[Daniel Eindhoven] put together this 11,344 Joule capacitor bank that he says would be perfect for weapons such as a rail gun, coil gun, or electrothermal-chemical gun. He machined a couple of aluminum plates to act as a positive and negative bus. The two are separated by a denuded sheet of PCB (making us wonder how he got the copper to peel off like that). Once charged there’s the little problem of how to discharge the system without getting bit, which [Daniel] solved by building a pneumatic switch. We didn’t find the test-fire footage very interesting but we did embed the demonstration of his switch after the break.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCX0RQm0nsk]
[Thanks Kurt via Hacked Gadgets]
Am i doing something wrong because i can never click on any youtube videos on this site. does anybody know whats up?
@Wes, they work fine for me. Make sure your java + flash + activx is turned on in the settings + installed/updates
No SCR as switch?
I fire my 4.0 Farad bank with a nice Hockey Puck SCR.
This is precisely the kind of project I should never attempt. I almost killed myself fixing an old TV once…I should not be allowed around capacitors.
Awesome power, though. I want to see it zap something.
The bounce from the pneumatic switch worries me a bit. I think a good addition would be to notch the sides of the copper block, and to have some sort of spring loaded clamp that catches the block. The arms on the clamp could be electrically conductive, or just made out of teflon.
Haha I totally tipped them off on this one! And no one has bitched yet! See I want to be an editor..
The link to the site where we can buy the Rail Gun is missing..
@Wes: I have the same problem in the latest version of Ubuntu/Firefox… haven’t dug into it, but it works on windows and Fedora
@ReKlipz: Yeah, I’d agree the bounce is a bit problematic. I don’t see why he’s using a pointed contact though… He’s got a fairly precise, well-aligned mechanism there, it we seem to me that he should use all the surface area he can.
Oh… if you’re reading this Daniel Eindhoven, I’d also not use aluminum as a contact. Fixing it could be as simple as adding a small piece of copper to the end where you make contact.
Al Oxide (Al2O3 I think?) is a pretty good insulator. You’ll still make contact, especially with that much contact force, but your switch performance is probably going to be a lot worse than it should be.
@Wes I had the same issue on Ubuntu for a while … upgrading to the Maverick alpha fixed it :p
Aluminum capacitors shouldn’t be put in short circuit as the leads (and the connection to the inside sheets of the capacitor) are not designed to manage the immense current. Some capacitors are manufactured for high current mode, like those for xenon flashes, even for those direct short circuiting should not occur.
Besides that, the pneumatic switch is nicer than useful, there is no reason to minimize the contact point, on the contrary you should try to make it as big as possible, and avoid the bouncing at all, as it will generate more arcs and reduce the switch life dramatically. The contact materials are also a bad choice.
@Wes
Same problem here. Chrome 5.0 on Win 7.
It seems to have something to do with zoom. When I zoom out to 100%, it works fine. When I zoom in, it doesn’t.
If I owned this, I would surely die.
Wow, what an… interesting choice of music.
He’s also got a more conventionally switched coilgun (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2biwURekQw) with utterly unimpressive performance and equally stupid music.
This would be perfect for the truck. No longer would I have to worry about my low end bass cutting out on those long stretches. Imaging SPL competitions!
Yeah, first thing I thought looking at this was why he would possibly want to use a pointed contact? I can’t think of any logical reason to go through the trouble of putting a point on it.
Oh goodie I finally found a use for my Krytron I had in my pile o stuff. Did I say Krytron? I meant DPDT switch in case the feds are looking.
I Am Not A Mechanical Engineer, but it seems like putting the static end of the assembly on a spring or rubber dampened mount would reduce or eliminate the bounce.
i would LOVE to see 11KJ go threw a coil for a coilgun XD
days old post from http://hackedgadgets.com/2010/07/16/113-kilojoule-capacitor-bank/
way to go with second hand news!
Glad to see I wasn’t the only one who thought the bounce was a problem.
You can peal the copper of a PCB by heating it with a heat gun and then using pliers to peal the copper. It takes a while but works pretty good.
“Soon to be used with my new capacitor bank”
And then there came no more videos…
=0
@wes
I’ve had that problem, but usually only in linux. Os X and windows appear to work fine. (relatively speaking).
“Ah, I see your Lorentz is as big as mine…”
omfg this is the shit I don’t want to see. When HaD takes a turn, I turn to HackedGadgets. It’s like Engadget redirecting to Gizmodo…
HackedGadgets is more of an original “Hack a day” than HaD is. They may only post one hack a day, but at least their shit is original. Another example of HaD starving for content.
It’s silly projects like this that really make me wonder. What’s the point? There are so many other better ways to do this, if there is a point. There’s just no application that needs a bunch of crappy aluminum capacitors. It’s not even cost effective if you have to replace your crappy capacitors all the time for some application that doesn’t make since. Why aluminum? Terrible conductor.
I’m guessing this was just for the “wow” factor, because “wow”, people don’t get it. I’d leave things that are high power, high voltage to the pros, before someone gets hurt…
I think another method for dampening some of the bounce would be notching the anvil in a shallow V to “catch” the strike a little better.
Ha, I just read the specs, 185200uF. 0.2 F, are you kidding me? That giant board for 0.2F? Seriously? All that work for that? “Wow!”
>Why aluminum? Terrible conductor.
For solid blocks or thick plates, it doesn’t matter.
And for foil capacitors: Have you ever seen devices that use anything else? (apart from antiques)
> 0.2F
This is a lot, but more important is the total stored energy and how fast it can be discharged (low inductance). Paralleling small capacitors is a really good means for low inductance.
Anon complains “omfg this is the s**t I don’t want to see. When HaD takes a turn, I turn to HackedGadgets.” and this exact same project was posted there July 16, 2010. ROFL
I was digging through my garage and found a 2500V capacitor rated at 3F. The first thing I said was ‘Sweet – I could toast some stuff with this!’ The second thing I said was ‘This could be dangerous – If I weren’t so lazy I’d think of some safety precautions’.
Anyway, this pneumatic switch seems a bit overkill. I just used two broom handles with the contacts on the end of each. We let it rip across wet grass and it made the dew evaporate and the cells in the plants burst. IT WAS AWESOME!
I wonder how long until the switch welds shut…
-James
Bandwidth Limit Exceeded
The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to the site owner reaching his/her bandwidth limit. Please try again later.
Every contact, no matter how big, opening or closing, starts or ends with a pinpoint area. EVERY contact.
>For solid blocks or thick plates, it doesn’t matter.
Seriously?
As far as low inductance, the real trick is low ESR, which adding giant thick plates of aluminum won’t help.
>And for foil capacitors: Have you ever seen devices that use anything else?
Are your talking about other applications, or only devices like this? Because there are tons of other capacitors types.
@hrpuffnstuff: I have some spare Pu238 lying around. Wanna swap? :P
What’s all this every contact nonsense starting and ending with a pinpoint contact? The reality of the situation is a hideously complex electrodynamic plasma physics problem. Brush discharges and corona are a good examples of arcs not being pin point needle like things. It would be accurate to say, that when sufficient volts are present, all mating connections start and end with corona.
Anyhow,I’m a plasma physicist so may have a biased interest in this field.
3F at 2500V..? I think not! That would weigh about 20 tonnes. We used to use something like that to energise field coils for an experimental fusion reactor (Compass in Culham science centre).
@laughing
….That was the point….
What’s up with all the aluminum hate? Aluminum beats out copper in cost, corrosion resistance, and conductivity to weight ratio. Copper wins in conductivity/volume, and solderability, but when one is dealing with large pulsed currents a purpose built solution is practically unavoidable. Soldered connections are a bad idea in this case, and aluminum is far cheaper and easier to procure than copper. If it’s not conductive enough, just make it bigger. It’s not like a transformer, where you’ve got a limited winding window.
Although I am impressed by the low inductance construction of thew capacitor buses, the switch has WAY too much bounce. A possible solution would be to quick press two pieces of roof flashing together. Plate with silver, as it corrodes slowly and the corrosion products are conductive.
— = aluminum flashing
I = dielectric
< = external connections
———————————<
IIIIIIII IIIIIIII
———————————<
Make the dielectric thick enough to avoid breakdown, and quickly clamp the plates together with padded wood blocks to fire. You could slide a spare piece of dielectric in the gap as a safety.
Revised ascii art, as it was distorted in the previous post:
– = aluminum flashing
I = dielectric
< = external connections
* = air gap
—————————-<
IIIII*******************IIIII
—————————-<
Peel the copper of a PCB? Why?
You can buy unclad FR4 sheets quite easily.
> the real trick is low ESR, which adding giant thick plates of aluminum won’t help
It will. It’s called a ground plane in its simplest form.
Also, paralleling many small capacitors is usually better than one single big capacitor, because for film/foil capacitors, ESR is dominated by the external wiring.