.
Now let's talk about high-voltage injury, which can be a bit different. High voltage injuries often cause burns at the entrance and exit site; not unexpected. However, electricity follows the path of least resistance, so any muscle belly inbetween the contact points (full of ions and such to conduct the jolt) is potentially the current's path. Problem is, high voltage will often literally "cook" that muscle belly, causing wholesale cell death and tissue necrosis... a BIG problem if it goes unrecognized.
Once that dead muscle starts to break down, it releases its component proteins into the bloodstream... myoglobin, CPK etc, a condition called rhabdomyolysis. Those proteins circulate until they reach the kidneys, and that's where the secondary problem begins.
The kidneys use their Glomeruli to "filter" the blood, and they do it well under normal circumstances. However, when this avalanche of excess protein hits them, the nephrons clog up, causing ATN (acute tubular necrosis), and renal failure. Unfortunately for you, you are now a dialysis paiient. Your kidneys may recover eventually, so you won't necessarily be a 3x/wk dialysis patient forever... but if this ever happens, I promise you you'll never want to repeat the experience.
There is a way to mitigate this, of course, and it's as simple as recognizing the high voltage injury, and keeping the person's kidneys running at full bore. Yep. That means running massive quantities of fluids into your veins, and watching it come right out of your foley catheter... with diuretic assistance, if necessary (diuretics are drugs that make you urinate).
Massively-high-voltage injuries, like lightning strikes, are another animal entirely. These injuries are less well-understood (probably due to the difficulty in replicating the phenomenon for study).
All of these injuries are bad, and I'd highly recommend avoiding them all... otherwise, you may find yourself in the ER with a guy like me standing over you... truly a horrifying experience.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
They had something like this for the Playstation 1 that never really took off. It was in the form of two wristbands. They claimed that the wristbands could add to the ambience of a creepy game by applying a mild but constant shock, as well as punishing you for numerous blunders you might make while playing. Unfortunately, the average video-gamer doesn't usually go out of his or her way (or wallet) to inflict pain upon themselves.