Monday, Oct 31th, 2005
Halloween! well I went to the shop and used the tabel saw to cut the 4x8 fiber glass sheets, a 10 inch carbide 40 tooth trim blade worked very well.
I have the pieces for the top and bottom and all around the sides for insulation. it was quite dusty, and man do I itch! I still have to drill all the holes for caps.
This will be a big project.
Friday, Oct 21th, 2005
I had some questions concerning how the bank will be layed out, and what kind of forces the buss bar will see.
Here is the layout, and the model it in FEMM. But I also plan to have fiberglass to hold the bars in place.
Thursday, Oct 20th, 2005
Here is a picture of the beginning of the bank.
Wednesday, Oct 19th, 2005
I took a picture of the buss bar that I have been drilling. There is a can there to show how big the bank will be.
I got a tons more emails, and a couple generous folks helped out more with funding a few more needed parts.
Tuesday, Oct 18th, 2005
Thanks to HackADay, and all it's readers, I have gotten email from alot of you, with questions, comments, and suggestions.
Last night I finished up drilling most of the main copper buss bars. Tonight I plan to clean them up, debur them, and polish them up a bit.
then the plan is to begin assembling the whole bank. I have also been giving advice to some college students that are building smaller versions.
I need to purchase about 75 dollars worth of flame proof electrical grade material to use as insulators between the caps and the buss bar.
Wednesday, Oct 5th, 2005
Tonight I started bolting caps to the buss bar to ensure my drilling is correct.
To this point I have 45 caps installed this took me about 5 hours.
The more caps installed the heavier and harder the whole assembly gets to work on.
But I have proved my drilling is acceptable. I will continue drilling on Monday
Tuesday, Oct 4th, 2005
I have measured and drilled 3 of the 10 buss bars needed for the cap bank.
The fiberglass came last night, as did the last 2 of the buss bars. This is going to be a very tight fit
(technically; I mean "high power density bank", practically; I mean "boy I hope it fits!")
The things I have to aquire yet are end buss bars, thin insulators sheets for between caps, and cap terminals.
Also I am sort of seaching for a machine shop with good CNC, that would be willing to donate some help in machining the new rail(which I have all the pieces)
All I could promise you in return is a link on my site and the blog of my experience, and if you are close enough, the chance to see a railgun fire.
Saturday, Sept 19th, 2005
The buss bar is here! I am almost done with the wheels and base for the new enclosure.
I have to make it extra strong as I am guessing this will weigh ~1000lbs and be 18"x55"x24"
I have not ordered the fiberglass sheets yet. I did take a stab at drawing the schematic of our design.
I chose to use Express SCH to do this, it is great software.
Saturday, Sept 10th, 2005
I have been teaching myself a program called FEMM (Finite Element Method Magnetics) it is a program solver for low frequency 2D and axisymmetric magnetic problems.
I had some help from a friend to show me the basic's as it is a little qwirky, but once you get used to it it is really quite easy.
This has been a very useful tool for me to model different rails and augmentation ideas.
Friday, Aug 18th, 2005
Over the last week I have been doing inventory of all the parts I have to move into the new cap bank.
Since this new bank is going to be much more compact and much higher power density.
I want to make sure everything is perfect the first time around.
One of the design considerations was to use brass hardware to bolts the caps to the buss bar to improve conductivity at each joint.
Last night I was able to order all the hardware I needed, because of a generous donation from looker.com.
All remaining Buss bar will be ordered today.
There are 2 things left to order for the bank, one is 2 sheets of Electrical Grade Fiberglass
6’x36”x.25” @ $129ea mcmaster,com number 8549K86, the other is 2 copper bars for the ends, 1”x6’x.25” @$ 32each. mcmaster.com number 88865K41.
I just want to thank everyone again for their generosity, support, and emails on this project.
Friday, July 29th, 2005
I cleaned up a bit in the workshop and found some things I did not need any more, and sold them.
This along with a large donation from Doktor Aus, I will be placing an order for the buss bar required to start the new cap bank.
The only other thing I will require is a ton of brass hardware, about 89 dollars worth.
After I get these bolts, I will hopefully get a few of my friends/brother over to begin drilling the buss bar, and assembling the bank.
Friday, June 24th, 2005
I updated a ton of links along the side of my page during lunch. Some of them are quite interesting.
If you have a link that I am missing shoot me an email by clicking on my name at the top of this page.
This weekend I am going to try and gather up all the pieces and parts for the next version of the bank, and
see what I am missing. I know I am close very close! thank you all who have helped via donations.
Thursday, June 23rd, 2005
I did all I can think of for rail graphics, so I wanted to do some Armature ones. Here they are!
I also worked a bit more on the schematic, and the list of things I need to get for the new bank.
the most outstanding is the Buss bar. I still need to come up with $75
Wednesday, June 22nd, 2005
Yet another couple graphics. A multistage railgun, and a parallel augmented railgun. I hate using other peoples graphics, they spent a lot of time creating them,
and there are only a few site that have any pictures explaining things. ANd if I wanted to use pictures on a WIKI, I now have my own.
Tuesday, June 21st, 2005
Here is one more graphic of the next rail we will build. It is a series augmented design.
Augmenting a Railgun with one or more turns can theoretically increase the performance more than
twice that of 2 parallel rails alone. Augmenting the rails increases the amount of magnetic flux in the bore
and therfore increases the electromagnetic accelerating force.
I still need another 75$ to purchase the buss bars.
Saturday, June 18th, 2005
Friday, June 17th, 2005
I decided to do a little work on some WIKI sites www.4HV.org
and I made started making up some graphics on railguns. This is my first one, and will use it on that site.
Wednesday, June 15th, 2005
I got a bit bored tonight after softball, and decided to try and mill out a projectile out of some scrap aluminum.
Friday, June 10th, 2005
Ok I got a quote back for the buss bar I need, I am only short by 75$ thanks to a large donation from Doktor Aus.
If anyone was considering helping out with this project it would be most gracious. Or if you can swing a corporate sponsorship from your company.
I would appreciate it. Besides the buss bar I think I have all the parts needed to more than double the bank size, and do everything in buss bar.
I also have all the parts for a double turn Rail.
Saturday, May 28th, 2005
On Friday I received a large donation from Doktor Aus for a better part of the copper buss bars. Attached is his note:
"Dear Jason:
I hope this contribution can be used to cover some of the copper buss bar costs.
I look forward to bigger and more powerful designs in the future. Doktor Aus”
I am very thankful for this contribution and am most anxious to bring this new cap bank from paper to real life.
With Monday being a holiday, and my normal day to work on the railgun, I am going to try an plan another day, and with everything going well should be able to repair the charger and get back on schedule.
Sunday, May 25th, 2005
More of the charger blew up than we thought, so it is not fixed yet.
I really only have one day a week to work on it, so things move slow.
I did manage to get 18 more caps that puts us very close to the 256 caps needed for the new bank.
As I am sure you have read our current bank is only 100 caps.
So I need to order buss bar or get some donated or a reduced price. I need 2.5"x 55".25"thick copper bar.
The switch over to the new bank and tear down of the old will be some what labor intensive, but I plan to enlist some help.
Sunday, May 15th, 2005
We had a slight mishap in our charging circuit. there was too much ripple on the buss for the IGBT this caused it to short out.
I hope to have this corrected Monday. It has been far too cold out to do much in the way of firing the railgun. I hope that will change soon.
I think Monday will be spent making sure the charging circuit is functioning properly. and moving the cap bank so it will be easier to get the railgun outside.
Wednesday, February 2nd, 2005
I have done some gathering of more caps for the new version of the bank. I have also some of the steel enclosure completed.
With today being ground hog day I am hopping for an early spring to begin testing of our current rail, before moving on to the next version.
I am also helping one college student, and one highschool student with railguns, they are both well on their way. Both of these banks are small scale around 3KJ.
I would also recommend the forums at www.4HV.org as a good place to learn and discuss Railguns.
I have also been doing some research on multiturn rail designs, as well as multi stage. For the Multi stage I am looking for a high voltage pulse cap to be donated.
When spring comes be ready from some new pictures and videos.
Monday, December 6th, 2004
It has been a long time since my last update, and I want to ensure everyone that this project is still moving forward.
I have begun work on a home mill CNC machine. This will help us make parts, and speed things up once I get this conversion completed.
The thought process for bank number 2 has begun. Max number of caps could be 272, however the cost of copper buss bar will be 300-600 dollars.
I have the enclosure designed, and could begin construction if I had the Buss bar.
The rail spacers were broken while trying to install the trigger sensors, and the circuit for the trigger needs to be cleaned up, some of it is still on a bread board.
We will then be able to begin test shots, speed measurements, and current wave form documentation.
Wednesday, September 1st, 2004
test 120k
I was getting anxious to fire the new rail and we made a test shot with out injection.
We took no data of any kind other than video footage. It was too dark for Chronograph, and I did not have the right stuff to take current measurements.
We are not done with the trigger circuit to be able to use pneumatic injection. But we fired any way, I say you have to have fun too right?
The video is dark, but it shows things are progressing!
Monday, August 16th, 2004
After getting a new solenoid valve, and putting it on over the weekend, I was able to take it over to the shop and test fire it.
We took some chrony readings and are at quite consistant at 250ft/s.
I could not ask for better injection results. We also started talking over some sensor trigger ideas. And the need for a quick connect to fill the air tank.
Tuesday, August 6th, 2004
I had the day off from work and spend almost the whole day affixing the injector the sprinkler valve, and it to the rail.
We are going to be using 100psi for injection. We did a few test shots and are not quite happy with the results.
The valve oscillates and dose not shot out the projectile with full force. I am going to find a different manufacture tonight, and get one on order. I am happy with how it came together. After getting the new valve installed next time I will take some speed measurements from air only so we have a good starting reference. Still have to build the timing circuit before firing with power.
Tuesday, August 3rd, 2004
I finally got motivated, and got the end of the rail made! It is Teflon bolted on with quick connect air.
We crammed a piece of carbon in it and hit the air and WHAM it came out with flying colors. I have a pvc tank made up, but have been missing a solenoid as a valve.
I found a sprinkler valve with very high flow, 150psi and the price was right at 20 bucks.
After I get this plumbed we will do test shots with a chronograph to get good speed measurements before applying any power.
The next step is to make a trigger circuit for the scr's to fire after the valve opens. We will have to make the timing percisely adjustable.
Monday, July 12th, 2004
We hooked up a balancing resistor, then charged up the bank up to 800 volts.
860 volts is full charge, but at 800 volts we were able to achieve 110,000 Amps with a bit over 1mS current pulse. This was very close to the predicted current.
Our scr bank fired flawlessly, and there are only a few more things to finish up before being able to try the new rail.
Monday, June 28th, 2004
After testing our charge circuit and finding a small filter cap that was not up to 1200 volts.
We realized the that the transformers in series did not give us enough current to charge the caps at a rate that was acceptable for us.
So we changed them out with 2 larger sized ones from my junk box, which will more than double our charge rates.
There are 2 things left before a full load test, 1 fuse the charge circuit, 2 put balancing resistors across the cap banks.
Then we should be able to measure a current pulse. Then we have a couple nights work left to finish the next rail, which is a far cry from our old one (2 copper bars bolted to a board).
But there is room for improvement there too.
Tuesday, June 1st, 2004
Tonight I fixed our voltage divider to a 10:1 that will handle over the 1200 volts possible with our charge circuit.
then I added a quick connector on the front to be able to disconnect the firing button. There are 3 things left to do.
1. Wire the transformers in Series.
2. Add a second Current limit resistor on our igbt constant current source.
3. Add balancing resistors across the 2 banks.
Wednesday, May 5th, 2004
After hooking up the current shunt,we then charged up the bank half way.
430 volts is half of our energy. We were able to hit 57,000 amps with a 1mS current pulse.
At full charge before redoing all the wiring we were only 70,000 amps with about a 5mS pluse.
So when we are able to charge fully up to 860 volts we should be well into the 110,000 amp range.
Tuesday, May 4th, 2004
Well everything is now mounted put back together. It has been rewired for 860 volts (2 banks of 50 caps)
All of the connections are silver soldered where possible. There are now double runs of 4/0 high strand wire where we could not use buss bar, (we only had single 4/0 before).
We have charged up the bank in testing to 100 volts and let it sit for and hour, to ensure no caps we damaged during all the mechanicals being redone.
Next time I hope to charge up to 430 and test the current, and hopefully it is higher 70,000 amps.
I yet have to redo the constant current supply to be able to charge up to 860.
Sunday, March 3rd, 2004
Above shows the cap bank rewired and put back together with hinges for easy access. I will work on mounting the control box on Monday.
Thursday, January 29th, 2004
Last night, I drilled 64 holes in our metal enclosures for the cap banks to begin to mount hinges.
This will allow us more easy access into the cap banks for maintenance.
We have maybe 2 more nights of drilling and bolting of the hinges before we can begin to rewire the banks for 860 volts, and use a huge ga of wire (350MCM).
It is far to cold to fire the unit outside, and inside is far to loud.
So I am content with taking our time, while waiting for warmer weather. Next Monday, I will expect to get farther installing the hinges.
Wednesday, December 17th, 2003
I have not done a good job updating the blog, but that does not mean there are not things going on.
we have been working on the cap enclosures. We are making them modular so that can be moved around, and we are putting wheels on the whole assembly.
Since it is all apart, we will take that opportunity to reconfigure the banks to 860 volts, and have already silver soldered any connections we could.
Monday, December 1st, 2003
I got some samples from NAC Carbon Products and Graphic Machining Inc. The graphite was from NAC and it was cut to size by Graphite Machining, Inc.
These are the perfect size to fit our rail.
Monday, November 24th, 2003
I did alittle work on drilling 22 holes to house bolts to hold the pieces of the rail together.
Monday, November 17, 2003
Tonight we were able to take some measurements and were quite happy with the results. However, the first shot we managed to blow apart a connector. We took a lot of different measurements, 2 of the shots we measured peak current, both shots were about 70,000 Amps.
After we redo the Cap banks, increase the size of the wires interconnecting the banks, silver solder all connections, and go to 860 volts. I can't even imagine the current pulse we could obtain.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Last night we made a few test shots, and took some current measurements with a digital scope that can save spread sheet values of the pulse.
We still have to look at the data.
Thursday, November 6, 2003
In the mail tonight, I got a real shunt from Simpson Electric. These are really great people to deal with.
I want to thank them for helping me out with this project. It is a 500 amp 50mv shunt. So if we hit 100KA there would be 10 volts across it.
But only for a brief time.
Wednesday, November 5, 2003
Tonight we did alittle playing around with a laser diode and detector to use as a trigger in the new rail.
The beam will shoot through the rail and when broken, will trigger the SCR banks.
This will ensure the slug is fully in the rails before firing.
Tuesday, November 4, 2003
I think we gave up on trying to calibrate the shunt, and are going to try the 06508.
And hopefully after benchmarking with the new shunt Monday, the following Wednesday we can try the new rail.
I still need one more length of copper for the rail. Then we can finish up construction.
Tuesday, October 28, 2003
I got the stuff I ordered from MCmaster car. I cut the stock to length, and checked everything out for size.
Monday, October 27, 2003
Since the last update I received a donation from Brian A.
I then put in an order for many of the pieces of the rail! Thank you Brian! While tonight we started calibrating the current shunt.
We made some measurements but did not finish this portion. I expect to start working on the rail later this week.
I would like to build two rails, because as you can see they get pretty beat up and we can rotate them as we rebuild the other one.
Next time with any luck we will have a current pulse graph, maybe the amplitude will be unknown still but the discharge time will be a start.
Thursday, October 23, 2003
This is a picture of the shunt that we had been working on. It is 2 copper slabs with perf's cut in the back to insert the copper sheets.
On the other side there are silver plated copper lugs. The whole this is then silver soldered together.
We started to test the shunt with the 3 ohm load resistor bank shown below. But it got too late and we did not hardly get started calibrating it.
Please forgive the last few picture's quality, they were taken with my camera phone.
Monday, October 20, 2003
Tonight we did finish up the 3 ohm resistor that we will use to calibrate our shunt. Each resistor is 250 watts .3 ohm.
Peak wattage for 5 sec is 5 times the rated. So we should be able to charge our bank half way up with out blowing them up.
The resistors are jumpered with 4ga wire. And there is a 50 watt gold dale resistor and floppy on the floor for size compare.
Sunday, October 19, 2003
Today I sat down and figured out an easy to assemble rail from stock parts no machining.
We will only need to make 2 cuts and drill 30 or so holes. It will be pneumatically injected.
It will be 3 feet long, and contain a .25 tall x .5 wide x 1 projectile. However, I do not have the funds for this piece yet.
Above is the wish list from McMasterCar . Any contributions to building the rail are welcome.
Friday, October 17, 2003
I have not done a good job of adding to the blog lately, But there is alot going on.
I recieved a very generous donation from Jim in California. Thank you Jim.
I recieved a TON of 1000 volt wire, and we are in the process of redoing the control wiring.
Art is working very hard building the current shunt, so we can take some measurements and do some benchmarking.
I am very happy with Catalog.com, the place that is hosting our site. With over 1000 visitors a day and over 1 gig throughput every day, We needed something more robust.
I also just paid the next 3 months subscription to the message board. If you have not been there please check it out.
Monday, October 14, 2003
I just moved the site to an awesome server.
So there will be no more traffic issues, and I can stop worrying about the site and get back to the railguns!
And updating this site ;) This is hosting package is really a great deal. Click on the link and check it out.
Monday, October 6, 2003
Tonight we ran another run of 4 ga to the rails, and braided them. Now we have 2 sets consisting of 3 braided runs of high strand 4 ga.
Saturday, October 4, 2003
Three stills taken in order from video 14, notice the bright flash coming out of the barrel, and then the second 2 showing the glowing projectile
I wanted to put up a warning sign Paul sent me, I really like this one...
Friday, October 3, 2003
Started work on a 3.6kj @ 860v more compact version for something to do when I can't get to the shop. I will start a seperate blog for that.
on the side.
Wednesday, October 1, 2003
I added Video 13,14,15 Video 1 sucks, don't use that till I replace it. I am working on frame by frame stills.
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
I made an animated gif1.1MB to show one of our shots.
I also added move movies on the side.
Tuesday, September 30, 2003
Last night we got a few things done.
We added the switch from CyberGuys.As seen in the picture above.
We also mounted a new set of rails to a different board, and put the spring injector on.
The rails were mounted .25" apart so we can try using the graphite sheet. I also cut 2 slugs .75"x1.5"x.25"
Monday, September 29, 2003
Monday morning! Yuk.
Until you go to get the mail and you get parts for the railgun!
Today I got the switch from CyberGuys.
I will install this safety switch right away tonight.
I will have some more pictures to post tonight.
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
530fps! I am very happy with results tonight. Our peak shot was 530 fps(361mph) we fired around ten shots with each shot being quite consistent.
I think since we were firing outside the muzzle flash was not as big of an issue as others had experienced. We are not fully discharging the caps however.
So there are many improvements to be made. I just wanted to give a Big Thanks to Cyberguys for donating the switch!
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
The goal is to get to the shop after dark to be able to use the chronograph. Side note was featured on
Geek Extreme, and Geek Press
both of these guys are pretty cool and I wanted to thank them.
I was donated the red toggle switch by CyberGuys, I will be anxious to get it installed when it comes in.
I have a couple people emailing me about graphite. I am very anxious to receive that.
Monday, September 22, 2003
Tonight was very fun, we made a spring and shaft injector system, with a switch attached to fire the SCR's at the correct time.
We made 3 shots. We shot through a cardboard box both side, and 2 inches into pink dense foam used for house insulation.
The first shot was after dark so we were not able to use the chronograph. but we were able to weigh the graphite projectile, it weighed in @ 22grains.
The third shot we fired out in the air just to see the tracer, it was more me goofing around than anything, Man did it zip!
I see there are more posts on the message board, and I have gotten some very interesting emails. As well as part donations. I am still looking for a sponsor for the message board, 10 bucks.
Friday, September 19, 2003
Last night I started the beginnings of the RailGun Message Board.
Let me know your thoughts on this? I am also looking for sponsors for the message board. as the free version expires in one month. Please help build up the chest.
I also got a couple people interested in getting us samples of graphite, so far on the parts I was looking for.
Thursday, September 18, 2003
We need the switch above to prevent damage to src array, ie firing the gate with no voltage across them.
We also need of a few minor parts to move forward.
1000v 16 ga hookup wire in red, black, white, and yellow.
We need more Graphite!
If you can help us out obtaining these parts, or donate with the link along the side, we can move forward more quickly. Thanks!
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
W00T!!! Tonight was alot of fun. It works! even with a crappy rail, and with no design work put into the rail.
We took a piece of the Carbon rod cut it to .32" long and put it between our rails and it slings out of there FAST!
I am not sure how fast yet. however it is really light in weight. The carbon shows only minor rail damage.
This is mainly from no injector system yet. We will have something next week to play with. Maybe some spring or solenoid.
Wednesday, September 17, 2003
Prefect timing for tonight we recieved the Silver grease!
This should greatly reduce any resistance we have in the rails and will keep the projectile from welding.
Now that we are trying carbon, this is not an issue, but it just can't hurt!
I sure am looking forward to trying this tonight.
Tuesday, September 16, 2003
I need to find a source for 1000 volt rated 14ga wire. I emailed a couple places asking for samples.
As we really need to rewire the unit to enable us to up the voltage from 430 to 860 volts, and to make it look pretty.
The Joules would be the same @ 30,508 Joules, either parallel or series.
I will post along the side the my start on a spread sheet to automatically do the math commonly used in a railgun project.
Please feel free to add to it.
Sunday, September 14, 2003
Well just to let everyone know I am still working on this project, however it has been raining since Friday.
Testing the rail out side is too risky in the rain. I am very anxious to try the carbon. However there is one more road block.
I have to travel Monday, Tuesday, will return on Wednesday, so hopefully I will be able to go over to the shop Wednesday night.
I have a way to cut the carbon, I think?!? So we will see how that works out, and hopefully by Wednesday the silver grease will show up.
Remember I will need more carbon. so if you donate 20 bucks or more I will give ya credit, and mail you a cd with the movies.
Friday, September 12, 2003
Today is a happy day. I received 2 of the 3 things I ordered. The Carbon sheet, and rod. Here is the link
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Last night I was able to mount the IGBT/heatsink and fans. They had just been sort of hanging there.
We also separated some of the cap wires, to reduce them jumping around during discharge.
Then we tweaked the constant current supply to push the charge circuit a bit harder.
Since today is 911, I wanted to take the time to state that this project is for experimentation only.
This is a science/physic's project, nothing more. If you want a weapon, get a firearm.
They are smaller, lighter, and more practical. More importantly cheaper, hint
Wednesday, September 10, 2003
Today has been quite productive. I have made the web site so it can handle a bit more traffic.
I ordered a 4"x6" sheet of carbon, and a 6" long 3/4"dia rod. I also ordered a tube of silver conductive grease.
This project is getting to be expensive. On a suggestion from a visitor I will add a link to my paypal account, to accept donations.
I would be grateful for any help! Click on the Paypal logo.
Tuesday, September 9, 2003
Art finished the new and improved part of the constant current control for the IGBT. I wired it in last night.
The next pic is the new practice rail next to the old one. We ran double run 4ga.
Please keep in mind this rails are only to play with they are not the real ones.
The rail is spaced a bit farther apart to try different slugs. I have new videos on the side.
Monday, September 8, 2003
Today has been a bit crazy, but I did manage to get over to the shop and we tried a new set of rails, and different slugs.
Art and I also ran a double run of 4ga out to the new rails, and put in the new constant current supply. We took a few more videos, and a couple pictures.
I will try to post them tomorrow after some of the traffic dies down.
Monday, September 8, 2003
Today we got Slashdotted
I was not sure we were worthy of this, but I can assure you my server was NOT.
I am in process of moving this to a better server. So please don't hate me!
Thanks to my little brother for letting me use his server for now. This graph shows his bandwidth.
Saturday, September 6, 2003
One of the next things we need to start working on is the optical trigger.
I think I am going to look at some of the coil gunners sites to see if they have come up with anything better than what I have in my head.
this guy has something some what interesting, in that he is looking for missed pulses.
We also need wheels, an injector, and some new rails. Anybody have a rail they would like to donate?
Saturday, September 6, 2003
Well I was not able to get the rail from Art. Hopefully we can get everything set up Monday.
I am hoping some of you edit the warning label below.
However Monday I should get pictures of the new constant current supply, the slugs, and the new rails.
I did add some new links to other sites on the left. If you know of any more sites please email me.
I have also come up with an Idea that will revolutionize the armature rail gun world.
It is the use of
Silver grease!
I think this will help decrease damage to rail's improve rail conductivity.
Friday, September 5, 2003
I am glad it is Friday. There is not much going on with the project today.
I may try to get Art to drop off the old rail so I can work on the new one this weekend.
so Monday we can start off with the Rail already complete.
We are also going to do a double run 4ga to the rail to get more current.
I also started working on a spread sheet in excel to do all the math automatically after putting in known values.
I scanned in a couple of warning labels like the one here.
I have to add some text to the bottom of it. Maybe some of you can think of something clever?
Thursday, September 4, 2003
Just got home from work. But today I gave my USB portable hard drive to a friend to have him make the videos more compressed, and edit them a bit.
I found a bunch of scrap silver plated copper.
This will make good projectiles. We should be able to cut a bunch of the out of these.
Next time we plan on trying a new practice rails, and use the slugs we cut. I will try to do the math tonight.
I spoke with Art on the phone he is working on redoing the constant current source.
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
Here is the 24 volt supply that runs the fans for the IGBT, and the reference for the constant current source.
Art is going to make a new constant current supply in this nice little DIN rail mount case.
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
I had said I would get a new picture of the push to test button. SO here it is.
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
This section I will devote to the wimpy rail we have been using for testing.
But I have to admit is holding up rather well.
Remember Video 6 and 7 show how the rail got like this.
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
I went over to the shop today, and Art and I did some more work.
We were able to take out the old IGBT, and test the one with heat sink. We also added 2 40mm fans.
It stays nicely cool. Glad to be over that problem. Next we made the big red button box.
Discussed tonight was naming the button like the one in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.
I really need to re-read that book.
After everything was wired we tested it, and made Video6 and 7
I also documented some other things we skipped over on this site.
So tonight-tomorrow will be one really big blog.
Wednesday, September 3, 2003
I had thought about maybe winding up some toroids to use as a current transformer.
I would like to set them up in a multistage step down configuration. I will start this maybe next week.
Tonight I would like to finally mount the IGBT and heatsink. I would also like to add a 24 Volt fan.
And as a mini side project I want to put our BIG RED FIRE button in a plastic box.
Pictures to come tomorrow.
Sunday, August 24, 2003
I decided to post a few pictures of the guts of the control box. We really need to clean up this mess.
We also need to redo all the wiring in a higher voltage rated wire. Or heatshrink over the existing wire.
But for now it works!
Saturday, August 23, 2003
Here is another throwback to show you a bit about the power supply section.
The 2 black things are 100VA step up transformers we can series them for 860 or parallel them for 430.
The middle is the rectifier, and filter caps.
The end is the IGBT which is used as a constant current source.
We still need to heat sink this part, to something better than steel.
Friday, August 22, 2003
well we are doing some firing up and testing of everything running as a system.
The first picture is a picture of a coil we discharged into.
The next is our home made rail with extra "CHEESE". this thing is terrible, but is fun to blow up.
I made it from silver plated copper bar, while I was watching tv. But we have some videos of things actually accelerating.
Friday, August 22, 2003
Well taking a step back in time to document some other aspects. We ran into a huge design issue.
The inductance of the entire system when firing.
We found that the "ring" caused when we discharged was huge!
It was enough to kill components and to reverse charge the caps by 150 volts.
to prevent this we used an array of diodes in the reverse across the caps in series with a resistor.
We can now clamp the voltage across the caps at -.7 Vdc.
Friday, August 22, 2003
This part was done along time ago but we never really documented it very well. So her it goes.
the first picture is a picture of the SCR we are using for our switch.
the next is our array of nine SCR's which we have since upgraded to 18 SCR Array.
Thursday, August 21, 2003
I got some terminal blocks for the output wires.
The wire is going to be double run 4/0 as you can see in the picture, the 4/0 compared to 16ga wire.
the wires will then go into a terminal block. notice the holes we punched with a greenlee punch.
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
We added a push to test button on the operator panel. It is not shown in the picture below, but is in the empty space.
Wednesday, August 20, 2003
This is the operator panel the top part is a voltage meter.
It is programmable to shut off the charge circuit automatically, when the caps are charged.
The bottom portion in bottom left is the power on switch, above that is power on light.
next is charge on switch, and above that is the fully charged light.
On the upper left is the charge rate pot which adjusts the constant current charge rate.
Tuesday, August 19, 2003
We did some testing and we quickly realized that the IGBT we are using is getting to hot being heat sunk to the steel cabinet.
So here is the IGBT and the heat sink we will use.
Monday, August 18, 2003
As you can see we were able to move the control panel on the side.
Here is the picture with control box mounted on the side.
Saturday, August 16, 2003
I have to work on a term paper to finish up a class I am taking.
So I don't think I will get to do much on the rail gun until Monday.
However, on Monday I would like to move the top control cabinet off of the top and punch some hole in one of the sides and mount it there.
This picture shows the the control box mounted on top
This picture shows the the control box mounted on top
Friday, August 15, 2003
Well I got back this morning from a business trip in Cleveland.
While at our corporate building yesterday as the days was coming to an end and I could fly home so I could back to working on the rail gun.
The power goes out. The building maint department makes an announcement to proceed to the stairs and exit the building.
Mind you we are on the 24th floor. So we hike it down the stairs in dress clothes and lugging my laptop.
We get tot the hotel, and they tell use they have no rooms. the traffic is NUTS as the stop and go lights are not working.
Luckily I had rented a car that I was going to use to take to the airport. I was at a conference with a lot of other business colleges.
I had a little compact car. and 4 of us decided to drive back as it was obvious that the airport was not going to get going any time soon.
We start the hike from Cleveland to Milwaukee where my car is in a parking garage.
And where we can return the rental. We did have a concern we would be able to get far enough from Cleveland to fill the car up with gas when it was empty.
Everything went great 80mph all the way. I got home very early this morning after driving through the night. Only stopping at Wendys for a quick burger.
And to pee a couple times.
Wednesday, August 13, 2003
Well I did not begin this blog when we first started this project that is quickly turning into a huge project.
I wish I would have but I will try to give you some back ground. We originally got the idea from slashdot, fark and powerlabs.org.
I did a ton of research, to find anyone who has tried this idea, and posted anything on the net. I will try to post the links on this site.
I was able to get almost every part we could want for this project.
Which is good, as I would guess we are up to 6000 dollars in parts thus far if we had to purchase these parts new.
However we have had some issues in using these used scrap parts.
Every part has to be tested and burned in before use, and we have had to make some design changes to accommodate the parts we have available.
picture of cap banks.
picture of cap banks.
It all began with a lot of extra parts, some will, and a lot to drink.
The idea of our own railgun was born.
Oh wait maybe this should start out, "In the beginning" or what you do with 100 large capacitors?
the spec's on the cap are 3300uF @ 430 Vdc.
This is a picture of one of the caps that will be used in this project.
This is a picture of one of the caps that will be used in this project.