[Daniel] had to have runaway in his mind when he built this coil gun. It’s hand held, holds 14 42 gram rounds and can propel them at speeds of 110km/h. Of course when it is battery powered, you have a 90 second warm up time between shots. It can also be used while plugged into a wall socket, which reduces the charge time to roughly 3 seconds. Great job [Daniel].
[via engadget]
The site has been killed.
Posted at 8:11 am on May 7th, 2009 by Hackius
cool
Posted at 8:11 am on May 7th, 2009 by Doktor Jeep
That…is…awesome!
Do I detect the base from a PT Xtreme or similar paintball pistol?
Amazing work, looks really cool.
Posted at 8:18 am on May 7th, 2009 by Robo
video seems necessary here
Posted at 8:27 am on May 7th, 2009 by hogiewan
So you just load it up with suppositories and then let her rip, huh?…..coooool
Posted at 8:32 am on May 7th, 2009 by Ned
I don’t understand the “warm-up time”. The capacitors are either charged or not. I understand that they can take some time to recharge when connected to a power outlet, but when not ? I fail to see where a regular battery would be located.
I also second the need of a video or more details. It is so incredibly cool that I begin to suspect that this is only an art project that is not really functionnal. Please prove me wrong, this would make my day !
Posted at 8:35 am on May 7th, 2009 by Iv
to iv, capacitors take time to charge. Usually, they charge up “instantly” because their capacitance is relatively small. But if you’ve ever hooked a cap up to a scope with a square wave input, you’ll get a sawtooth output, because of the time it takes to charge and discharge the capacitors. Plus, with most coilguns, you need high voltage, so the battery voltage is probably boosted through cap switching or the like.
Posted at 8:48 am on May 7th, 2009 by solex
Well, on battery power you can’t use as much current and/or voltage to charge the capacitors as when using an outlet.
It’s simple, really…
Posted at 8:50 am on May 7th, 2009 by Marvin
This is incredible. And you can tell it’s quality because of the blue LEDs!
Posted at 9:06 am on May 7th, 2009 by overslacked
Kewl. Anyone know how to find out more? I built one a decade ago but it was lame compared to this beauty! Looks like he’s got fairly high efficiency if he’s recharging in 3 sec and has that sort of muzzle velocity (best I could do was 27ft/sec with 1 Farad of caps).
Posted at 9:19 am on May 7th, 2009 by Edward Haas
Okay, anyone else imagined the plasma weapons from Halo recharging when it said it had to charge? Now I want to make that and mod it to look like the plasma pistol.
Posted at 9:38 am on May 7th, 2009 by Nyarlathotep
@overslacked: “And you can tell it’s quality because of the blue LEDs!
”
That Had me LMAO..
This is total sweetness
[WANT step by step instructions]
whats with the light bulb?
Posted at 9:38 am on May 7th, 2009 by kyle007
Bull…shot ^^
Posted at 9:50 am on May 7th, 2009 by Crash
…of _coarse_
Posted at 10:06 am on May 7th, 2009 by twistedsymphony
why does it need the ugly lightbulb in the front? the main shape of the gun could be a bit more sci-fi cool shaped. besides that it’s a great project. wanna build one.
Posted at 10:30 am on May 7th, 2009 by jan
This guy is like Tony Stark! There is a lot more on his site. http://futureexperimentalsystems.googlepages.com/
Posted at 10:38 am on May 7th, 2009 by MadMod
From the site:
The bulb is used as charging resistor for the capacitor bank when using the mains connection. the higher wattage, the faster it charges. the problem with charging resistors is that they will dissipate a lot of energy, at this way it is safely dissipated which means less heat inside the gun.
maybe it’s not the best solution, but it was the easiest.
the bulb at the picture is 150W
Posted at 10:49 am on May 7th, 2009 by Hackius
b4n4n4:”The bulb is used as charging resistor for the capacitor bank when using the mains connection. the higher wattage, the faster it charges. the problem with charging resistors is that they will dissipate a lot of energy, at this way it is safely dissipated which means less heat inside the gun.
maybe it’s not the best solution, but it was the easiest.
the bulb at the picture is 150W”
Posted at 10:57 am on May 7th, 2009 by venom
suppositories lol! genius!
Posted at 11:15 am on May 7th, 2009 by prettylady
Lame… any better ideas than showing it as a weapon?
Posted at 11:23 am on May 7th, 2009 by sansan
@sansan
lame? so what have you done to get on hackaday?
Posted at 11:29 am on May 7th, 2009 by bhaalgorn
@bhaalgom
have 3 HW and 4 SW hacks and two more articles in engadget and slash dot (and 2 patents and one more pending). I would love to post my url here but I don’t want the spam or being attacked by people who disagree with me in this excellent site. It is not about how many articles we have. you are missing my point. i am a person who believe that we can promote creativity in different ways, but not through weapons and similar types of hacks. This site is watched by kids and I find inappropriate to show gun mods and vibrators (like two weeks ago hack). I am totally in favor of good, creative hacks. Cheers
Posted at 12:21 pm on May 7th, 2009 by sansan
portable? weighs 5kg for fucks sake!
Posted at 12:24 pm on May 7th, 2009 by cupcake
Those huge rounds will give you a headache, but that’s about it.
Posted at 1:31 pm on May 7th, 2009 by BigD145
@sansan: I don’t think where you’ve been posted on the intertubes, if you think science involving weaponry is inappropriate for children you need some perspective.
Posted at 1:55 pm on May 7th, 2009 by Silly
@silly
He is free to have an opinion on violence.
What “perspective” does he need? The kind that sees 7-year old “soldiers” mowing down people with a machine gun in guerrilla warfare?
Rocketry and ballistics don’t always have to be about guns and explosives you know.
Personally I would have enjoyed this hack better if it weren’t in gun form. Sadly that seems to be a simple way of carrying and aiming a handheld projectile system.
Posted at 3:05 pm on May 7th, 2009 by nubie
this thing is awesome! best i’ve seen in a while. even just as a display piece; it kiks ass. check out his site. he clearly put a lot of time and effort into this thing.
Posted at 3:22 pm on May 7th, 2009 by charliefreck
http://www.gausspistol.com anyone?
Posted at 3:44 pm on May 7th, 2009 by collinstheclown
The lightbulb makes it look like a joke. Is it there as some kind of resistor? Anyway, very cool this is very interesting technology, which could be applied to other products that are perhaps less deadly.
Posted at 5:29 pm on May 7th, 2009 by lucas
ellent site. It is not about how many articles we have. you are missing my point. i am a person who believe that we can promote creativity in different ways, but not through weapons and similar types of hacks. This site is watched by kids and I find inappropriate to show gun mods and vibratuld have enjoyed this hack better if it weren’t in gun form. Sadly that seems to be a simple way of carrying and aiming a handheld prwarm-up time”. The capacitors are either charged or not. I understand that they can take some time to recharge when connected to a power outlet, but when not ? I
Posted at 5:44 pm on May 7th, 2009 by ken
I wish i had that kind of time and patience when i was making my coilguns/ railgun, they turned out way less powerful then this (but still fun).
this is very cool!
(my coilguns are found here btw:)
Posted at 6:57 pm on May 7th, 2009 by paul
freakin’ awesome! glad to see these homebrew spaceguns. for the skittish… people have made weapons at home for millenia (such as John Browning, one of the greatest American mechanical engineers), and weapons will likely be a part of human existence forever. at least until we make a weapon *too* good! whoops.
my only comment/concern is: 42 gram projectiles @ 100FPS or 30m/s isn’t a lot of velocity or energy. is the 42g required because it is the volume and density of ferrous material to get significant magnetic effects? if the projectile could be lightened but efficiency kept the same, muzzle velocity would increase, as well as accuracy, range, and penetration power. 42g, or 648 grains, is about the weight of a .50 BMG bullet! over twice the weight of a 230gr .45 ACP bullet!
Posted at 7:05 pm on May 7th, 2009 by emilio
Wow. This article is damn cool in two ways to me.
1. I love the look of that pistol.
2. I’ve been trying to remember what the name of a movie was for a few weeks now. And wouldn’t you know, it was Runaway :D
Posted at 8:56 pm on May 7th, 2009 by LordBug
too the nuts on here saying guns are bad: this is a feat of engineering. your ten year old can not make one of these and shoot up his school. relax. enjoy it for what it is. nuff said.
Posted at 1:37 am on May 8th, 2009 by charliefreck
Neat, but I’m still looking for someone to build a portable one with ~1000 fps muzzle velocity or at least 350 joules, then things will get interesting.
IMHO 42 grams is way too heavy, how about something between 10 and 15, 20 tops.
Posted at 4:01 am on May 8th, 2009 by sidusnare
while were on the subject, does anyone know if supercaps can discharge fast enough for something like this? what about if it were a multi stage rail?
Posted at 4:07 am on May 8th, 2009 by sidusnare
@sidusnare: railguns r shit, not only would u need to carry the ammunition and the batterys like with this coilgun, but also exchange rails because the plasma discharge would wear them out every few shots.
Posted at 4:22 am on May 8th, 2009 by nnx
@nnx couldn’t you could come up with something that wasn’t affected, such as carbon, kevlar, or ceramics?
Posted at 4:48 am on May 8th, 2009 by sidusnare
LOL in electronics class we tried to make a coilgun. We had a coil around a hollow plastic tube. Wired it in series with a morse-code-style button for a quick tap of power, then that to a 12 volt power supply. It failed.
The screw only flew about 1-3 inches, and sometimes went backwards.
This means we need higher voltage/more jiggawatts, and much better timing.
Posted at 6:53 am on May 8th, 2009 by Squeakyneb
This is what machine screws capacitors and clear acrylic were invented for! Smaller custom poled neodymium magnets for rounds might go faster!
Posted at 7:17 am on May 8th, 2009 by grovenstien
@ designer: beautiful build. I look forward to finally seeing whatever documentation you have on it (once the deluge ebbs and your site is again accessible)
@lucas: just a guess (since I haven’t seen the schematic yet), but the light bulb might be a charge indicator (less likely) or being used as a form of variable resistor: originally Wein bridge oscillators used light bulbs in a similar fashion.
@everyone rabbiting on about guns: first point, know what your kids are doing on the internet. Second, if your child has the technical know-how to build one of these, bravo; if they learn what they need to know to build one, bravo; if they build one of these fairly labor- and parts-intensive projects without you knowing, you have other problems. Third, of all the myriad of things I wouldn’t want a child to see from this site, this is fairly low on my list. This will foster knowledge of projectiles, magnetics, and working within design constraints. Other, still fascinating, hacks on this site (e.g. reprogramming electronic construction signs) have little in the way of educational value to a kid, and are far easier to do. Further, the “gun” is a standard footprint, and portability places interesting design challenges on the system.
@designer: did you try different projectile weights? It may be that you can get more kinetic energy overall: Given E_k = 0.5*m*v^2, reducing mass to increase velocity gives a better energy trade-off.
Posted at 7:36 am on May 8th, 2009 by ApprenticeWizard
Sweet duuuuude
Posted at 1:14 pm on May 8th, 2009 by Mr. Together
jeez dont try to make it aimable or anything
kikaz tho
-hero
Posted at 2:59 pm on May 8th, 2009 by -hero
One useful addition would be the use of a Krytron along with some Supercaps. Krytrons are easy to get as old copiers from years ago can be found and the krytron can be worth at least one good pulse but a few isn’t uncommon before it needs to be replaced.
I used to work with Laser power supplies and typically saw a fresh Krytron worth 50 to 100 starts of a 35 watt laser.
Given a krytron, big caps and a superconducting coil might be fun and dangerous toy.
Posted at 5:38 pm on May 8th, 2009 by Mattster
ive been following rail and coil gun tech for awhile, but havent seen anything new, not like this. apparently its come a long way, if he can get those velocities with that wieght of projectile, and only that amount of power, why the hell isnt he working for the military, theyve been trying to get guns to do that for years, and those all took room sized banks of capacitors
Posted at 10:26 pm on May 9th, 2009 by Seraph
Oh baby baby
How was I supposed to know
That something wasn’t right, yeah
Oh baby baby
I shouldn’t have let you go
And now you’re outta sight
Show me how you want it to be
Tell me baby cause I nneed to know now
Just because
My lonliness
Is killing me(and I)
I must confess
I still believe(still believe)
When I’m not with you I lose my mind
Give me a sign
Hit me baby one more time
Posted at 9:09 am on May 11th, 2009 by Reginald Backster
wouldn’t the weight and friction of the other rounds in the magazine ontop of the one being fired reduce the power significantly?
Posted at 10:23 am on May 31st, 2009 by eggman
The internet isn’t for kids. For fuck sake, don’t ruin our fun, vibrators are awesome, as are guns, as is innovative technology.
Hell, out here, Mars are claiming they’re reducing bar size (but not price) to ease things for fat people. Sure it’s really just so their profits go up but honestly, fat people and kids (AND ESPECIALLY FAT KIDS) ruin it for everyone.
Posted at 2:56 am on Jun 10th, 2009 by TheKhakinator
Pretty cool, but that’s a lot of energy drinks!
Posted at 5:11 am on Jun 19th, 2009 by toojeep4u
I think the batteries must be placed in the handle, otherwise I cant see where they would go, except maybe on top…
Posted at 8:13 pm on Nov 14th, 2009 by William
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just don’t put a sticker with a picture of a coil gun on the coil gun.
that would be incredibly lame, as master billy quizboy would attest.
Posted at 8:08 am on May 7th, 2009 by strider_mt2k