I wonder if I can drive a tiny 5w fluorescent tube connecting many cheap electric shocking pranks in parallel. My idea is is to make a little fluorescent torch that runs from 3x AA batteries instead of the tiny lithium cells. The high voltage circuit is just a bare transistor and a transformer and sometimes an LED, so I can select between the fluorescent light and the LEDs.

EDIT: The waveform of the high voltage output is a a squarewave switched DC voltage, and maybe the current have the same shape, and I wonder if that waveform can cause mercury migration in the tube.

Current is gonna be a few mA at most (to keep clients not dead), so you'd be operating drastically under the power requirements. This means cold cathode operation and greatly reduced lamp life.

Also, the circuits in these types of things will often overheat with runtimes over a minute, or if you put heavy loads on them.

tl;dr: no.

Well, using those with a fluorescent tube is not a good idea, maybe those can be used to power a tiny neon bulb. What about those loud taser modules? Can those work with a tube?

Edit: example image added.

I've tried a lamp on one of those taser modules and it did light up, but very dim, dim enough that a 1 or 2 watt LED could outshine it.

No. Eve  when the sparks are looking intimidating, the current is too low for a fluorescent.
Plus it is concentrated into very short pulses - something the discharges, mainly those designed to work with hot cathodes, are really unable to handle.
So it will kill it in a short time.

Maybe using many modules in series or paralell at the same time. I think that the best way is to recycle the CCFL inverter from my old laptop, and maybe also recycle the CCFL lamp of my laptom and maje a portable lamp from it.

Maybe using many modules in series or paralell at the same time. I think that the best way is to recycle the CCFL inverter from my old laptop, and maybe also recycle the CCFL lamp of my laptom and maje a portable lamp from it.

Even a CCFL inverter will kill the fluorescent in a short time.

The thing is, the standard fluorescents need almost the rated current to maintain the electrodes at correct operating temperature. Without that the electrode gets bombarded by fast ions, literalry sandblasting off all the electron emission layer.

The CCFLs have special electrode shape and materials, to allow them to work long time under such bombarding load.

The CCFLs are rated somewhere around 3..5mA, while standard hot cathode fluorescents (include CFL tubes) start at 100's mA, so way above what any of these gadgets is giving off.

Now I want to create a fluorescent torch with the CCFL lamp and the CCFL inverter of my laptop, but I thint that recycling it will not be that easy. I wonder if I can operate the inverter with one or two 9V batteries in series. Is the CCFL circuit included in the main board or it is separated?

I think laptops typically had the CCFL inverter on a separate board but a lot of standalone monitors had the inverter built into the power supply.

The best thing for this would be the old style CCFL tubes used to light the interior of PC cases before LEDs took over PC case lighting. Those usually had a enclosed 12v inverter with some 30cm long CCFL tubes. I once made it portable by hooking the inverter up to a 12v AA battery pack

Cool! Can you post a pic of your portable CCFL? I'll recycle the stuff from my 2007 laptop, still works but it's screen is broken, so I want to recycle it. I wonder how can I fit such a long lamps in a handy portable torch. I also wonder if computer stuff stores still sell CCFL stuff at a reasonable price.

The best thing you can do with an old laptop is keep using it as a laptop as it is built much better than anything you can find nowadays. Upgrade th ram, clean the heatsinks, install a better operating system and it will still work well for many years

I got a new laptop a year ago, and the screen of the old laptop is broken so I want to recycle its lighting system. The laptop still works, but I want to remove its screen completely and use an external monitor, I use it as a CD or DVD burner. Yep, old things last more than today, I had this laptop from child and still works perfectly. Upgrading the hardware is a cost, and I barely use it.

Cool! Can you post a pic of your portable CCFL? I'll recycle the stuff from my 2007 laptop, still works but it's screen is broken, so I want to recycle it. I wonder how can I fit such a long lamps in a handy portable torch. I also wonder if computer stuff stores still sell CCFL stuff at a reasonable price.

Yeah, Here's a picture of some of the CCFL lamps I still have.

You can replace the screen, many are available on Ebay. Then for the CCFL out of the old screen you can use any inverter that outputs appox 3mA (actual current rating varies between different CCFLs), with at least 600V..1kV output

As I said before, repairing or upgrading things in that laptop will be a cost for a thing that I barely use. I want to remove the CCFL system but leaving the main board, so it can still be used as a computer, but with an external screen connected by the VGA or the S-video port. I want to make a torch with the CCFL system powered by 2x 9v batteries in series, that is about the same voltage of the main computer's battery.