Coil Gun question *FINISHED PICS*

[Hotwired]

You have no idea how much your first picture looks like my old coilgun.

Mind you a lot of things look the same when covered in black electrical tape.

No idea what circuit I used, I just snaffled a ton of used disp. cameras from the local chemists and had a separate charging thing I linked up to the capacitor pack.

But it had 12 90-130uf 330v caps wired up in parallel through about 2m of wire from a toy motor around a pen tube and if you got 1cm of a sawn off nail JUST in the right place in the tube you could fire it through thick kitchen foil

If you didn't, it did nothing, fired backwards or pushed it just enough to drop out of the tube.

Yours looks a lot neater in the project box though, mine had two cap wires sticking out of the electrical tape for charging. I'm sure I'd have seriously regretted it if I'd ever touched those when it was charged

580uf at 330v seriously bites.

[PVC Arsenal 17]

I'm lucky I didn't get zapped yet. I plan to make bigger ones soon with bigger caps.

[Hotwired]

Hope you don't mind me posting this: two frames of my test coilgun firing:

http://img246.imageshack.us/img246/4701/aqv6.gif

You really don't miss anything with just those two frames, it really does fire that fast.

That was with 1 capacitor, you can see the grey nail in the tube before it blows away the newspaper page.

In the background you can see the 12 capacitors I had soldered up in 2 packs of 6 for the bigger coilgun.

[beebs111]

can it shoot through a can with a copperhead?

[KVINCEO]

lol hotwired, if you look close you either moved it or it had a bit of recoil. i knew they could be made, but i had no idea they could be home made so easily.

[Hotwired]

Well its not my thread but yes I did move it, it might have been a smidgeon of recoil though. I was holding it with one hand, the camera with the other and the switch on the test coilgun was a free wire coming off the coil, so I needed to poke about a bit.

[ProfessorAmadeus]

How powerful are coilguns of this size? You have made a very clean coil gun ans i like the idea of putting it in a project box.Good job!

[PVC Arsenal 17]

Thanks.

Hotwired, what are the specs on your gun? Mine doesn't seem to be nearly as powerful.

[Hotwired]

Erm...

That one in the mini-clip was 1 330v 100uf capacitor linked across about 2m of wire unspun from a minature toy motor (might have been a handheld fan).

The tube was an ink tube from inside one of those horribly coloured gel pens, large enough to fit a bit of a standardish nail. It took AGES to wrap 2m of wire around it in a space of ~2cm.

Charged up with a hacked up circuit and triggered by touching two wires to get the current through the coil. (fat blue spark and a pop)

Seriously all it did was poke a small hole in the paper and knock it over. The nail didnt go through it.


My larger one was 12 capacitors in parallel giving 580uf @ 330v, charged up with 2 AA batteries on another hacked circuit (takes about 3 mins to charge and the batteries get a bit warm).

That was discharged through the same 2m wire coil and tube used on the test gun but using a toggle switch I nabbed from something. I'd be too nervous to touch two wires together for that much power. (you'd get a hell of a bang + flash and you might weld the two wires together).

That could shoot the same bit of nail through a foil tray at close range. The coil becomes pretty hot on firing and makes the plastic firing tube warm enough to bend easily. I put it down to heating from resistance. The wire in the coil is about 1/50 the diameter of the mains wire I used to wire up the capacitors and switch.

Hope that helps

[PVC Arsenal 17]

ahh well.... I just broke the shitty ass push button switch. damn thing broke in half! radio shack better give me a new one.

[the_big_foof]

very nice ... i just got done like 10 mins ago with my first spudgun its a cannon. 2 1/5 foot long barrel 2 inchs wide, i dont really know how long the chamber is but its 4 inchs wide... i know im a noob so take it easy on me

[Hotwired]

The thread is about coilguns not spudguns

[Recruit]

could you use a drill to wind up the wire?

[Hotwired]

I know quite a few people have used lathes at low speed to wind coils, I'd imagine a handheld drill might be trickier though.

[Anon]

Nice work its even in a project box. How powerful is it for its size? I am very interested in electrical guns.