Comments on: Micro railgun

By: Anthony

Anthony — Sun, 21 May 2006 04:48:44 +0000

#46, #47: This is totally a railgun. Your confusion is the misunderstanding of what a rail gun is from the games you have played. It isn’t a railgun because it shoots rails, but rather because it has rails that the projectile moves between under magnetic forces.

A Coil gun has coils up and down the barrel that pull the projectile along the barrier with magnetic forces.

By: R34P3R

R34P3R — Mon, 15 May 2006 05:56:33 +0000

the “railgun” that you describe is not a rail gun, so much as a plasma rifle type item. a rail gun would utilize steel projectiles and launch them with magnetics coils and such.
however, I feel that this plasma rifle is friggin awesome

By: R34P3R

R34P3R — Sun, 14 May 2006 07:19:37 +0000

I dont think that this is an actual device (at least not from the way you described making it). Aluminum foil is undoubtedly NOT going to be propelled forward by an EMP. It would have to be something along the lines of a steel rod, or rail.

By: Xavirz

Xavirz — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 03:25:19 +0000

yo this is boring no1 is answering me and by the way is lucite american/? caus im in aus and i asked the guy at the hardware store and all he said was “fcking americans” and grunted
???? help!

By: xAVIRZ

xAVIRZ — Fri, 10 Mar 2006 12:17:41 +0000

yO GUYZ THIS IS MAD BUT!
BUT I HAVE GOT NO IDEA HOW TO BUILD IT
the instructions r kinda wacked is it aluminium bars sandwiched inbetween the lucite???????
Cheers!

By: amgroben

amgroben — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 03:10:13 +0000

Yeah, well I got a bag of salvaged power line capaciters, there a bout 6 incehs in height, by 3″ in diameter….

they should work fine right? just about 6 of them?

By: trinitrogen

trinitrogen — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 06:09:28 +0000

I’ve constructed it as best I can from the directions. I got a bunch of Kodak cameras (They wouldn’t give them to me for free so I had to buy them at a whopping 48 cents each). I opened them up and I couldn’t exactly tell which was positve and which was negetive, so being that they were all pretty much were the same “chipset”, I just connected corresponding leads in parallel like the directions. They charge just fine, I can hear it power up and then the light comes on. I’ve got two aligator clips I connected to the ends of of the capacitor bank, but I leave one connected so the otherone is basically my ignition switch when I connect it. I get a little piece of tin foil “no thicker than the rails” (whatever that means. Put it in the middle, and once charged I connect the other aligator clip and…

I get a big ol’ spark at the aligator clip but Im pretty sure the foil doesn’t move. I think once it vaporized. Anybody have the foggiest whats wrong?

By: char

char — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 03:56:19 +0000

could you use tv capacitors instead, or do they not release the energy as fast as flash capacitors?

By: bgugi

bgugi — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 01:06:26 +0000

this is a wild idea, but did anyone ever consider clicking the link at the bottom of the page that says “main page,” and then clicking the link that says “micro railgun? *duh* it has photos and everything…

By: Adam

Adam — Thu, 19 Jan 2006 00:46:26 +0000

Hey, i was wondering if somebody has a detailed step by step instructions for building a small railgun.

I think i know enough about electricity to build one, But i don’t quite get the construction part.
for ex. (how long are the welding rods)

Stuff like that

By: x

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 05:15:54 +0000

if that was a bit confusing (as I know I didn’t actually try to explain) here’s a diagram:

(–)|—|=====|
(+)|/ -|=====|
(crummy attempt at an ascii switch)

basically, get your projectile in, charge up the caps, and use something insulated to complete the (+) lead from the cap bank to the (+) rail. Remember, follow the right hand rule; the last thing you need is a ball of hot plasma flying at you.

By: x

Wed, 18 Jan 2006 00:34:34 +0000

If you don’t know what you’re doing, then you shouldn’t do anything. Those caps are dangerous; just four of them is a bit over 26 joules. You might get an idea of what I’m talking about even if you charge just one cap up to capacity and then short it with an insulated screwdriver. I don’t want to spoil your party, but it’s a bad idea to do things you have no idea about.

Anyway, if you so insist on endangering yourself… you hook the caps up in parallel and then take one lead from the (-) rail and connect it to the (-) lead of the cap. Then, take a length of wire to use as a switch, connect it to the (+) cap lead, and use something insulated (so your fingers don’t fry) to close it once the caps are charged up. Good luck and don’t hurt yourself or anyone else.

By: brent

brent — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 01:57:47 +0000

i cant wait to make this on the weekend

By: Alex

Alex — Mon, 16 Jan 2006 00:05:06 +0000

Hey, I was wondering if someone could create an “idiots guide to making a mini rail gun”? I have the cameras and stuff but I really have no clue what I’m doing ^_^ thanks

By: Daedalus

Daedalus — Wed, 04 Jan 2006 01:09:00 +0000

Hi, i was searching in google an i find this.
there are the ignition circuit.

circuitshttp://forum.4hv.org/index.php?board=5;action=display;threadid=4232