MicroBalrog
member
That thing is not a firearms under the GCA-68 either.
Gauss Weapons
- Thread starter Nightcrawler
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It looks like a production piece, but found no links to buy one.
Were it under $100, I think I would, just to be the first kid on the block.
But I do sense some confusion between coilguns and railguns
Coil guns are coils of wire like an electromagnet or selonoid. Current passes through the coils making a dougnut or toriod of magnetic force that sucks a ferrous projectile down the center. A row of them staged to fire at the proper timing can be used to increase the velocity.
Coil gun pros: Not very dangerous from arcing or heat, does not damage itself when fired, no contact or friction with the projectile.
Coil gun cons: Coil timing for efficient launch is difficult, coil guns capable of enough velocity are very heavy and bulky. (until cheap, room tempature, and lightweight superconductors are invented at least)
Rail guns are made by two charged conductive rails with a projectile causing a short that's propelled along the rails.
If you see those antennas in "mad scientist" or Frankenstien movies with the "Jacobs Ladder", the wedge shaped lightning bolt repeatedly flying up between the arms, imagine it enclosed, firing faster, and propelling a projectile, that's a railgun.
Rail gun pros: Higher velocity, more compact than a coilgun. (in the "barrel" part at least, not the power supply) A wider variety of non-ferrous projectiles are possible (Depleted uranium etc.) as long as the contact bridge at the base of the projectile is conductive.
Rail gun cons: Unacceptable wear on the rails. (They vaporize a bit every shot), dangerous arcing and heat. Sometimes they explode.
Were it under $100, I think I would, just to be the first kid on the block.
But I do sense some confusion between coilguns and railguns
Coil guns are coils of wire like an electromagnet or selonoid. Current passes through the coils making a dougnut or toriod of magnetic force that sucks a ferrous projectile down the center. A row of them staged to fire at the proper timing can be used to increase the velocity.
Coil gun pros: Not very dangerous from arcing or heat, does not damage itself when fired, no contact or friction with the projectile.
Coil gun cons: Coil timing for efficient launch is difficult, coil guns capable of enough velocity are very heavy and bulky. (until cheap, room tempature, and lightweight superconductors are invented at least)
Rail guns are made by two charged conductive rails with a projectile causing a short that's propelled along the rails.
If you see those antennas in "mad scientist" or Frankenstien movies with the "Jacobs Ladder", the wedge shaped lightning bolt repeatedly flying up between the arms, imagine it enclosed, firing faster, and propelling a projectile, that's a railgun.
Rail gun pros: Higher velocity, more compact than a coilgun. (in the "barrel" part at least, not the power supply) A wider variety of non-ferrous projectiles are possible (Depleted uranium etc.) as long as the contact bridge at the base of the projectile is conductive.
Rail gun cons: Unacceptable wear on the rails. (They vaporize a bit every shot), dangerous arcing and heat. Sometimes they explode.
Mark Tyson
Member
Without rifling to stabalize the projectile, I don't think it can be very accurate.
Maybe it can be used for a missile defense system in space where there's no atmosphere to deal with, but not for us.
Maybe it can be used for a missile defense system in space where there's no atmosphere to deal with, but not for us.
Penforhire
Member
Hmm, I always thought they were the same thing. Andrew, what is the propulsion force caused by a rail gun's short? Is this a fixed high-current surge in a magnetic field? I've certainly accidentally shorted out some high V and high I sources before without noticing propulsive force (unless you count exploding fuses or capacitors).
Railgun
All I know is that a railgun works on the principle of the the "Lorentz force".
It means that charged items want to move perpendicular to magnetic fields.
After that, it's all math, with lots of scary greek letters in it.
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/department/ece/railgun/theory.htm
But basically, you put a hellish charge across two parallel conductive rails set a fixed distance appart based on the current, and the mass of the projectile, and you bridge the gap with that conductive projectile and it goes flying down the rails.
The electric Jacob's ladder horror movie prop analogy is more of a visual one than a physics one. IIRC the Jacob's ladder arcs flow upward because the electrified air gets hot and floats up, and the arc wants to follow where it has been before, but it does sort of represent how the projectile flies down the rails riding it's arc combined with some sort of magnetic repulsion that's described by that Lorentz force.
So yes, railguns and coil-guns are "related" but only in the sense that all electricity and magnetisim is related. The engineering mechanisims of both are very different.
A coilgun is like a maglev train, but where the "track" is a tube of coils, and a railgun is like it says, two rails, a voltage, and a projectile that shorts the gap and goes flying.
And a finned or drag stabilized projectile can be very accurate. The M1 Abrahms tank does not spin it's sabotted DU penetrator darts from it's 125mm Rhinemettal gun, as rifling would just slow it down. And railguns on an armored vehicle is being worked on right now, but man-portable versions will probably take as long as lasers, if not moreso.
All I know is that a railgun works on the principle of the the "Lorentz force".
It means that charged items want to move perpendicular to magnetic fields.
After that, it's all math, with lots of scary greek letters in it.
http://www.eng.auburn.edu/department/ece/railgun/theory.htm
But basically, you put a hellish charge across two parallel conductive rails set a fixed distance appart based on the current, and the mass of the projectile, and you bridge the gap with that conductive projectile and it goes flying down the rails.
The electric Jacob's ladder horror movie prop analogy is more of a visual one than a physics one. IIRC the Jacob's ladder arcs flow upward because the electrified air gets hot and floats up, and the arc wants to follow where it has been before, but it does sort of represent how the projectile flies down the rails riding it's arc combined with some sort of magnetic repulsion that's described by that Lorentz force.
So yes, railguns and coil-guns are "related" but only in the sense that all electricity and magnetisim is related. The engineering mechanisims of both are very different.
A coilgun is like a maglev train, but where the "track" is a tube of coils, and a railgun is like it says, two rails, a voltage, and a projectile that shorts the gap and goes flying.
And a finned or drag stabilized projectile can be very accurate. The M1 Abrahms tank does not spin it's sabotted DU penetrator darts from it's 125mm Rhinemettal gun, as rifling would just slow it down. And railguns on an armored vehicle is being worked on right now, but man-portable versions will probably take as long as lasers, if not moreso.
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