Why am I writing this? I am an electrical engineer that likes to optimize designs and understand the basics. (Okay, a geek.) This project uses electrical engineering concepts which are both well-known and seldom-used. Some of these topics are challenging, and I wish to help others by sharing my results. I also want to publish my findings and exchange ideas with others engineers working on coilguns.
This is an engineer's notebook, and I invite you to follow along my journey of discovery!
The information may be freely copied or distributed subect to the inclusion of the author's name (Barry Hansen) and the web site address (www.coilgun.info/home.htm or www.coilgun.info ). You have permission to copy, translate, reprint, edit or reproduce this material in any form. Also note that including my site address in your materials has the benefit of allowing your readers to visit here for the latest information.
The author is a software engineer with a Master's degree in Electrical Engineering from Washington State University in 1980. He has no affiliation with Microsoft, except for owning a ridiculously small amount of stock.
This site is designed to use CSS and Java. This is written for and tested with modern standards-compliant browsers. You will have no problems with the latest version of Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla, Firefox or Opera.
I officially support MS Internet Explorer version 6 and up. If you have problems sing a web browser that is not, that's too bad. I don't really want to hear about it. On the other hand, I am always grateful for comments about content, magnetic xircuits, mathematics and constructive criticism. But on the third hand, if you're unable to browse this far then you haven't read this notice, so you better tell me about the problem so I can fix it.
These pages were first written using MS FrontPage 98 and tested with Microsoft Internet Explorer v4.0. In December '98, I switched to MS Visual InterDev 6.0 in an attempt to escape the problems with FrontPage 98 naming links in mixed case, even though the target filename was only lower case. My ISP's Linux server would report these links as 404s, requiring manual editing of the HTML to repair the links. In 1999 we switched to Macromedia Dreamweaver, which has a superior user interface for HTML editing. In August 2003 we added IntelliJ IDEA for Java and Javascript editing. In 2004 we upgraded to Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, and later to Dreamweaver 8.
The graphics were created in Paintshop Pro 5.0, and later versions up to Paint Shop Pro XI, after Jasc was acquired by Corel. The animations were produced in Jasc Animation Shop 1.0. From other web development in 2007 I discovered Adobe Photoshop CS2 is infinitely superior to PaintShop Pro, and I've been kicking myself for not switching a few years earlier.
The photographs were taken with a Sony Mavica FD-81 digital camera, and later with a Sony Cybershot P-9 and later still with a Sony Cybershot P-10.
Some HTML source files were reformatted by HTML Tidy, an open-source beautification project by SourceForge. I recommend Tidy because it also reports syntax errors and optionally fixes them.
These web pages were hosted by The River of Phoenix, Arizona, USA from May 2002 until January 2007. However, they failed to handle e-mail properly for several months and I moved the site to my own web server at the Fisher Plaza Data Center, a top-tier co-location facility.
This site uses Google Analytics on most pages, to provide the web site author with usage pattern information. This tool uses cookies and aggregates information from visitors. It does not reveal any personally identifiable information.
I do not maintain any distribution lists, nor do I release or publish any names or addresses. I am only a hobbyist and have no interest in commercializing this subject or selling merchanidise.
If you send me e-mail, your information is confidential. However, I reserve the priviledge of publishing good ideas that may benefit others. Generally I ask permission before plagerizing, and I happily give credit where it is due. When possible, I intend to test and experiment with the ideas before publishing them.
Last update May 1, 2007 by Barry Hansen ©1998-2008