BUILDING A ZAPPER
“zaps” per second), about as fast as you can tap the battery
with your hand, is moderately effective!
You must be connected to both terminals. One will be marked
- (positive) and the other – (negative). If you simply touch these
terminals with your wet fingers, nothing much happens. That is
because your resistance to the current starts going up right away,
so less and less current passes through you.
However if you tap the positive terminal with your wet hand,
and tap it at a fairly high rate, your body's capacitors come into
play. Capacitors only take part in the flow of electricity when
they are charged and discharged. Tapping the terminal starts and
stops the voltage so capacitors charge and discharge. This kind
of resistance to current flow is much smaller.
The faster you tap, the greater the frequency of current pulses
and the lower this kind of resistance becomes. Now you can have
a considerable sustained current flow through your body.