[Stryke 9]

I'd just liek to take the time to say...

This guy is my hero.


I've been looking for a good resource for EM catapult blueprints for almost forever (at a considerably larger scale), and then he just pops up with it down to the crap you can get out of your junkyard.

Now, the question is whether I can make a 2-pounder and still be able to get it around short of by truck. And where to get high-voltage capacitators and a car battery or two...

[Stealth]

SWEETNESS!!!!!!!!!!

[deep_eyes]

@ first i was gonna say ... BUT THEN ME THINKS.... did this guy build a home made rail gun?

[Stryke 9]

I particularly like how he used SCRs, which never occurred to me, even though I have a couple handy (I think).

Might stick to the photoelectric cell, tho.

[Styxx]

Quite nice.

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by deep_eyes
@ first i was gonna say ... BUT THEN ME THINKS.... did this guy build a home made rail gun?

Not quite. A gauss gun.

[Sandwich]

You finally found it, eh? Hehehe...

[Stryke 9]

AKA Coil Gun, AKA Mass Driver, AKA EM Catapult. Railguns, I don't like, because on further research it appears that:

1. They take a ****load of power. As in, more than I can provide, without an extension cord and wall outlet.
2. They tend to be single-use, with the high amount of wear that is put on them by hteir firing process. I don't think any in history has survived first shot. I'm gonna probably take a month to make this, I don't wanna set it off once and then it dies.


Plus, I have the capacity for a coilgun, anyway. Two 250V capacitators, four 200V, a lot of wire- I still need to work on the barrel and triggering system, and find a housing, but with all that done all I'll need is a pair of old recharged car batteries.


Think of it... recoilless fire, fair to middling velocity, and an EMP that'll trash anything silicon within a couple dozen yards... I'm in love already.

[Nico]

Originally posted by StrykeIX
AKA Coil Gun, AKA Mass Driver, AKA EM Catapult. Railguns, I don't like, because on further research it appears that:

1. They take a ****load of power. As in, more than I can provide, without an extension cord and wall outlet.
2. They tend to be single-use, with the high amount of wear that is put on them by hteir firing process. I don't think any in history has survived first shot. I'm gonna probably take a month to make this, I don't wanna set it off once and then it dies.


Plus, I have the capacity for a coilgun, anyway. Two 250V capacitators, four 200V, a lot of wire- I still need to work on the barrel and triggering system, and find a housing, but with all that done all I'll need is a pair of old recharged car batteries.


Think of it... recoilless fire, fair to middling velocity, and an EMP that'll trash anything silicon within a couple dozen yards... I'm in love already.

once it done, give it a cool looking casing

[CP5670]

This looks pretty interesting; I need to see if I can make one of these here...

[Fetty]

hlp gaus gun gang

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Fetty
hlp gaus gun gang

[Stryke 9]

Y'all best reco'nize.

*shoonk*
*boom*




That "boom" being either a hit or the power supply/capacitators blowing up, of course.

[Tar-Palantir]

Plus, I have the capacity for a coilgun, anyway. Two 250V capacitators, four 200V, a lot of wire- I still need to work on the barrel and triggering system, and find a housing, but with all that done all I'll need is a pair of old recharged car batteries.

Think of it... recoilless fire, fair to middling velocity, and an EMP that'll trash anything silicon within a couple dozen yards... I'm in love already.

I don't want to sound like a killjoy but why would you need one?

[Shrike]

I fine you one credit for vague threat title.

[ZylonBane]

Originally posted by StrykeIX
Think of it... recoilless fire

Gauss guns aren't inherently recoilless. Just because you're pushing with magnetism instead of gas pressure doesn't mean conservation of momentum goes away.

BTW, "mass driver" usually denotes a large-scale gauss gun system that delivers its payload via a reusable bucket. Useful for chucking non-magnetic materials around.

[Stryke 9]

Well, effectively recoilless. Since no force is really being exerted on the weapon itself by the projection, there's next to no kickback, particularly when compared to standard rifle-type guns, where the bullet's propelled by a fairly powerful explosion of radial force.

If you use a vacuum to suck a ball out of a secured tube, the tube doesn't start flying around- same sort of thing here, it's getting pulled out without a huge explosion of force, only in this case by magnetism instead of air pressure.

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by StrykeIX
Well, effectively recoilless. Since no force is really being exerted on the weapon itself by the projection, there's next to no kickback, particularly when compared to standard rifle-type guns, where the bullet's propelled by a fairly powerful explosion of radial force.

Sorry, that's not the reason. The magnetisim is anchored to something, this case being the gun. Otherwise you might as well argue that refridgerator magnets should not be able to stick to the fridge, since it's magnetic force that's doing the attraction.

Reverse force is being exerted on the gun, but it's the manner of acceleration which makes it seem like less kickback than a normal gun. With a normal rifle, the explosion "instantly" accelerates the projectile to its top speed, which is what causes the kick-back. With railguns/ gauss guns, the acceleration is actually being spread out over a period of a few milliseconds, which is enough to significantly lower the kick-back.

But probably of far higher import is the mass ratio between a rifle and its bullet compared to the mass ratio between a railgun/gauss gun and its projectile.

[Stryke 9]

True. Except that the coil gun BARREL is relatively light- maybe a pound or two heavier than an average rife, but after all it's just a (thinner, hollow) barrel with some wire coils and a triggering system for the series electromagnets. If you want to reduce the number of wires, you can add in the capacitators like I am, which don't come out to more than maybe a pound. The power source is what's heavy, and generally you'd either wear it as a backpack/satchel (for mobility) or have it in a separate box (if on a vehicle or stationary)- it'd invariably be heavy enough that connecting it to the catapult element would render it inoperable, if not snap the barrel in half.

I was guessing a pair of car batteries for a roughly rifle-sized coilgun. Odds are, the power requirements are actually a fair bit higher. They're energy hogs.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by StrykeIX
Well, effectively recoilless. Since no force is really being exerted on the weapon itself by the projection, there's next to no kickback, particularly when compared to standard rifle-type guns, where the bullet's propelled by a fairly powerful explosion of radial force.

If you use a vacuum to suck a ball out of a secured tube, the tube doesn't start flying around- same sort of thing here, it's getting pulled out without a huge explosion of force, only in this case by magnetism instead of air pressure.

there's still recoil, just as Sandwich said, the acceleration isn't instant, it's gradual (still in milliseconds, but nonetheless gradual)

... "for every action there is a reaction"
Isaac Newton