elementcollector1
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Colored, Silent Railgun
Is there any way to even go about this?
My guess would be to find a material that allows electrons to pass through it (in the effect of the plasma railgun) but stops larger particles. All
around this would be sorbothane lining (best material I know of for soundproofing), and inside this chamber would be housed two inert gas tanks and a
high-voltage converter. The whole thing would hopefully run off of something like a car battery. Thoughts?
I know this sounds an awful lot like a pipe dream, but hey, it's always good to ask.
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Metacelsus
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What do you mean by colored?
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elementcollector1
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As in, the discharge would be colored...
But I've decided I can do without that (unless one of you has a good idea for it).
My main concern is making it silent.
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violet sin
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high speed projectiles hitting relatively(by comparison) still air will make noise.
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hyfalcon
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High voltage contacters closing make one hell of a racket also.
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elementcollector1
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And I'm guessing that won't be damped at all by any kind of solid insulation?
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hyfalcon
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You be the judge.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqeMGkyei1Q
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elementcollector1
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Those guys are testing in the millions of amps, whereas mine would be barely enough to sustain the arc.
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violet sin
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if the projectile goes faster than the speed of sound, 340.29 m/s @ sea level, it will make a racket on exiting the barrel. a standard .22 cal rifle
fires between 175 to 533 m/s (wiki .22 long rifle) depending on the brand. so it(can) breaks the sound barrier making a fair amount of noise even if
there was no sound from the powder.
I'm assuming you would want at least the performance of a .22 cal rifle if you were going to all the trouble of building it and lugging around a car
battery. also wouldn't make much sense to build a 50-70 lb BB-gun equivelant or mount something that heavy on a car/platform, if you could just pump
up a BB-gun with the same success. though the coolness factor would be much less 
so assuming you managed to solve the issue of noisy contacts, ya still get sound.
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elementcollector1
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Nope. Just want it to make a bright, repeatable flash. No actual force needed, just the light and arc.
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violet sin
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well, ok then  not actually after a weapon would be better. deff safer. ya
never know how a home made device would hold up to that kind of stress. in the face of catastrophic failure, inherent in many home builds on a
repeated run test, a low force would be much better.
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Pyro
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bit off-topic but cool nonetheless. The US navy is developing a magnetic rail gun that propels a projectile at supersonic speed. they intend to deploy
it on a ship within the next 1-2 years to intercept incoming missiles at low cost. (only 25 000$ per round as opposed to the millions they would
otherwise need)
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elementcollector1
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Yeah, I heard about that. I'd like mine to *not* set the atmosphere on fire, if at all possible.
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smaerd
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@elementcollector - Coil gun design is pretty intense. Might be best to start with working out a functional design to move whatever size projectile at
the velocity you want first. Then move on to the sound damping.
@hyfalcon - 2.5 million amps, yep, I'd be behind a cinder-block wall as well.
@pyro - I think that I saw a video of that thing being tested. If I recall correctly some of the preliminary tests literally spot welded the
(titanium?) projectile they were using to the gun. Absolutely absurd.
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elementcollector1
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@smaerd: There is effectively no projectile - just an electrical discharge.
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dontasker
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Some stills of the Navy railgun and info from BAE Systems
If you want to make a silent device with a colored flash, I would think a discharge tube would be your best bet. Something like a xenon flash tube but
with a gas that creates the color you want. Something like this. Here's a video of different gasses and pressures and the effects.
I think anything you do to create an atmospheric plasma shooting out into the air will be loud. If you're only after the look you could use a fine
spray of alcohol with different chemicals added to change the flame color. Boric acid and methanol gives a beautiful green.
-edit: BAE not BEA-
[Edited on 7-9-2014 by dontasker]
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elementcollector1
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In the first video, it seemed rather... not silent, but the effect was interesting.
The second one was also cool, but it wasn't what I was looking for.
Problem with doped alcohol is you eventually run out...
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