Coil Gun - any help?

[ForbiddenShadow]

I'm buiding a coil gun for my pgysics proiject; I need some info on switches. I've tried googling it but mostly just crap. For those who don't know what a coilgun is; its the same idea as a rail gun, the concept of uing magnets for launching projectils. a coil gun turns on an electro magnet which pulls a metal object through a tube. The magnet then turns off before the thing reaches it then the next electromanet turns on.

So if u can find anything let me know; thx [/u]

[Teenr0cker]

I suggest you do a project concerning the physics of the circus.

[Forerunner]

Hey I'm building a voltage generator using electromagnets and thast whole theory.
Wow, different places, same concepts.

[War]

A coil gun (or Gauss gun) is an electromagnetic launcher that offers a few advantages over rail guns. The barrel of a coil gun is a series of copper coils. These coils are energized sequentially, setting up a traveling magnetic field on the inside of the barrel. This magnetic field attracts a ferromagnetic projectile down the barrel. Since the projectile of a coilgun floats in the barrel and never touches the coils, it suffers less wear and tear, and these guns are completely quiet. Coil guns have been demonstrated to supersonic velocities, but they are not as efficient or as capable as rail guns.

[Telephalsion]

so basically you have a long tubing with lots and lots of copper coils, aligned so they'll activate in a chain sequence causing the bullet to be pulled further and further ahead.

Somehow I thought you'd make the magnetic flow push the bullet out instead.

switches, I suppose if you get the porper items you could mkae magnetic wavelegnt sensor deali-o's then you'd set a certain maximum magnetic flow amount, and when it senses it it shuts of one coil and activates another, I haven't studies psysics in english so there's no way in hell I can explain it properly.

[ForbiddenShadow]

could u send me a link or something?
i know how they work; its just the only thinng i coan think of for a switch is a simple light switch; but i'd have to use that manually.

[Telephalsion]

Sorry, dunno ay good links.

best way would be to use a microchip, hard part is, you need to be able to make microchips

just practice, start with making a tubing with a multitude of copper coil sections, get some for of device that can be used to activate each section separately (A piano might be modified so each key directs one coil section...)
then try to use this piano style switcher to propell a metal object, or try to make like a magnetic switch, closing a circuit when a speicific magnetic flow is present, as if a electrical circuit was dependant on the direction it was placed, so if you had it aligned westwards it wouldn't have been a closed circuit, but if you aligned it north it'd align, and south would be imposilbe, you could do that with a one way node, you catch my brain spree?

[Shindy]

i dont find PowerLab's coilgun explanation a bad link.

http://www.powerlabs.org/gaussgun.htm

[Telephalsion]

A friend of mine said that the switch issue could be solved by using a timer. All you have to do then is calculate the time intervalls required for each section.

[ForbiddenShadow]

Cool thanks guys;
i'll put your names on it and call it the "way crew coil gun" and submit a photo to lun

[Teenr0cker]

sweet mother of mary, jospeph and jesus war, get rid of such a huge ass avatar.

[Squiggy]

ForbiddenShadow, don't forget, the more coils and amperage, the better

[Telephalsion]

Another more intelligent friend added that if you link everything to a CPU that cpu can handle some program , determening at what time points each coil should activate, also you need to have very low friction inside the pipe, which must be non-metal, so, plastic tube, link coils to spu, low friction

[ForbiddenShadow]

There shouldn't be any friction though at any point; the projectile is hovering in the middle; and i did read somwhere that plastic does improve the velocity.

[Telephalsion]

if it hovers then your bullet is a magnet, and magnets strive to make golden rule "opposites attract" apply. And a lump of any substance wont hover, the magnetic field will pull it, but it wont lift it.