i am planning on building a coil gun, and i am wondering if i could use a car ignition coil instead of capacitors, because they can generate large amounts of voltage in a short amount of time. i know i would need to arrange the circuits differently from a normal coilgun, but is it possible?

As fantastic as that would be it would probably result in much more work than just using capictors. Because as you probably already know in a coil gun the voltage creates a magnteic field at certain points within the coil pulling the projectile forward. The problem i see with using a car ignition is you would need to create a circuit to divert energy into other parts of the coil and then time it to pull the projectile forward. Also i dunno about you but for me they are harder to come by.

As fantastic as that would be it would probably result in much more work than just using capictors. Because as you probably already know in a coil gun the voltage creates a magnteic field at certain points within the coil pulling the projectile forward. The problem i see with using a car ignition is you would need to create a circuit to divert energy into other parts of the coil and then time it to pull the projectile forward. Also i dunno about you but for me they are harder to come by.

 

If you are into electronics or simply want to tear something up at close range, a coil gun is a cool project. For practicality, get yourself a .222 or .223 Remington. With a descent scope and at 300 yds. you can do some serious plinking. Anyway, building a CG can be pretty expensive. Automobile ignition coils are not cheap unless you get them from a junk yard. Time you get around to buying all of the necessaties to make it complete, you may consider constructing a smaller hadron collider?

Edited December 28, 201015 yr by rigney

I have my own question about making a coilgun, but didn't want to make a new thread needlessly. I am considering making a coilgun, and was wondering if it would be possible to use the inverter from the screen of an old laptop to convert the DC voltage from a bettery to AC so it can be stepped up using a transformer (The inverter already has one, so I might just use a transformer as a rectifier (Same number of coils on both sides) to change it back to DC for charging the capacitors), Also what sort of voltage am I likley to get from it?

There is a full Coilgun design, with step-by-step instructions here: http://www.dangerouslymad.com/sample-chapter

 

You will also find a video of it in action elsewhere on that site.

i am planning on building a coil gun, and i am wondering if i could use a car ignition coil instead of capacitors, because they can generate large amounts of voltage in a short amount of time. i know i would need to arrange the circuits differently from a normal coilgun, but is it possible?

yes an ignition coil can be used to charge capacitors but you need to make the ignition coil driver circiut first as for the ignition coil theres a simple circiut you can make to link to it and its hv output to enable photoflash capacitors to be charged up for use in a coilgun etc etc. and the same circiut can be used for the disc shaped flyback transformer without the in biult hv trippler to charge capcitors up for use in these things .