What Gauge Wire For Stun Gun?

[TurtleVVisperer]

So I got really frustrated with crappy push-button sparkers, so I bought a 400,000 volt stun gun off eBay for $25 with shipping. Now I want to connect wires to its prongs so I can fire the gun from a distance.

My question-
What gauge wire would you say is best? - Or does gauge even matter at all?
I've looked wire gauges up on wikipedia and they only say stuff about amps affecting how thick the wire needs to be, not volts.
Because the stun gun runs off such a small battery, I assume it has very low amps because of the large volts it can make. (I'm just guessing, I'm no expert).

So I don't think I need really heavy duty wires, what do you guys think?

Thanks!
(1st post! Hi SpudFiles!)

[rna_duelers]

Thickness plays a big roll in amps but not so much with voltage drop,but the longer the wire the more voltage drop you will get,which is bad.The thickness of the wire is not the most important thing here the more important thing is wires that have thick insulation so that it does not ark through them and cause a short in the circuit.Having the wires as short as possible is also very important and I would advise to hooking up a remote switch for the stungun circuit instead of having the electrodes extended.

Try 16-AWG with a heavy insulator.

[TurtleVVisperer]

Aah, that makes sense. Thanks, that helped a lot. I'll try extending the switch tomorrow. Thanks again!

[jimmy101]

Yep, in this application the gauge of the wire is totally irrelevant. You could use 40G (hair diameter) or 12G (coat hanger wire) and it'll make no difference.

The length of the wires is also irrelevant.

The insulation is relevant but you can't buy wire with insulation rated at more than about 10KV. The solution is to just keep the wires well seperated from each other, from anything that is electrically conductive, and from you. If the wires are well separated they don't even need insulation (though you are sure to zap yourself if you use uninsulated wire).

For a "200KV" soure you don't actually need insulation that'll withstand that voltage. The insulation only has to be able to handle whatever the breakdown voltage of your spark gap is. If your gap is 1/8" the wire insulation only needs to be able to handle a couple KV since the stun gun's voltage stops rising as soon as a spark occurs.

[TurtleVVisperer]

Oh, your point about the size of the gap is really good. On the stun gun it is about 3/8 inch, I can adjust that in accordance with how much insulation I can get a hold of. Thanks again, this is all very useful.