360gamer117

The capacitor bank is made up of flash capacitors. And I have a decent knowledge of what I'm working with, I just need a little help figuring out specific values. I've got it working, but I've only used a single cap without any switches rigged since I don't have a bypass diode. I'm definitely going to need the bank to fire this thing, because a single cap doesn't do much.

I'm currently constructing a coil gun for a science project, and had a few technical questions that I'm hoping you guys can help with. First off, I'm building a capacitor bank, consisting of 6 small flash capacitors that are 330V each (I don't recall the Farads off the top of my head and can't access it at the moment, but it should be around 120uF). My main questions for the cap bank are what the exact voltage would be, what the exact capacitance would be, and how I would go about testing the charge of the bank before firing. From what I understand, two 1.5V batteries linked in parallel provide 1.5V, but when linked serially would equal 3V. My cap bank is in parallel, so my first question is whether or not they would function similarly to a battery. My next question is similar but concerns Farads rather than Volts. Again, it's my understanding that if I have six 120uF caps, then I should have a bank that stores 720uF. If someone could confirm this for me, that would be much appreciated. Now, for checking voltage before firing, I'm a little less sure about. I considered hooking an LED to the circuit. I don't know much about them, but I do know that if I do that, then I would either blow the LED or have to install a resistor, which would slow down the rate of discharge. I also though about using an analog voltage meter instead of LEDs. I've also got a few questions about the circuitry. I know I need a diode for the switch, but are there any other locations on the circuit I would need to place one? And what about rectifiers? I have an AC SCR switch, but am running this from a camera circuitboard, and I'm using 3V to charge the caps. Do I need a rectifier between the SCR and circuitboard? I may have other questions in the near future, but for now this is all I can think of. Thanks in advance.