I've Made a Powerful COILGUN | Separate Stages PCB
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🔥Homemade gauss with separate PCB for each stage. Big coils, huge high voltage capacitors and thyristor control for powerful magnetic field. Very high speed detected with phototransistors.
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00:00 Intro
01:41 My design & PCB
04:04 How coilgun works?
06:27 Bullet detector
08:05 Schematic
09:43 What we need
12:01 Assemble
16:21 Tests
18:26 Thank you!
Like share and subscribe to motivate me. Thank you
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is it possible to use higher voltage caps for it to be more powerfull
Next project idea, a capacitive spot welder for 18650 batteries, the simpler the design the better. :)
Hello, I am from India 🇮🇳 ,and I will suggest you to make some video from the basic components like the bjt you made earlier and It will be great if you dub them to Hindi language as there are millions of students here who desire to hear a person having knowledge like you . 🤞
Please make part 2 And add morw power and auto reload features
That was excellent. You have just earned yourself a subscriber. Running those bullets through a chronograph that shooters use would be interesting. I guess the maximum speed is determined by the both the strength of the magnetic field and its ability to overcome air resistance and the switching speed of the thyristors. I think you can make quite a series of videos about this, do calculations for max speed, compare to tests, identify bottlenecks, improve design, etc. Again, well done and thank you! :)
Nice video, as I worked with coilguns a lot for my university project, I might give you some advice which will definitely help you. 1.try using some kind of ferrite washer caps at the both wnds of each coil, to help focusing the magnetic field. 2.the main issue and also misunderstanding about your design is that theoretically adding more stages to the design won't increase the speed. Here is why: as the bullet passes through the stages it gains more speed, thus the required run time of each coil will be different.the early stages need more run time thus bigger inductance and capacitor values, and the few last stages will have a lot less run time due to the high speed of the bullet, so you should use smaller values of inductors and capacitors values. If you apply the same values to each stage, adventually the last stages will reduce the speed and efficiency of the coilgun drastically, because of the suck back effect that they cause due to exceeding the required run time of the coil. 3.try to minimize the airgap between the bullet and the barrel, aslo use non-conductive barrel to get rid of induced current losses. 4. The pcb traces add a noticable amount of resistance to the current path, so using a thicker and wider trackes covered with solder is a better choice. 5.calculate the values for the capacitor and inductor of each stage based on the bullet speed of the previous stage. 6.try using a stepped coil geometry for the coil of the first stage. These were all I can say so far about it. Again, thanks for your efforts and keep it going!
Would he benefit from reversing the current once the bullet passes instead of cutting it? Would it also be beneficial to run all coils together and one by one switch them once the bullet passes? (Turning them off like in the video or reversing the current like my first question suggested?)
@@TalSaiag no, its not a bipolar sibject. Reversing the current inside the coil will not change the direction of the applied force. The bullet is always attracted towards the coil, no matter which way the current flows through the coil.
Can we make a big tank connon out of this ? I love the idea of 8.8cm flak electric gun on a tiger 1 tank 🥰
@@alirezarostamifard6404 Unless you load a magnetic projectile.
@@howardstark6707 , look WIK C, it's great that you built your own coilgun and have videos about them, but that doesn't mean you should spam your videos links on the comments of every coilgun/railgun related video. You just come across as attention seeking (the fact that you're using a different account to link your videos doesn't help either).
Great design! Make it into a loop and you have a mini particle accelerator.
That's a very interesting idea. The bad part is the induced back EMF of each coil into the bullet. That creates a maximum top speed. Maybe using electrons... :)
@@ELECTRONOOBS Just add a couple million volts!
Wow that would be awesome If you could accelerate a small steel ball or something in that Loop. Even If its not so super fast.
Then it is a bldc motot
Can we make a big tank connon out of this ? I love the idea of 8.8cm flak electric gun on a tiger 1 tank 🥰
What a nice project! When I was in the U.S. Navy in 1954, I was assigned to a Degaussing range on an island in Rhode Island. I learned a lot about magnetics, and sketched up a coil gun using magnetic bullets, not iron ones. I never built it but this project here brought back some great memories!
Terjemahkan bahasa indonesia
Did you save any schematics?
That's awesome. Did you see the videos of the Navy railgun testing that came out a in the recent years?
well, you could use hematite, which is a form of iron as an ammunition for a coilgun - it depends how its built because there are computerized versions and then there are ones that are based purely on magnetic acceleration - then there are hybrids: and then there's the electrolaser hybrid - which essentially fires a laser at the same frequency that the plasma reaction which is being used to conduct the EM acceleration reaction and the laser carries the charge of the plasma shell with it, essentially creating a laser bolt like the ones on star wars - with weight, impact, and slower speed. it happens because it is causing the frequency of the energetic cycles to happen so fast that it is literally manifesting as physical matter - aka, a force field. I have been trying to find ways to make force fields for a few years, because of my ideas about repulsine tech (polar toroidal forces using EM plates spinning against one another's field in opposite directions)
The past future/future past is a complex issue jus like star wars 😮😮
Amazing! Looks like a really fun build. I like the simplicity of being able to scale it up.
Very nice video. Would love to see how many stages optimizes/maximizes speed. Might also be useful as a warning of its danger if you tested it on ballistic gel at some point.
This video takes me back to when I built something similar to your design and it worked perfectly. I only used 6 stages but it was so fast when firing a small projectile through similar materials used in this video. Well done.😊
i love both coil and rail guns in the diy space. both have their own drawbacks and pros but in the end are very fun to play with.
Great video, great version of a coilgun! right now, I'm in the proces of building a Coilgun myself for a schoolproject and if there is one thing I can tell you, it is to make it a blind system, that is just controlled by an arduino or ESP. As you probably know, the magnetic field doesn't immediatly break down, when you cut the power. I used Phototransistors to get the speed and adjusted the coil timing this way.
It's good to see some new videos on this topic! I am currently designing my own multi stage modular coil gun design with optical triggers. I have designed it with fire control for single burst and auto. I can't wait to get to the prototyping stage. I almost have all my components for testing.
The problem that you will run into with auto fire will be the charge time required of the capacitors.
Nice. I've always wanted to make one where you can just attach more segments to the end ever since I knew how they worked but didn't have the sanity for a project like that. Looks great!
Wow I jut saw this! So much power!
well, it's got high voltages ! that should spark ur interest ;p
You see something dangerous and a lot of power, your eyes are shining???😂😂😂 Next version will have even more power, maybe I'll use some Full Bridge Rectifiers 😁
Well instead of a lamp lighting up in mehdi's head a capacitor explodes :)
Lmfao I knew I'd see your comment 😂😂😂
Please don't shoot your foot with this
Within 17 seconds of watching this video I had to subscribe, this is litterly the type of content I enjoy. I really don't know how I haven't came across your videos earlier.
Perhaps using timing rather than photo sensors would mean more tunability. This would be more complicated because each projectile must be the same, but it could go supersonic this way :)
Having a weapon with both options in one I think would be the best design for usability. If for whatever reason your programmed timing doesn't gel with the current atmospheric conditions or whatever other variables, you can swap to the sensors as a less powerful but more consistent option for harsh environments.
Be limited by how fast the triac switch turns on what cud be faster tho ....I need make one just with 3 stages 😮
Very neat project! A tip on the soldering though as some of them look very poor. I recommend soldering with a medium thick chisel tip and with some more heat for much easier work and much better flow around the joints. it might sound odd that using a bigger tip would be better and might look harder with small parts but you can turn the tip so you get the sharper edge towards the surface which makes you easily apply solder on the flat surface of it and nicely flow on to the component. if you solder with leaded solder around 380 degree C or if lead free up to 400-420 if you have bigger heat absorbing areas (might sound hot for some but this is where I work all the time). a needle tip is weak in every aspect both in how much heat it can transfer and the amount of solder it can hold and it is more suited for smaller SMD work. But I am using chisel tip for pretty much everything. just mention this as creative feedback, keep up the good work!
I saw some that looked like some solder that I have that I guess doesn't have much flux or it's just no good Even with good flux it is not great but good enough I guess ya it feels like it's not hot enough but I'm over 400°
@@james10739 it depends a bit on the solder itself and the tip you use, if you have a small needle tip it transfer heat so poorly you might even go up as high as 430 degree C to even be able to melt around a groundplane pcb with normal tin. most types of solder without a flux core is usually not meant for soft soldering and is more likely for plumbing work with use of separate flux. But cheap tin is bad yes, I have even seen cheap types have so bad flux that alone short out the device because that flux was conductive. Best solder is the lead based one with rosin core which gives you really shiny bonds and easy and even flow, this is what people use if you watch KZhead and see shiny soldering joints. the downsides of this is of course the lead which is not good to handle too much and the availability of it. if you use lead-free solder you never get a shiny bond and you need more heat to flow it but you always get a pale and rough surface using this no matter how good you are doing it. if you want one of the best and cheapest types of flux you can do it yourself with just a simple can with rosin and some isopropyl alcohol but you are best of cleaning the work afterwards since it won´t be "no clean flux"
Small chisel tip 👌 Leaded solder at 405° 👌
@@ericbitson8927 Good stuff, Very good!
Woaw, it is indeed powerful. Impresive how it can pass through the prefab board! And the design is very modular and simple, I love the idea. Just wanna see more videos on this project :)
This is the coolest tutorial for a coil gun that I've seen yet. Very educational and well done!
This is a very nice design! I like your way of making the stages modular, so you can just add more stages. You need a way to increase the capacitor discharge rate in the last stages where the velocity is higher. All you need to do is reduce the number of turns of each stage, so as stages get less turns they have less inductance and the magnetic field will be created faster and with more intensity (but less duration). Also, if you connect ALL the led sensors to a scope channel, you will see a series of pulses as the projectile triggers each sensor. That should allow you to calculate the acceleration for each stage, and help you to tune each stage by the number of turns on the coils. How many turns did you use in this prototype? Did you measure the inductance?
The bullet detector had to be done before the coil. The resulting values would be: 1 - bullet to the coil, 0 bullet began to fly into the coil, 1 bullet flew into the coil. And after 1 -> 0 -> 1 turn on the next coil.
This is really awesome. Thanks for sharing all of this. I'm learning all I can about electronics as I dabble a bit for a hobby. I might try this project sometime. It looks fun
Lots of work! Great job in documenting your project!
The moment i saw the clip of it shooting the projectile into the cardboard box, thats all i needed as proof you know what your doing, and subscribed. Lol. Awesome project. And its such a simple circuit. I love it. Simple, and straight forward. Will be building one down the road. Thanks for sharing your design and layout. On another note, i like your wall background with the motheboards. I have my workspace the same way. Got the idea from a video on Linus Tech. They did his office completely in motherboards on one wall. Painted it all in 1 color. I did the same, but added it couple ARGB light strips to glow from behind the boards onto the wall and using EL Wire, traced the mosfet heatsinks, and each boards shape to outline it like in the movie TRON. Turned out amazing. Maybe a idea for your wall? :)
Very neat project! Some thoughts for possible improvements: Since the bullet goes trough the later stages very fast it might be a good idea to switch to coils with lower inductance and capacitors with lower ESR (inner resistance) like foilcapacitors. That way you might be able to increase power output of those later stages to add noticeable energy to the projectile.
that is really amazing as you have explained everything in detail and with the help of animation
Fantastic build. Great job. Looks like a fun project.
Fascinating; I’m hooked on this concept. What about spacing the coils at increasing distance from each preceding one to use the inertia of the projectile and “catch” it at optimum position for the next coil ?
I would think you'd be better tuning each stage for the velocity of the round as it passed through. If you spread the coils apart, wouldn't you increase the amount of time that the bullet is not influenced by a coil? That would lengthen the gun without appreciable benefit.
The projectile stops accelerating the instant the coil turns off so spacing them out would only allow the projectile to slow down. Ideally you would have 0 space between coils but that isn't possible.
I like your solution for shutting off the magnetic field between stages. Cheap and effective. I was thinking about using a controller to time things accordingly, but I think that route is only necessary if you want to archive greater speeds with the projectile.
I love your project and very happy with your simple details. Thank you
I am so glad I found your channel! Love your work.
You should have placed the photo sensors at the front of the coil, instead of the back. Then set them to turn on the coils when the beam is blocked. The reason is that you would not need to have the coil on all the time and there will also be no pull back after the projectile has already reached past the half-way mark in the coil and starts to get a pull back effect. The coil would turn on when the projectile gets to the front of the opening and the coil will shut off when it reaches the mid-way point before any pull back happens.
I like your thought process here. Reverse the magnetic field of each coil as the projectile passes the midpoint of the coil as well.
IMO this makes no sense. The ball will want to center in the coil (max force) and you can see his coils are longer than the ball, so if anything you would be slamming on the brakes.
I have some improvements in mind: 1) Use a Teflon tube, as you suggested it creates less friction 2) Use hall effect sensors instaead of phototransistors, they are more reliable and require less space on the pcb 3) Make the boards' interconnects hot-swappable and not soldered
Maybe he's not using Hall effect sensors because they are so close to the coils, they can generate interferences.
Its a good idea, it would represent some analog curve and it would have more information than the 'digital' optical switch... Eventually he use Ai to pursue the optimal curve - how about imprinting the slugs first with their own magnetic field?
@@nicolascisneros4742 this
It’s only less friction if you can keep it straight
Hall effect is not a good idea, optical sensors are better for high speed
Excellent video. Well narrated, explained, filmed, and nice use of graphics. Doubt I would ever build one, but this is how electronic projects ought to be demonstrated on KZhead.
With such a quality work, mankind will reach far far away galaxies sooner
I love the fact that you can find how to make cool stuff like this so easily on youtube
I very much like the modularity :-) ... BUT your actual circuit works a bit different, than explained in the video: the IR-barrier is positioned in front of the coil. As soon as the projectile interrupts the IR-barrier, the thyristor is switched on and the capacitor is discharged via the coil with a very high current. At that time the projectile is attracted by the magnetic field, and pulled into the coil. When the projectile exits the coil, there is no active switching off, because a thyristor can't be actively switched off. However the discharge time won't take long - the capacitor is most likely empty, before the projectile exits the coil. But there is another issue with the circuit: the discharge current reaches its peak, when the voltage of the capacitor zero. Then the current starts decreasing and charges the capacitor in reverse (the bypass-diode D2 is useless). As soon as the current is zero, the thyristor is inactive again, and the capacitor is negatively charged. Reverse-charging an electrolytic capacitor is not a good idea: I strongly recommend to test the discharge-behavior with the oscilloscope (at a much lower voltage), fix the circuit, use a high voltage mosfet (instead of the thyristor).
I agree, I was confused during the explanation of the circuit too concerning the thyristor use
How about a diode in parallel with the capacitor to prevent it from being charged in reverse?
Great explenation and why I disliked the design as well. As you add more stages, you get to a point where the projectile is being braked by the field in the coils due to the time it takes to discharge. I think using transistors in this design would be better. It would also allow you to see the residual voltage on each stage to get a better idea of how much of the energy was used.
I accidentally connected an electrolytic capacitor in reverse once (it was across a negative voltage rail) and the resulting explosion was quite scary. I dread to think what would happen if one that size exploded.
Chris Laimer, hey this is off topic, I still have yet to build those 600 motors. Bought the plans and printed all the parts plus ordered the hardware, magnets, and wire. But winding up the 15 meter of copper is very difficult process. I gave up cause I kept messing up on those.
Very nice work man!! You did a fantastic job! Not only at the project itself, but the video is extremely well made all around as well! Extra props on the safety warnings and explanations. You don't wanna a big cap incorrectly!! [ZAP!!!] Thanks!! It's kinda creepy because I was just wondering(internally) about what it would take to make one of these for a practical (non violent) application. Looks like it's too much unless they are available in kits and inexpensive. It was a off the wall thought, as many of mine can be thankfully.
Fantastic work sir. Please keep making more project videos. You are a true inspiration.
Thanks ALOT for this video m8, i really liked it. Hope one day to manage building one too.
Your channel is so underrated, i see other main stream youtubers have a go at this project and their results are subpar compared to yours. Yes you're using a more dangerous design that uses high voltage, but what isn't dangerous in these new times we live in. As always very good content and educational as usual.
Well, you might want to take a look at this coilgun attempt then: kzhead.info/sun/jdGYn76SkXSCnXA/bejne.html. The guy went through quite a bit of effort to model and simulate the magnetic of the coils, how the inductance changes when a projectile passes through... It's really impressive imo.
Hello, and thanks for sharing this project. I have a couple of questions. I may have missed something, but as I look at the circuit it appears that crossing the IR beam triggers the coil rather than turning it off. This seems to be supported in that each additional module has the IR beam at the entry of the coil. Also, what is the white LED for?
Looking forward to the cover!! Nice project!
Woah! This is one of the most powerful ive seen and im guessing the projectile travels more force than the one made from hacksmith. Auto Subscribed!
Nicely done the photo transistor is a far superior to the hall sensors used on other KZhead video coil guns. The one change I would consider would be put the photo transistor gate on the entry side of the coil. And use delay time for shutting off the coils in this way as the speed increases you can control the acceleration by time delay so the coil will shut off before the projectile makes it past the half way point.
Maybe, maybe. It's cool. See also my first Coilgun (New coil - wire 2 mm) : m.kzhead.info/sun/Y9KGqdpwapGvloU/bejne.html
After studying his schematics, it appears that when the projectile breaks the IR beam it triggers the Thyristor of the next coil in the chain (note: the next coil circuit is drawn to the left of the IR trigger components - schematics should have a left to right flow when possible), but it DOES NOT cut off the coil that fed that IR pair. Once a coil's Thyristor is triggered, each coil is rapidly energized and then rapidly de-energized until the capacitor is nearly fully drained (note: the diode above the capacitor is an isolation diode so each capacitor discharge is independent from each other - that is good), but each coil in succession is not turned off as he says in this video, they are just drained to zero at their own rate after triggered and thus that reduces the acceleration efficiency of the system. The idea is to have the field at zero as it transitions roughy midway between one stage to the next. Timing here is very critical, if the coil de-energizes even a microsecond too early or too late, the net acceleration between stages is lower than optimum - optimum is what you need. Also I said 'roughly' between stages because that midway point might actually be somewhere within the feeding coil before passing to the accepting coil in the next stage. So exactly when and how fast one coil's magnetic field reacts (Gauss curve), it must properly overlap with the next stage's coil Gauss curve and timing. Each stage will have different timing and curves. Also, as you can see in the video, IR phototransistors have very slow response times, too slow for the pinpoint timing required for efficient acceleration. I think Hall Effect transducers would be better, but the coil fields would interfere with them and the projectile would have to be magnetized. This system is a simple rail gun, Rail Guns use pre-calculated ballistic expectations of the projectile and the system for the best results - no real-time monitoring of the projectile is used. A high speed FPGA with nanosecond timing using DLLs could get the right timing for each coil stage once a solution for the interstage ballistics is found.
"optimum is what you need" I think I have to print this on a shirt. 😂
@@user-nb6xn2yd5z "Optimum is what I need, but I will settle for perfection" [laugh].
Is it possible to record the current generated by the bullet while passing through the coil? Maybe with a secondary coil just outside the first one, I guess it shouldn't be that big to detect the bullet. I would record the timing between each stage, and try to calculate some kind of coefficient, to know how much a stage should be on, depending on the capacitor and coil size. Plus, if you need to discharge the capacitor at a certain point, may a longer (but thinner coil) fully discharge the cap? I mean, keeping the same wire and number of turns, but using a longer tube.
He did say it needs a flux dump circuit
@@midclock You are on to somthing, but it's been awhile since I first posted. I just too many other projects and thought to work out now. But you are using your brain and comming up with ideas... total respect.
Super für Frühlingsfest geeignet. Danke für den anderen Alltags - Einfall !
earned my subscription. I look forward to more videos. thank you sir
Very nice work, this is exactly the type of videos why I have subscribed to this channel :) I have just a few ideas: 1) It would be great to explain in the video why you have finally decided on thyristors rather than MOSFETs or IGBTs 2) Instead of using IR LED/phototransistor pairs, I'd go for already pre-made photo barriers - for example, the H2010 photo-interrupter has a 10mm spacing, so it would fit an 8mm tube perfectly ;) 3) Please, share also the EasyEDA project, not only the gerber files (I think there is an option in EasyEDA to make the project public) - if someone would like to make some adjustments or improvements to the PCB (to fit different components, etc.)
Thyristors are forgiving parts, their peak repetive current can be over 600 amps for a 16 amp thyristor, and they still won't die,
Tyristors do not turn off again until current goes to 0... This means it drains each cap as it runs. I don't think that was the intention.
BTW, running big high-discharge-current caps at a higher voltage than they're rated for (e.g., 500+VDC on a 450V cap) is a pretty good way to have one explode. Might want to dial back your coil voltage a bit.
my thoughts exactly one of them is gonna let out the magic smoke then absolutely decimate his entire garage
@@spenza99 The other option is two caps in series (with balance resistors) so there's a safety margin on the voltage, but there's a seep efficiency tradeoff for cap arrays in this sort of application.
I find your lack of voltage de-rating disturbing… In all seriousness that made me nervous when I saw it. While it doesn’t need to meet NASA derating standards there’s got to be some margin. Safety is important with HV.
You explain it very well that i could understand👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻 great project
Nice job... Describing everything from start to finish, design of boards including support... Well done all around... Curious about using hall effect to sense location of bullet
If all the energy from every capacitor is discharged in the coil, you have 65 joules of energy with each stage. That's a lot of energy, for instance a 9mm round has arround 480 joules so you'd only need 7 stages to have that energy. Of course, is not a 100% efficient system but still, it's scary how powerful this thing can be.
well, thats the purpose of a RAILgun.... :P
Most coilguns efficiency doesn't reach even 10%
You could almost double the effectivness if you just reverse the magnetic field when you now shut it down. In this way both ends of the coil will pull/push the ammunition... Also if you do this, then shut stages off after next stages led detects it. And you could turn stage on after previous led detects it. These on/off switches saves some energy for the next round.
The bullet isn't a magnet, it's a pice of metal, reversing the polarity of the magnetic field won't do anything
Reversing wont work, but id say putting the photo switch on the start rather than end would help, perhaps with a delay. Or use a software driven timer, where you finetune each shutoff time based on the stage & projectile mass
@@herosvicentegonzalez7872 Unless you could produce polarization in the projectile somehow. Maybe by pre-priming the projectiles in a magazine or using a series of blades to transfer electrons to the projectile, then you could potentially either make a temporary magnet out of it, (it doesn't need to be very long) or polarize it so that the magnets can pull and push it.
Awesome video and project amigo!!!
Maybe the photo diode can placed before the coil and use a timer to optimize the coil turn off time and trigger next coil turn on. As the bullet get progressively faster, the timer gets shorter for each stage.
Yes, we could use two detectors, one at the input and one at the output and making test we can find the perfect timing...
First add a launcher. Then add sensor before the bullet enters the coil to prevent the pulling resistances in the middle of coils. Then increase the capacitors value(Diy capacitor gives you a better result) in every stages rather than adding more coils. I think you can achieve 2kg of force.
Owesome as always
Thank you sir! You have done such a wonderful job for humanity to share this with the people! I love you! A+! You are Knighted
beautifull project and also back ground thanks
🙏🏼🇧🇷🌱👍 Muito obrigado pela oportunidade de aprender com seus vídeos. Obs: Seria interessante entre as bobinas colocar imã de neodímio para aumentar a energia cinética... Uma arma.
I think this is a great project. It’s obvious that plenty of time and expense has been put into it. I see a lot of “armchair” engineers in the comments. There are always different and maybe better ways of doing things with electronics projects. Sometimes compromises need to be made to get most of the desired results. I feel this could be a fun thing to put together. I have already ordered the parts to make this project myself. Thank you for your time.
Thanks for sharing, such an inspiring projects...
Thanks It helped alot in my project.
The thyristor cannot be turned off (it keeps passing the current as long as the capacitor is charged) or am I missing something?
Suggestion: try shooting it at a polycarbonate sheet next, it’s commonly used in bulletproof glass, as it’s quite impact resistant. You could even try a CD, DVD or BD, as they’re made of polycarbonate.
so far i think this may be the best functioning coil gun on the internet so far!!
AMAZINGLY INFORMATIVE!!!! Thank you!
The modularization is a great idea and having a capacitor for each stage means that you get the best part of the cap discharge curve to drive the coil. The downside is that there is likely to be plenty of charge left in each cap after it got discharged into its respective coil. This is OK if you are going to repeatedly fire a projectile, though: just top the charge up to peak voltage and you are ready to go. Also, as the projectile speeds up, the distance between the coils and the optical sensors should increase. I think it is sheer luck that you achieved the muzzle speeds that you did (impressive!), but I think that adding more modules is unlikely to improve performance further. In this case, the best approach for the timing of each coil-fire to achieve maximum projectile-velocity can only be experimentally determined, given all the other vagaries in the design such as the steel barrel that interferes with the magnetic circuit, the effects of back-EMF from the coil + projectile, and the indeterminate magnetic properties of the projectile. I suggest the next design iteration should be computer-controlled using the optical sensors, to determine when to fire the next coil and also when to switch it off. This way, you can also determine the muzzle velocity (and also display it with the charge voltage). Also, consider using something like an EE-SX1070 optical slot sensor instead of pot-lucking the alignment of bending the wires of a discrete diode and IR sensor to line them up. Good luck and have fun!
Maybe, maybe. Oh sure. It's cool. See also my first Coilgun (New coil - wire 2 mm) : m.kzhead.info/sun/Y9KGqdpwapGvloU/bejne.html
Yes, logarithmic spacing of the coils would add more velocity to the projectile. Also, some high speed switching of the coil during the projectile's midpoint of the coil (to reverse the magnetic polarity) would add some push to the projectile as well. Overall, looks like a very fun project and well documented and narrated video.
If you put a sensor before each segment, you can then use a timer for each segment to turn off right at the center. You have to calibrate each one individually and measure the output velocity. But the good thing is, you can calibrate each in order and it won't affect the later segments. Just optimize stage by stage.
You could easily calculate the velocity by how long the sensors get blocked and calibrate them this way without much trial and error.
@@WallabyWinters you could probably even design it to autoregulate. When the sensor gets blocked, activate the coil and charge a capacitor while it's blocked. The speed of the projectile (and time to keep coil active) will be proportional to the charge level (charge time) of the capacitor. So keep the coil running until the capacitor discharges below a certain level. Properly designed, this should be auto-regulating: faster projectile, lower charge time, lower coil active time, and vice versa.
Thank you for adding the captions. Always appreciate it.
Solid vid, high quality content
It even had a freaking recoil ... how cool that'd look in a 3d printed case like a gun.
Yes of course. It's cool. See also my first Coilgun (New coil - wire 2 mm) : m.kzhead.info/sun/Y9KGqdpwapGvloU/bejne.html
Will it penetrate a 1/16 inch plate of Steel???
You have done a great work!
This is cool. I love it ❤ Nice project
Since the speed increases for each coil, until the theoretical maximum speed, I believe you'll eventually end up at a point where the projectile moves past a coil faster than the coil can turn off using the photoresistor. You could get around this by using a timed release mechanism instead, but that would be hard to make modular. The timing between each coil is [projectile acceleration] less than the previous timer, thus turning the coil off just when the projectile hits the middle point.
Idea: If you use high Frequency AC where +ve & -ve cycles are synchronized with the speed of projectile. There wouldn't be a cutoff period in this case and resulting in 2x velocity with lesser coils.
How do you get hundreds of amps with high frequency AC when you only need a single pulse. You also need to synchronize the coil turn on with the projectile. Photo diodes work very well for a trigger.
that is amazing. Impresive!
WOW!!!! Fabulous project
Nice work! If you want some ideas(be warned: I do it OFTEN!), I would suggest you the following: -Warn the people to NEVER stand in line with EITHER of the barrel' s side. Because if something weird happens in the control circuitry, the bullet could oscillate backwards as well, as you already told us. -You could put some of the extra boards under the others and just put the coils up with the other ones, using longer coil wires for those on the bottom row. So that the gun will have a shorter barrel, making use of the free space on it. That' s why you are gonna need some extra holes on every board, so that the coils of the PCBs on the bottom will go thru. Maybe some zig - zag pattern would be nice, as well. -If you shape the end of the bullets like the real ones, they will have better penetration and less friction with the air(obviously...), but if you also make them a bit twisted, you will have more accuracy. Either on the bullets themselves, or the barrel, like on the real guns. -The capacitors need to have a high-impedance resistor on their leads(each of the capacitors), in order to automatically and gradually discharge themselves, when the power goes off. And lastly, greetings from Greece!
Keep in mind that what you just presented us is a G*U*N and therefore you could have problems with KZhead and the co-ps in your country, as well! In fact, I wonder how they allowed you to keep this video there, for so many days. I hope you aren' t behind the bars, by now...
@@howtomakeacoilgunoffallout4096 I might give them a try.
@@howtomakeacoilgunoffallout4096 I just watched some of your TataroMongolian videos which you sent me and I still prefer this one.
@@howtomakeacoilgunoffallout4096 Nah, I' m not even gonna bother...
@@AnotherUser1000 φυσικος εισαι?
I swear I saw these exact schematics and designs in use on sites like aliexpress before this video was released. Did you design or reverse engineer these?
Yes of course. Maybe, maybe. Look here: ! New: Apocalypse Coilgun, Fallout Coilgun kzhead.info/sun/ep1mmq-Ph6uDeac/bejne.html See also: Portable Super Coilgun: kzhead.info/sun/pcelfNeJcKCvmJ8/bejne.html&feature=youtu.be kzhead.info/sun/YNGjdNWolqGNjaM/bejne.html kzhead.info/sun/jLCIidyrqKigqmg/bejne.html kzhead.info/sun/qamrocxoe4GVhmg/bejne.html kzhead.info/sun/gqqCgZeomniQo40/bejne.html
Great job, I congratulate you on that. I hope you place us PCB Especially since this version is considered the oldest for you
Great explanation! I like the animations
Loading 450V caps to 500V? Cold joints? PCB traces clearance for high voltage? This project looks really safe xD
@@howtomakeacoilgunoffallout4096 Nice work :)
@@howtomakeacoilgunoffallout4096 cool :)
would be interesting if you could measure/calculate the speed and the kinetic energy of the bullet
Great sir, thank you for giving lessons to get better 😘😍🙏🙏👍👍
Very impressive and one to build in the near future. 👏
Of course. It's really cool. See also forgotten weapon Coilgun HS-47: kzhead.infoBPReIoZ-2Nw?feature=share kzhead.info/sun/Y7t_YaZ_pJuqanA/bejne.html
It seems to me that you can also use the PD to detect when to switch the polarity of the coil... that way you can use it to not only pull the projectile into it, but to also forcefully expel it to the next stage.
The projectile is ferromagnetic, that means it only has the polarity the coil inducts to it. Maybe you can take advantage of the small magnetization but just for a small fraction of a second
Suppose one uses neodymium magnet projectiles.
@@mikebond6328 in that case then it could work, but I don’t know the feasibility of neodymium magnet as a bullet, it easily cracks, and if heated, it loses their magnetic properties for ever (with induction, maybe the coil is heating
Question: How did you decide on the number of windings of each coil? At some point the speeding 'bullet' will cause a self induction in each coil that will counteract your generated induction.. Therefore, there will be a limit to the number of boards you can use...at some point the number of boards will not have any effect. That's why the number of windings on each coil is important. How did you deal with that?
The windings were made at random without any calculation for now. And yes, for sure there is a speed limit given by the structure and the components...
I hadn't thought about that but you are correct! If I understand at a certain point your CEMF will equal your applied voltage. The current induced*coil resistance would need to be greater than your voltage source. To achieve the same velocity (physical domain not considered) either turns needs to decrease or voltage to increase.
the issue of self induction is, i my oppinion negligible, the phenomenom of self induction is created by a changing magnetic field inside of the coil . With just a steel bullet, the magnetic field created by the bullet , because of the eddy currents will stay really low, in front of the magnetic field created by a neodinium magnet projectile (see tom stanton's Electromagnetic Rail Launcher) even with a magnetic projectile, in his build, the self induction is showed as negligible, not taking it into account for simulations give results very similar to the real data
@@aterxter3437 Yes, I agree too.
Let' ho start! Good project!
This is awesome, it reminds me of a scaled down version of a rail gun
El problema que veo en este diseño es que los proyectiles no mantienen su orientación. Esto sucede porque al contrario de lo que pasa en las balas, tu proyectil no rota sobre sí mismo, y no hay nada que se resista a que vaya girando a lo loco. Creo que sí inventaras algún sistema que hiciera rotar el proyectil, el momento angular haría que se estabilizara en el vuelo
I appreciate the spiel at the beginning about capacitor safety, but I feel like you really could have put gun safety in there too. Bare minimum is trigger discipline, "the gun is always loaded", and "do not point it at anything you don't want to destroy".
Incredible engineer... Congratulations !
This is awesome, would you be able to fire metal ball bearings?, if you could, you could have a hopper at the top and gravity feed them into the barrel ..........awesome work, this is the only 1 I've seen that is modular and also powerful
The projectile must be tipped with a non-ferrous material to trigger the sensor before the iron reaches the opposite magnetic field
Can we make a big tank connon out of this ? I love the idea of 8.8cm flak electric gun on a tiger 1 tank 🥰
Maybe, maybe. It's cool. See also my first Coilgun (New coil - wire 2 mm) : m.kzhead.info/sun/Y9KGqdpwapGvloU/bejne.html
Yes, the navy already has one. kzhead.info/sun/hJWPiKl_gZ14pn0/bejne.html
Another awesome , well presented video.
Brilliant design 👌🏽🤩
What you could do is add two pairs of infrared detectors at a fixed length, then measure the time it takes to cross them. With that, you could determine the speed of your bullet, and answer questions such as: Does the speed linearly increase when I add more stages? :)
Each stage will accelerate it by a smaller amount of velocity as a result of reduced time + greater impact of air friction as the object you are throwing accelerates. But the acceleration rate that each coil provides should be consistent - though as a net total, you will see diminishing returns (hello friction). The reason you see this is faster objects are impacted by air friction more aggressively, while faster moving objects will spend less time in the magnetic field accelerating. If you wanted to measure - you do have sensors built in already though: All you need is to track from the time you hit the button, until the time each subsequent sensor is triggered - and since you have a nice way built in to do it, what you are looking for is a simple drop in current which can be tracked pretty damn accurately. This would actually let you do something a little crazier and add in a timing circuit that is responsible for shutting off the magnetic field / turning them on, not based on the detection of the sensor - but when you calculate out the ideal shut off time (once accounting for other variables). This does add more complexity - which you will want to keep as simple as possible, as complex systems run slower, and running slower means we need to account for this in final output and... it just gets complicated fast. To summarize: You could, but I'm not sure it's necessary - unless that information is going to be useful in refining the optimization of the device.
@@formes2388 Removing the air from the tube would be a significant performance increase but also introduce detection problems, you should be able to detect the slug entering the coil electronically rather than optically but that would add significant complexity.
Great job Keeps on You're my hero's
I like how you made it very beginner friendly
but MDF is like cardboard .. you can even bust it with your fist?