RSSHere's an interesting take on a coil gun, by Russian YouTube user fuckertrezv. Not content to simply make a high-power electromagnetic device, he designed his to be portable and run on batteries. Once charged, he claims it is capable of accelerating metal rings to over 200 meters per second. It looks well-built, however no instructions are provided. [via hacked gadgets]
Portable induction accelerator
Posted by Matt Mets |
Nov 6, 2009 06:00 PM
Electronics |
Permalink
| Comments (8)
| Email This |
| Digg this!
Recent Entries
- Brickarms molds
- LED people remake
- <3 your maker: MAKE's Valentine's Day gift guide
- Don't walk! Controlling a pedestrian sign with an Arduino
- UC Berkeley has "Nobel Laureate Only" parking spaces
- LEGO PCB Agitator
- Volkemon in Space: Additional launch pics
- "Batteries Out of Thin Air"
- From typewriter to teleprinter
- Turning a motor into a sensor with the Peppermill
Comments
Oldest comments listed first.
Leave a comment
Subscribe to MAKE Magazine!
Subscribe today, save 42% and get web access to MAKE free. MAKE Digital Edition is available only to subscribers.
$34.95 / 1 year
(4 Quarterly Issues)
someone has to keep the electrical engineering honest to its roots, mad science.
Tesla would be proud.
Reply to this comment
This video is a little light on detail. You don't see the gun when it shoots, and it supposedly fires aluminum rings from inside the coil. Even if aluminum was attracted to magnets, normally you'd load it behind the coil. Maybe the coil pulls something magnetic/ferrous forward that slaps into the back of the ring. Hopefully he'll put up an instructible at some point.
Reply to this comment
Basically everything is magnetic, it is either diamagnetic, or magnetic. For example, dropping a magnet down a copper pipe will DRAMATICALLY slow its descent due do coppers' reaction (I am not speaking chemically) to the magnet.
Aluminum is conductive, which makes it subject to the Lorentz force, which is an electromagnetic force. From what I understand, the electromagnetic force propels conductive materials because of the way electrons drift through materials. Essentially, it is electricity pushing the aluminum.
At least that is what I gathered from a quick google. Ive seen these devices before on amazing1, but not ones that were portable. The guy on amazing1 has videos of him destroying watermelons with aluminum rings shot from an induction accelerator.
Reply to this comment
This works due to induction principles, not magnetic attraction. Dumping the large cap into the primary coil inside the white nosepiece creates a rapidly changing magnetic field within the coil. The aluminum ring sits inside the coil, and acts as a shorted secondary winding. The changing field induces a large current in the ring, and the magnetic field set up by that secondary field opposes the primary field (North-to-North), causing it to be repelled by the primary coil. It can only move in one direction, so it is fired out the front...
Reply to this comment
To me it would seem safer to load it before charging it :)
Reply to this comment
I was thinking that exact same thing. He was a little casual with safety.
Reply to this comment
The operation is simple. The capacitor discharges in a coil of wire that is just behind the ring. This creates an increasing magnetic field which the aluminum ring detects the increasing magnetic field. Lenz's law says that a current will be induced in the Al ring that creates a magnetic field to oppose the magnetic field in the first coil that has the capacitor discharging in it. This is the same principle a squire cage induction motor uses. The energy in the capacitor is lost as heat plus energy put into the ring's velocity and mass. The heat losses can be calculated as the difference in the original electrical energy and the final mechanical energy. This is a kind of rail gun, working on the same principle.
Dr Eugene Preston
http://egpreston.com
Reply to this comment
hi this is not a coil gun? induction accelerator use other type of acceleration using flat coil which pushes away the ring with the big force, and the shot which on this video, was made only about 40% of full power because when i charged capacitor at 4,5kV and in 1-2 minutes before i made a shot he discharged to 3kV :(
Reply to this comment