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DIY 250 lb Giant Mobile Railgun, 27,000 joules.

posted by cmn32480 on Saturday November 14 2015, @07:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the i-so-want-to-try-this-at-home dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

This is the most powerful mobile electromagnetic railgun built by a non-government. A railgun is a device that accelerates a conductive projectile using extremely high current and electromagnetism. No explosive powder required. Just batteries. This page shows many of the steps required to make one.

The gun is portable, but the power supply is not. Still, cool project.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @12:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 16 2015, @12:14AM (#263793)

    That is only the inductance of the gun. Capacitors and the wiring carrying the current to the gun also have an inductance.
    But the main problem with your calculation is that you assume the current rises steadily as the projectile accelerates. You actually want the current to go to max as fast as possible, 6 ms is really slow.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Monday November 16 2015, @02:58AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 16 2015, @02:58AM (#263843) Journal

    That is only the inductance of the gun. Capacitors and the wiring carrying the current to the gun also have an inductance.

    Double it then. You'll still be in the 10mV ballpark.

    But the main problem with your calculation is that you assume the current rises steadily as the projectile accelerates. You actually want the current to go to max as fast as possible, 6 ms is really slow.

    Actually no, I don't want a Dirac delta pulse in current. I don't need the rails be deformed by too high forces and I'd be happy to keep the ohmic loses at a minimum (they scale with I2).
    What I'd be the most happy with: the entire energy in the capacitors bank being transferred in its entirety to the slug as uniform as possible over the entire length of the rail until the slug escapes the "muzzle".

    --
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