Coilosapien: Rail Gun On Yer Robot


It’s been a while since we’ve seen anything new on the robosapien front, but I’d say that a laser sighted rail gun for our favorite robots is worthy. From the video, it appears to have decent accuracy and a fair sized clip. It’s creator, [Marcus] says that he’ll have a tutorial up soon. Thanks to [Robert] for the tip. (Update: The tip says it’s a mini rail gun, so I’m not sure if it’s a rail gun or a coil gun.)

23 thoughts on “Coilosapien: Rail Gun On Yer Robot

  1. If it has a solenoid, it’s not a railgun, it’s a coilgun.

    A railgun literally has 2 rails, which the armature conducts between and slides along.

    A coilgun uses a coil of wire (solenoid) to magnetically “pull” the ammunition forward. This requires precise timing to stop the magnetic field once the projectile has reached the center of the solenoid so that it’s momentum will continue it out of the coil.

  2. could be a gauss gun. i’m waiting for the tute o be up before believing it. seems a it to much power compared to other projects i’ve seen of a similar nature. to get that much energy into a projectile should require at least two coils and a reasonably sized cap bank, neither of which i see.

  3. very nice mod. i think that face is just too innocent looking to be armed though :. I’d really like to see the tut too, a rail/coil/gauss gun always comes across as something big and bulky, or at least within the realm of putting one on a child’s toy.

  4. I’d like to see people complaining about the quality of hacks when faced with this one- absolutely inspired (especially the laser sight). giskard, i agree with your concerns about the tiny size and apparently high power of this, and I didn’t think gravity-feed clips worked with rail/coil guns- i’m sure all will become clear with the walkthrough. i can’t wait for that, i have a couple of camera flash units and a drum of .177 bb ammo at home doing nothing :)

  5. Coil guns/Gauss guns are very simple devices, and the physics/electronics in them are much simpler than that of rail guns. You can easily make a decently powerful coil gun with a soda straw, some enameled wire, and a disposable camera flash. It’ll shoot BBs about 10 – 15 feet depending on how good you’re winding is, and staples even further. Add a few more caps and maybe some extra winding stages and you have quite the bb shooter.

  6. yes this looks like it is infact a real coil-gun. at 330 volts and a considerable capacitance, that’s a fair bit of energy stored there. definitely a hand behind the back project, you don’t want that voltage across your chest. neat loading mechanism however.

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