New Coil Gun Design: Seeking Input on Improved Design

[reddevil2576]

I have a new coil gun design I want to build I would like some input on. The first change in design is the coil design. I want to take a solid copper rod and machine it into a coil with one solid band that wraps around a hollow core. You can get a magnetic field up to 40t this way which is twice the capabilities of the best supperconducting coil.

The second design change is how its fired. Instead of having a capacitor bank to charge I want to take a high voltage DC power supply and have a spot right in front of the coil that when a iron material is put there it will arc from the power supply to the projectile to the coil.

The third design is the projectile. It must be half the length of the coil. This way the coil will be firing as the projectile reaches the coils until the projectile is just starting to get to the center of the coil. This way instead of one quick zap the coil will have power to it over 25% of the time its in the coil. Way more time to accelerate the projectile.

With doing this you could put many coils in line and would never have to adjust timing the coils would only fire when theyre supposed to.

What do you think? Will it work?

 

[reddevil2576]

I have many new ideas to show you this is the first of many i will tell you this is the only one I'm going to tell you until i build them i just want credit for my ideas i don't want to get rich from them i hope you people watch my name closely because the other ideas will blow this one out of the water. I want to make a difference in the world and I'm going to in a positive way.

 

[Bob S]

I have a new coil gun design I want to build I would like some input on. The first change in design is the coil design. I want to take a solid copper rod and machine it into a coil with one solid band that wraps around a hollow core. You can get a magnetic field up to 40t this way which is twice the capabilities of the best supperconducting coil.

40 Tesla is very high. You should check your calculation. Because all magnetic materials saturate below about 2 Tesla, your magnetic circuit is essentially air core. Here are two sources for the magnetic field in an air core solenoid.

This one has an on-line magnetic field calculator.

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/solenoid.html

This is more accurate for a finite length coil

http://www.netdenizen.com/emagnet/solenoids/solenoidonaxis.htm

What do you think? Will it work?

No.

Bob S

 

[reddevil2576]

I don't know much about this. According to what i have read a normal electromagnet with wire can create a field up to 1.5t. With superconducting material up to 20t and that's just because that's the best material we have found so far. My design is a bitter magnet design in a way.

Instead of plates though like the bitter design i want to machine it out of one solid chunk then just dip it in the insulating material. The bitter electromagnet design was invented by Francis Bitter in 1933 i believe. Until 2008 though we didn't know the potential of this electromagnet design and one was made with a field close to 40t i believe.

 

[reddevil2576]

I don't even care if I don't get a magnetic field of 40t. I was just trying to explain how much better this type of coil will be. I am not really getting much input. I am going to take that as a good sign.

Bob s why won't it work? Its not dependent on achieving a 40t field to work. Although it would be nice it's not needed. And I am not making a new gun. I am wanting input on the idea because I need it to build an idea that is truly my own. After I build it I will show you.

 

[f95toli]

Instead of plates though like the bitter design i want to machine it out of one solid chunk then just dip it in the insulating material. The bitter electromagnet design was invented by Francis Bitter in 1933 i believe. Until 2008 though we didn't know the potential of this electromagnet design and one was made with a field close to 40t i believe.

Large resistive magnets are EXTREMELY difficult to design and need a loot of cooling (you might literally need to get your cooling water from a river). The world record is something like 30T, but that uses tens of megawatts of power. Note that the reason for why you rarely see superconducting magnets larger than about 15T is that it becomes very difficult to build a strong enough the support for them; meaning it is not the superconductors themselves that are the problem.

The point is that you MIGHT be able to build a normal state magnet at home that can generate a 2-3T is you are lucky; but it would be a costly and difficult project (you still need cooling water etc).

 

[reddevil2576]

Thanks I still haven't figured out how I want to do the cooling it's going to be very hard.

Like I said its just an idea I am using on an invention. In the invention the electromegnet will be curved and I don't know how to get coolant in the coils this way. I can't just drill holes in it and put tubes of coolant down through it. I think what I am going to have to do is make a mold out of iron and inject it with silver. Then take it apart and vuala I got an electromagnet to put on a ring.

 

[reddevil2576]

This payday I'm going to build my first coilgun with this design and I will post a video on YouTube or something and give you all the link to it.

 

[cncmachinemat]

I encorage people like you reddevil: Experiment with as much and many ideas as posible, even when sceptics tell you its not feasible or possible. Anyways, do you have access to a machine shop/tools to undertake this project? When I first started to make my wild ideas reality I realized that I had a socket set, a few power tools, a MM, and a solering iron. Sometimes this is enough, but most of the time is not. I saved up and purchased a cnc machine, a cnc lathe, and other tools to make my dreams come true.. I too thought that my ideas were ground breaking, then came reality. Sometimes you need to see for yourself..

Matt