Here is a DIY pistol rail gun that one of my readers has been working on. It is actually a two stage rail gun with 5 different rather large capacitors that store a significant amount of voltage. This pistol has 8 rechargeable batteries that are used to charge the caps. It then has a pre-stage that loads the ferrite ball. There are 2 coils which then fire in sequence. The timing of this firing is crucial so that the maximum amount of force is applied to the ball. All of this is controlled with a PIC16LF819. There are laser sensors that sense where the ball is, and this information is fed into the microcontroller. This microcontroller then calculates when to fire the second stage.
A Real Electromagnetic Pistol!
* Two coils are precisely pulsed in sequence
(350 Amp peak) to fire a steel projectile
* Two infrared sensors detect the projectile
position within the firing tube
* Controlled by a PIC microcontroller
* Powered by 8 AA NiCd battery pack
* Built-in battery charger
* Bar display tracks capacitor bank charge
progress
* Battery and Fault LED indicators
* Laser targeting sight
* Makes no sound when fired
Check out this cool project here.
4 Responses to “DIY Gaussian pistol”
Leave a Reply
you are all stupid fools, I pity you all, and your mothers, and your faces, and faeces.
what in holy god’s name does that hack job… do…? ideas? anyone? anyone?
It fires a projectile. It’s not a railgun, it’s a coilgun. It uses electromagnets to accelerate the bullet instead of pushing it with expanding gases.
Yeah man, that isn’t a rail gun. it’s a coil gun. it even says it uses coils. a rail gun uses rails hence “rail” gun. still it’s amazing if it actually fires with any significant force.