shadae758

I am trying to build a coilgun. I have a photoflash capacitor with me. The 330V kind. I realized that the most important parts of building a coilgun was the switch and the capacitor charging. Okay, my question is, what kind of switch does not spark at 300V? I heard of SCR, but the country i am in does not have Radio Shacks. Any way to get SCRs from household appliances? Also, can i use normal (rubber insulated) wire for my coil, instead of enamel ones? I can't find enamalled wires here. Also. What is the relationship between size of projectile to speed? Bigger projectiles=faster? And. How should my coil be? Around small area of the barrel? Or big area? How many layers? I could only achieve about half a cm movement for my steel paperclip projectile. Intend to change to a better iron nail or something. While the fact that i only half charge my capacitor could be the reason, does a 300V full charge result in much larger movement?(I.e. shoot it?) I believe my coilgun was badly calibarated, but to be as bad as half a cm movement is rather depressing.