So, my Rail Gun begins with some modest capacitors

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl...MEWA:IT&viewitem=&item=200073236258&rd=1&rd=1

So, 4- 3"x9" 350V 6000uF Siemens caps should give me a good enough capacitor bank to have a modest power source for a railgun. Not quite as good as PowerLabs' 32- 400v 6300uF caps, but atleast this way if I do shock myself i'll end up medium rare in the coffin as opposed to charred and crispy , not that I'd ever go near any of these caps while they are charged.

Few questions maybe some of you guys know. What do I do for a charging system? I was thinking microwave transformer, but I don't know much about them except they'll kill you if you don't know what you are doing.
Where can I get copper impregnated carbon material? (like the stuff used for electric motor brushes)

 

This has America's Funniest Home Video's written all over it.

 

Wait, Before You Continue!!!!!!!!!!

Make sure to get a video camera and have someone aim it in your direction while working on this....

 

+1

 

Hole? Anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller?

 

Where did a tard like you get siemens 6000uF caps?

 

ebay

and all four of them only cost $37 shipped!! I found another place where i can get 400V 3900uF caps for like $10/piece, but the siemens caps were a deal.

 

Yeah Kawsinki, you got a deal. Were they used?

 

Only until they began smoking.

 

yeah, but I can't hope to afford new ones at ~$50 a piece. especially considering i still need to get a decent amount of garolite, aluminum, teflon, copper, and UHMW. plus I need to get some machinery to cut the copper, teflon and UHMW strips to spec, accurately drill the aluminum and garolite, and I think garolite has to be cut with a water jet, it shouldn't be too expensive just to get it cut. The gun should be about 8' long, I need to draw it up in autocad.

BTW, the post i was talking about selling my trailer was to pay for the rail gun

 

Dave, will you give me a cluepon please...

thanks.

 

and next on Stupid Human Tricks...

 

It's sort of like a dude showing up to school in a turbo 911. Even if the 911 is used and smokes a bit and the interior smells like a zombie ate lunch there and sh@t in the glove box.

 

Lightning in a jar. Pandora's box, as it were.

 

I plan to use the rail gun to launch the solar-powered flyback transformer based ion drive rocket

 

I was afraid of that.

You'll put your eye out, kid.

 

In 1990 I actually got to work on a USAF rail gun at Eglin AFB. 100 gram projectile, 1km/s over about 5 ft. They discovered that they had to inject the projectile into the 'hot' section of the gun using compressed helium at about 300m/s or the rail would stall the projectile. BOOM. BIG-BADDDA-BOOM. The fire department came. Capacitor driven.
They had an inductor driven gun designed to to send a 1 kg projectile at up to 10km/sec (!!) . The inductor was 4" thick copper. 4' across bent into a circle about 15' across. Charged by 72,000 12v car batteries. No joke - look it up under Star Wars rail gun, Eglin AFB. Never got to see that one fire as it blew the projectile out the top of the gun the week before I got there.

This part belongs in The Dungeon: Star Wars WAS NOT overfunded. my job was to fish the used projectiles out of the can of rags they were fired into and get the usuable ones out to be reused.

 

I don't know their ratings Nick, but I've got two capacitors in the garage,

each 18" long and 10" across. Think those would do the trick?

(unfortunately they're attached to the ends of half million dollar medical devices,

I think my employeer might be pissed if they were "disappeared")

 

yeah, the pneumatic injection is pretty important. and the faster you inject it, the more effecient the design is. I should be able to get the projectile up to Mach 1 before it evens touchs the rails. Helium is the choice gas because it is very light and is the easiest (inert) gas to get a projectile supersonic, it's inert properties should also cut down on the deterioration of the rails.