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About This Site

Site

  1. Home
  2. What's New
  3. Site Map
  4. More...

Theory

  1. Basic Ideas
  2. Theory
  3. Capacitors
  4. More...

Coilguns

  1. Mark V
  2. Mark IV
  3. Mark III
  4. Mark II
  5. Mark I
  6. Pulsed Induction
  7. AC Induction
  8. Discovery

Levitators

  1. Barry's
  2. Hard Drive
  3. Visual Maglev
  4. More...

Projects

  1. KITT Car
  2. Lariat Chain

Barry's Coilgun Design Site

Learn about coilgun design. These web pages describe theory, design and implementation. We have several single-stage coilguns to test ideas for efficiency and performance.

Current projects: Click here to see my best coilgun, and my levitator schematic and my RLC Simulator.

coil gun with one coil What is a coilgun or gauss gun? It accelerates a piece of iron or steel down a tube. The tube runs through a series of electromagnetic coils (like solenoids). There are no sparks or noise or impressive side effects (or parts to wear out). Some careful timing circuits energize each coil in sequence. The principle of magnetic attraction draws the projectile along at rapidly increasing speed.

Why build a coilgun? It demonstrates many basic concepts of magnetic machines. A coilgun is foremost an example of a solenoid. These appear practically everywhere, from car door locks to doorbells, from diskette drive ejectors to fuel injectors. The only difference is that most solenoids limit the range of travel, and usually have a spring return. A coilgun is also an example of a simple linear motor.

A coilgun is scalable to very large applications, possibly as large as a mass driver to put payloads into orbit. It's a keen space-age toy. It has no moving parts -- there's the magic of invisible forces at work. It requires no special construction techniques or unusual tools. Winding coils is fun and relaxing (at least for the first few!). Even small coils are remarkably powerful.

You can also learn about magnetic levitation here. These pages include complete design details for several maglev demonstrators which levitate small iron parts. Read all about it and see levitation pictures.

4/28/2009 - Bought a six-stage university project coilgun with optical sensors. This will be my next project after my big Mark 5 coilgun is built and tested. I wish I could work full time on coilguns.

Mark 2 Coilgun Mark 2 Coilgun


What Am I Doing Right Now?

  • Wed, Dec 31st
    • @mulka thanks for Fisher Fire blog report, I look forward to more tech news, the more random the better! http://blog.kylemulka.com [04:00 PM]
    • has anyone tried Topsy search? (http://topsy.com) Do you like it? [04:00 PM]
    • my new best friend is sending me some hockey puck SCRs for the mere price of shipping. What a guy! [04:00 PM]
    • @jayshaffer yes, who cares where artists live. But ya can't be a starving artist. Movies of clouds? You have too much time on your hands! [04:00 PM]
  • Twitter barryha »
 
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