How often do you need to charge a stun gun?

If you bought a stun gun and are planning to carry it around with you, at some point you're probably going to start wondering when you should be charging it again (if you opted for a rechargeable model). Hopefully, your stun gun came with a user manual that mention when how often you should be charging it if it hasn't been used. 

That recharge time in the stun gun's user manual assume the stun gun has been sitting idle and not in the armed state (safety off) and mostly depends on the self-discharge rate of the battery, unless the stun gun uses some added features that might draw some small amount of power even when the stun gun is idle. Most stun guns have very simple circuits that don't draw any current unless a button is pressed or an indicator light is on. The self-discharge rate of the battery varies a lot by battery chemistry. Some batteries can last for months, while some can discharge within weeks. 

What if you want to keep the stun gun safety off and keep the stun gun ready to strike at all times? That's not really how the manufacturers intended for the stun gun to be used, but hey, you bought it for peace of mind and you're convinced there are trained assassins trying to fight you at every corner, so who's going to get in the way of your peace of mind? If you want to know what to expect in such a scenario, you will probably not have any numbers for battery life in the user manual. 

Lucky for you, I tested a few models to give you an idea of what to expect. Meet our test subjects for today's post:

 

You're looking at 4 stun guns, all made by Streetwise Security Products:

- The Triple Defender Baton

- The Key Chain 

- The Pain Pen 

- The Sting Ring

We tested all 4 for over a month to see if they will hold up to the test. All were set to safety off and ready to stun and then I just left them sitting in a closet and just checked the a couple of times per day to make sure they're still working. The key chain stun gun is a little different, and I'll explain why in a bit. 

 

 The Triple Defender Baton

 

First off, we have the baton. It gets great professional reviews for being IP rated and being made from strike-rated materials (looks like aluminum) as well as for having a built-in adjustable flashlight. It really feels very solid and like it should probably do well in this test. To put it in active mode, there's an on/off button on the bottom of the stun gun and there's a slider button that lets you toggle between flashlight/off/stun. With the stun gun set to stun, you have two indicator LEDs that are lit. The green light is to show that it's turned on, and the red LED is to show that the safety is off and it's ready to stun:

The Key Chain Stun Gun 

 

The key chain stun gun is a little weird, like I mentioned. It doesn't have a toggle button to disable the safety, instead, it has a pair of sense electrodes on the side of the stun gun. When you touch the electrodes with your finger, the stun gun goes into stun mode. When in stun mode, the flashlight also turns on and the blue battery indicators will illuminate too, according to the stun gun battery level (4 LEDs on for full battery). Because the flashlight would turn on as well if I touched the electrodes, I didn't think it would be a fair test. The flashlight would definitely deplete the battery much sooner, as it's a significant current consumer. The fact that you only need to touch the electrodes, and you will touch the electrodes when you normally use it in order to squeeze the stun gun and press the stun button on the opposite side, I convinced myself that you don't really need to "prep" the stun gun before use, it should just fire as soon as you press the stun button. I proceeded to test it just sitting there, but I would touch the electrodes a couple of times a day to check the status of the battery:

 

 

The Pain Pen Stun Gun 

 

The Pain Pen stun gun has a simple slide switch to put it in stun mode. When you switch from safety on to safety off, 4 battery indicator LEDs will illuminate according to the battery charge level (4 LEDs ON for full battery):

 

 

The Sting Ring Stun Gun 

 

The Sting Ring stung gun has a very simple design. It only has a small slider switch to disable safety. When the safety is disabled, a small red LED turns on to indicate that the safety is off and the stun gun is in ready mode.

 

Test Results 

 

Now drum roll please! Here are the test results (at least for now):

The first one to run out of battery was the Sting Ring stun gun. It lasted a pretty decent 10 days though. The second stun gun to run out of battery was the Triple Defender Baton. It lasted just a bit more, at 11 days. The Key Chain stun gun and the Pain Pen stun gun have been sitting here for just over a month and their battery indicators still show a full charge (4 LEDs on for each). It might be a while until these run out of battery, but it's safe to assume that they should last for several months easily. 

 

Conclusion 

 

There's also a lesson to be learned here. Stun guns use very simple circuits, so unless a button is pressed, they typically don't draw any current. That means that stun guns should be capable of maintaining a very long operating time. The models that lasted the least each used LEDs to indicate that the safety is off. LEDs typically consume between a few mA to a few tens of mA of current. Over several days, that can easily add up to a typical battery's capacity. So, that's your most likely indicator (notice the pun, please) of whether a stun gun's battery will last long in the ready mode or not. If it has an indicator LED, expect it to last noticeably less. 
There's also the question of why did the baton stun gun last just a day longer than the sting ring. After all, it uses much larger capacity batteries. Pretty simply put, it has not one, but two indicator LEDs, which drain the battery faster.