Printable View
Remember computers 50 years ago? A world market for maybe 5 computers...then 640k should be enough for anybody. I think railguns will eventually be practical - look at the technological advancements in the last 75 years, and imagine 75 years down the road. It will be interesting, at least..I know that much :)
I was simply verifying the numbers quoted by Blacktooth from the TV program he watched. Those number were not meant as a hard-and-fast definition for a hand-held weapon.Quote:
Originally posted by russ_watters
SlartyB, your math looked good except for the size of the projectile - much too big for a handheld gun, and the projectile speed - much too slow. But cut the size by a factor of 10 and increase the speed by a factor of 10 (and square it) and you end up with 30 GW total power output. Of course increasing the speed decreases the time, which further increases the power output...
The point all remains the same though. Kind of energy required to propel a projectile is currently best produced by an explosion. Hypervelocity projectiles are cool, but use on a small scale will probably always be science fiction.
It has already been done in Britain (ahead of the USA, for once). The same man who designed the Iraqi "Supergun" that was discovered during the end the Gulf War, designed a gun that could put a small projectile into orbit. AFAIK, no actual satellites were put into orbit, but I have seen film of it in action.Quote:
BTW though - NASA has looked into using railguns or simple air rifles (well, not quite so simple - they would use heated, compressed H2 gas) to lauch satellites. Mount one a mile long on the side of a mountain and you can accelerate a projectile to orbital velocity. Of course the projectile has to be pretty rugged to survive the acceleration....
shoot a 2 projectiles in opposite directions :P no more recoil! need more power though
Good idea Don. If only there was a way to make one of the projectiles make a U-turn after fired and follow the same trajectory as the other one...
I would think though, that if an ample power supply could be shrunk down to a portable size, the recoil issue would be a relatively easy one to tackle.
me and my friend are going to build a coil gun
do any of you know of a cap off radioshack.com is like that of a flash camera cap
build caps yourselves with beer bottles!! it would be very cheap. i would imagine lots of high quality high voltage capacitors would be very expensive... it might take quite a few though AHHAHAHA
actually i'm sure there are better ways to build capacitors yourselves.. just search on google or something
just be careful with it. capacitors charged with HV == stuff you do not want to get too close to
dighn has already warned you - but I feel something stronger is in order - just so it really sinks in.Quote:
Originally posted by !shira!
me and my friend are going to build a coil gun
do any of you know of a cap off radioshack.com is like that of a flash camera cap
UNLESS YOU *REALLY* KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND TAKE ADAQUATE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS, CONSTRUCTING YOUR OWN CAPACITORS AND CHARGING THEM TO A HIGH VOLTAGE *WILL* KILL YOU. HIGH VOLTAGE POWER SUPPLIES HAVE NO MERCY ON THE FOOLISH
on second thought don't mess with that stuff. you do not want to be on the darwin award ;)
it's too dangerous to do as a hobby/side project. HV can jump across the air and break down ordinary "insulators" so it's not safe to handle.
so don't do it unless you are a professional :)
this is why I am going to start with camera flash caps and a 12VDC powersupplyQuote:
Originally posted by SlartyB
dighn has already warned you - but I feel something stronger is in order - just so it really sinks in.
UNLESS YOU *REALLY* KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND TAKE ADAQUATE SAFETY PRECAUTIONS, CONSTRUCTING YOUR OWN CAPACITORS AND CHARGING THEM TO A HIGH VOLTAGE *WILL* KILL YOU. HIGH VOLTAGE POWER SUPPLIES HAVE NO MERCY ON THE FOOLISH
as for making my own caps, I doubt it in the near future, those are dangereous because you don't know the limits on them and homemade things tend to fail sometimes
TV sets have some big caps in them as well.
you don't need camera flash caps with a 12VDc source. just ordinary ones with voltage ratings well above 12 is fine (like 30 VDC). you may need to take into account the induced voltage from the coil though cuz you dont want that to break down the capactiros... a lot of diodes might workQuote:
Originally posted by !shira!
this is why I am going to start with camera flash caps and a 12VDC powersupply
as for making my own caps, I doubt it in the near future, those are dangereous because you don't know the limits on them and homemade things tend to fail sometimes
That would be cool to make a coil gun...but it's not gonna be very powerful. I'd just stick to the good old spud gun if i were you ;)
I've made 3 of those bad-boys, best one launched a potato over 200 meters :D
I'm using flash camera caps becasue I have several of them
I remember that my physics teacher made a capacitor from tinfoil and clingfilm. And accidentally discharged it through himself* :rolleyes:
(*He didn't actually hurt himself)
Microwaves have high capacity capacitors too. They are real high volatage though. You'd probably have to use the power supply from the microwave which is like 100X more juice than needed to kill you. Needless to say it wouldn't be very safe.