Homemade Gauss Gun 243
bonzoesc writes: "I'm sure we all remember getting owned by some railgun-wielding kid in Quake2. Ever wanted a way to get back? Enter the Homemade Gauss Rifle. Requires wooden ruler with groove down the middle to serve as the rail, steel balls that can roll down the groove to use as projectiles, and magnets to store and redirect energy. Physics is fun!"
Full-size gun (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, this is exceptionally clever. The only other gauss rifles I've seen talked about used electromagnets and big-ass power.
It makes me wonder... could this scale? What if you built a big version with, say, 50 pound explosive charges (delayed fuse, of course) and big magnets? It seems like with enough phases, you could make a pretty devastating launcher. And I bet it would be pretty damn accurate, too.
I can just see this happening ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Ok... (Score:3, Interesting)
Scaling it up would seem feasible, but the problem would be the shattering magnets, as well as to "reload" you would have to physically move each ball back to the starting point.
Here is where I wonder if this thing could be made "better". The problem is getting a magnet as strong as the ones used, but doesn't shatter - but I think it can be done...
Get a non-ferrous tube - an alluminium or piece of PVC pipe would do fine. Get it with an inside diameter just smaller than the ball you want to fire.
Now, wind up some "double ended" electromagnets - use very fine magnet wire, and do an excelllent job winding the magnets. Use a steel core, and wind them to the thickness of the inside diameter of the tubing. You need these electromagnets to be really strong.
Now, cut 1.5 or 2 inch lengths of the tube - put the magnet on one end, and a ball - secure the magnets extremely well. Then, "stack" the tubes together to make a long tube, so that there is a magnet and a ball between the two magnets.
One end (the "breech") leave a 3 inch piece of tube, and build some kind of "firing mechanism" (spring loaded or something to propel the ball against the first electromagnet). Do the same on the other end, but just the tube - no firing mechanism - you may want this end to be a little longer.
To load and fire:
Get a real big-ass current capacity power supply, and hook the magnets up to turn them on. Don't turn them on yet - tilt the tube up to cause all the other balls to fall to the magnets, then turn on the magnets. Load the ball on the front end (the firing chamber end), and a ball into the firing mechanism. Fire the ball - and, if everything goes right (and my back of the napkin calcs are correct - yeah right), it should do the same thing as the small version, only more powerful (maybe), and reloadable!
so, you people want to build a gun eh? (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh ya, make sure it's pointing the right way around.
My physics teacher did this while he was in university. They shot a concrete wall 2 feet thick and the magnet went through. The velocity was 2KM/s.
At least it doesn't melt. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Degaussing gun (Score:5, Interesting)
If you have an old color monitor you don't care about, put a magnet near the screen sometime. (ooh, a rainbow!) As this falls in the same category of fun as microwaving CDs, don't expect the degaussing circuits to fix the result anytime soon. in other words, don't do this to a monitor you wanna use.
Re:Circular track explanation is flawed.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Gravity also does not impart energy to falling objects; the objects already have energy relative to the earth, and actually lose energy to the earth on impact.
Re:Degaussing gun (Score:2, Interesting)
So if you have an old color monitor that's messed up, you just may be able to fix it. Of course, keep the magnets away from your RAID 0+1 array...
Re:so, you people want to build a gun eh? (Score:2, Interesting)
v= v0 + a*t
right?
The final velocity, v, is 2000 m/s, so t=2000/a.
The final distance is 3m, initial velocity and distance 0, so 3 = 1/2*a*t^2, substituting in what we know for t...
The acceleration is six hundred and sixty-six thousand gees. From this I concur with your estimate that the 2kps story is in part a load of bullshit.