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It Hurts So Good: Homemade Microwave Guns
  • 18 Comments
by John Biggs on May 29, 2007

Clearly someone didn’t get enough love as a child because this is crazy. These guys took apart an old microwave, took out the magnetron, and turned it into a weapon. The resulting hilarity and hijinks remind us how microwave ovens were actually invented when someone at a radar installation found a burnt bird — some say it was a maintenance man — that had nestled into a dish for warmth.

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  • >found a burnt bird

    I always heard the microwave oven discovery as a melted candy bar.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microwave_oven

  • Definitely a dangerous toy. Especially bad to aim at people. There are two especially sensitive spots: the eyes and the ‘nads (guys only). Microwave exposure will cause cataracts quickly at high levels and, scarier, later in life at lower levels. You can sterilize yourself (guys only) also – the testes are very sensitive to heat – they hang down precisely to keep them a few degrees below body temperature which would be too hot!

    All that said, when I was working for the Navy on a test range we worked with and repaired radars with KW and MW magnetrons, both pulse and CW. The official procedure to verify operation function and power was to hook up a directional coupler, high power load, a 60 dB power attenuator and a power meter to measure microwave output. The waveguides were never supposed to open when the magnetron was running.

    Of course, hooking that whole chain just to discover your last tweak didn’t work was a pain so there were “unofficial” methods also used. The first was to roll the transmitter outdoors, tape a neon bulb to the end of a broomstick, power up and wave the bulb over the open waveguide. If you have power it glows.

    The second, more “stupid-but-macho” method, was to crouch down to protect the ‘nads, put your hand over your eyes to protect the eyes, power up with the other hand and then *very* quickly pass your hand over the open waveguide. If it felt hot you had power. Probably one of our stupider moves.

    ex Radar Guy

  • Incredibly stupid. They obviously have no idea of the health risks.

  • Makes you wonder how much more effective the crowd control devices our police forces are holding on to. You sure don’t want to be caught in a crowd of people when some government assholes decide to have one of their poorly paid mecenaries pull the trigger on one of those things.

  • I need that gun for my troops! Do you take credit card?

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System
    This system is simply a high feq. wave so it will not penitrate the body nearly as much…

  • It really… doesn’t work. :) It´s a pity that most power is reflected back to the magnetron. And glass refraction index to microwave is 1.
    Modify parameters and try again. This time with no fakes. :)

  • you people are actually gullible enough to beleive this? especially the last 3 clips.

  • it works and is more powerful then you think it can also stop more cars by burning out there chip do a google on it

  • this is a fake. if u are hiten by a bunched microwave ray, u will feel nothing for a specific time, depending on the wavelenght and the power. it goes deep inside the body where no thermal receptores are. if u feel a heat on your skin, than its 10 times hoter inside you! so a fuck on this guys making this movie , to inspite people to do such a shit. be carefull, u will get blind and grill your organs including blootvesels and bloodcells.

  • Jack, you’re an uneducated fool making very silly claims. If you don’t know, don’t talk.

    A microwave is a fancy hot lamp, it’s lower frequency than visible light. So, unless visible light is penetrating your body, neither is this. Microwaves heat from the OUTSIDE to the inside, not the other way around.

  • Maximus,

    I’m afraid Jack is right. I’m an electrical engineer, and I DO know. For starters, glass is not going to do crap to a microwave, as someone said. Also, home microwave magnetrons operate between 2000 and 4000 volts AC, not DC from a cordless drill battery. Since a battery is DC, the transformer you’d need to step the voltage up to the kilovolt level wouldn’t work (transformers are AC only). Sure, you might be able to pulse DC, but I doubt the magnetron’s filament would warm up as required for it to emit charged electrons, and on top of that, I don’t know of many cordless drill batteries that can sustain the average 900 watts most magnetrons require.

    • Dewey got a point. Although you can pulse DC with an oscillator. Specifically, I think a 555 Timer IC will do just fine for pulsating. I believe they use similar oscillation for stun guns which uses 1x to 2x 9V Batteries. And forget cordless drill batteries… what about those small 12V lawn mower or car batteries? Can be portable but heavy…. still can be placed in a backpack though for u to run around.

  • http://www.jesseholleran2@yahoo.com

    Hello I was wondering about magnetrons. I was wondering what would happen if i put a low voltage power supply like6v dc in a magnetron will it cause cancer if you trun it on? ALso u can help me understand if magnetron when on cause cancer just being on and standing near it?

  • Nice, for kids who like fantasy movies.

  • From the movie i have seen before it was removed, the device did not work as they used a drill battery. For one thing, the magnetron has a filament voltage of around 3.5 volts. The high voltage is applied through a 2000 volt .5 amp transformer to a half wave diode to a voltage double capacitor. This making the overall voltage 4ooo plus with peak voltage spikes. http://www.gallawa.com/microtech/doubler.html Since it is half wave, it is pulsating the magnetron at 60 cycles. The tube or wave guide for such a weapon should have a diameter of around 3 inches and the longer the tube the narrower the beam will be. The magnetron’s antenna’s height is about 1 inch quarter wave length for the frequency of 2450 MHz that it operates at. This magnetron would be mounted on the side of the tube about 3.74 inches from the flat enclosed end of the tube and the tube should be about 22.44 inches long. 12 volt portability for a weapon would involve a 12 volt power inverter rated at about 2000 to 4000watt to operate the standard microwave power supply or some sort high frequency converter to transform 12volts to 5000 volts at 400 hz or 800hz to reduce the size and weight of the high voltage transformer normally used. An improvement maybe could be made to the magnetron power output by running it with a full wave high voltage supply and making it a continuos wave osilator which doubles the output compared to the pulsed output. Weather more heat is product by a CW wave over a pulsed wave is a guess. The more the electrons or molecule of the target are aggitated the more heat is produced. The most important thing to worry about is the chance of shock from a 5000 volt capacitor charged high voltage supply. This is power big time that has the stored power capacity to electrocute yourself many times over. A gun like this should be well insulated against high voltage and rf leaks that both could kill or do severe harm to your brain , eyes, or body parts. Since this weapon makes not much noise it could be a weapon used to make the enemy scatter and be eliminated by more conventional weapons.

  • Please, can someone tell me how to make this?
    i have a magnetron in home, is perfect!
    como ligar o magnetron?
    how to connect the magnetron?
    Thanks!

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