Sciencemadness Discussion Board

Design of Coilguns

evilgecko - 9-1-2005 at 19:26

I was surprised to see that there were no subjects on coilguns. So I created this one. Also because I am designing a coil gun at the moment and would like to discuss deisgn factors. I'm deisgning a three stage coil gun, meaning it will have three seperate coils. The last two will be triggered with IR LEDs and transistors. A fancy thing is a timing circuit which controls the time from when the bolt triggers the IR transistors to when the coil fires. It consists of two 555 timers arranged with a varible capacitor. I will find the exact design soon. This allows the timing to be adjusted so the magnetic field collapses as soon as the bolt reached dead contre.The coils will be wound around pvc pipe with an ID of 11mm abd a OD of about 13. They wil be made of 0.8 copper wire. The capacitors have been pulled out of disposable cameras, and I think 10 of these 300uF 350V ones per coil will do the trick. I have scrounged the charging circuits from the cameras as well. An SCR will control the switching. This allows a shaped 10mm bolt to be used as the projectile. My objective is to get the bolt to penetrate a cat food tin, and if you search on the net you will find many that do. Any advice would be appreciated.

vulture - 10-1-2005 at 11:49

Coilguns are physics, not technochemistry. You might want to try your luck at www.powerlabs.org

Closed.