Talk:Coilgun

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Contents 1 Links Cleanup 2 In Poential Uses 3 In Science Fiction 4 Paranoia 5 Too much cruft. 6 All magnets on at the start or switching each one on when needed? 7 advantage of coilgun over railgun 8 I could add pictures 9 Adding picture of a completed coilgun 10 reversing polarity? 11 Need an article on Gauss guns

[edit] Links Cleanup

I have cleaned up the external links section and removed/marked links that did not pertain to the subject, and (or) made it look trivial. --TTLLOGIC 17:04, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

As a note to the person who keeps reposting the wonkolabs link, please stop. The page contains nothing more then what the other links contain. Please make a serious contribution instead of just trying to promote your personal webpage.

This link has been found very useful to many people, why not include more information to this page? If you think the external links are messy then get rid of the links that aren't even coil guns. Could someone else review this link and verify whether it could be useful or not. Wonko Labs - Coilgun and Formulas —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 207.154.106.141 (talk) 04:11, 8 April 2007 (UTC).

Its not a question of if its useful or not, it is the matter of it being the exact same information as the other 5 coilgun links. If you can prove that it contains information that is not on any of the current links I will stop removing it. Until then I will continue to remove because I can see through your motivation to post it. We are all glad you are new to the whole coilgun world (we welcome you to it) and want to get your page out their so people can look at spray painted hand. But the posting of the link has no real purpose other then to promote your site and forum period. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:External_links Please read this page, it can prove useful to you, please stress the Links normally to be avoided section as your site falls under: 1,3,10, and 11.

--TTLLOGIC 04:22, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] In Poential Uses

"A superconducting quench gun could be created by successively quenching a line of adjacent coaxial superconducting coils forming a gun barrel, generating a wave of magnetic field gradient travelling at any desired speed. A travelling superconducting coil can be made to ride this wave like a surfboard. " from "potential uses" is almosy identical to the "Superconducting quench gun" section at http://www.oz.net/~coilgun/theory/electroguns.htm —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.35.19.109 (talk • contribs) 5 October 2006.

[edit] In Science Fiction

A Coilgun is also to be found in "The Neutronium Alchemist", volume 1 of the "Night's Dawn Trilogy". Known as a "Gaussgun" in the book, it is the only man portable weapon effective against possesed humans, until other weapons are developed later in the series.

the gauss weapons in x-com 2 can be fired above and below water, which makes them a valuable dual-purpose weapon -Lordraydens 05:15, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

This article may be mislabeled in some aspects. Mainly that a search for "gauss gun" comes to this page. [[1]] that is what an actual gauss gun is (sorry about the site the video is on but it's the only place I could find it). I don't have the time to write an article about that myself, but it should be changed so that a search for "gauss gun" takes you to a page saying it needs an article as opposed to this article.

[edit] Paranoia

Paranoia Gauss guns aren't coilguns, they just fire focused bolts of EMP. (Just leaving a note to that effect.) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Vogon (talk • contribs) February 23, 2006.

[edit] Too much cruft.

I came to this article because I wanted to find out how coil guns work. As a reader, I find that the list of trivia from video games at the end to be excessive, unnecessary, pointless, etc. It also makes the subject itself look trivial, even though it is definitely not trivial. I'm going to trim it down considerably or remove it. Revert me if necessary, but please understand how bad it makes the article look to have a list of video game trivia as long as the article itself. Brian G. Crawford 22:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

I was surprised too. I'm helping. — X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve)

I agree, we really need to cut down on the "coilguns in science fiction" and add more real content. Maybe we should move the science fiction section to the end of the article. It does make the subject look like a collection of video game weapons. Lima-1 18:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

One of the problems is that there is a lack of actual weapons. Coilgun technology is still in its infancy in terms of a real weapon. Acehunter 20:25, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

They exist, just not to general public. Check out Anothercoilgunsite.com site is by Donnie James in California. Has done amazing amounts of R&D in automatic and high-power coilgun's. --TTLLOGIC 17:44, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] All magnets on at the start or switching each one on when needed?

Under the Construction-heading is the following phrase:

"A large current is pulsed through the coil and a strong magnetic field forms, pulling the projectile to the center of the coil. When the projectile nears this point, the coil is switched off and a next coil can be switched on, progressively accelerating the projectile down successive stages."

However, under the Operation-heading it says:

"The gun starts with all of the magnets turned on, and then turns them off one by one before the shell reaches them."

So which is it? --ZeroOne 15:44, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

it can be either, although, given current power limitation and use of capacitors as a power source, it is univerally usually the earlier --88.106.60.51 18:59, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

By the way, coils are typically not called magnets, they are called coils. Yes, it can be either. The first is called multi-stage, and the second is called singel-stage. — X [Mac Davis] (SUPERDESK|Help me improve)

I changed the word "magnet" to "coil" where appropriate. Have you got any reference to the multi-stage and single-stage terms? It would make a good addition to the article. --ZeroOne 22:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Generally, it won't be either, it will be 2-3 coils at any given time, with the closest coil switched off just as the projectile reaches it and the next coil 2 or 3 down being switched on at the same time, in order to maintain continuous acceleration. Timing is also adjusted to account for the fact that it takes time (milliseconds) for power to stop flowing in the coil and the magnetic field to collapse - you want the field to collapse before the projectile passes the center of the coil, or else the coil then acts as a brake on the projectile, and throws the timing off on subsequent coils. From what I've read, the timing isn't as critical as it is with Gauss guns, however. -- Acehunter 20:30, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] advantage of coilgun over railgun

The 'Operation' section asserts that the coilgun can be made arbitrarily long, implying that a railgun cannot be arbitrarily long. Is this true? I don't see why a railgun of arbitrary length couldn't be made. Squiddy | (squirt ink?) 12:44, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

No one explained anything, so I just removed the section now. --ZeroOne 22:02, 26 August 2006 (UTC)

Railguns need to be short, because the power requirements increase with length. A long railgun requires very high current, which causes 2 major problems - erosion of the rails due to vaporization from the heating caused where the current passes from rail to payload (and from payload back to the other rail) and arcing between the rails from the voltage (higher voltages are required for greater acceleration - this is more of an issue in an atmosphere, and less so in space). Acehunter 20:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] I could add pictures

I did two science fair projects on coilguns... complete with animations of how they work... i'll add pictures when I get the chance. Blacklint 04:13, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

I just created an image (Image:Coilgun.png) using Blender. I take suggestions on how to improve it. However, I'd still like to see your images too, anyway. :) --ZeroOne 00:06, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Great image, but isn't the coil usually a single continuous? How should we compromise coil density, with image prettyness? — [Mac Davis](talk) (SUPERDESK|Help me improve)03:39, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

You mean there would only be one single coil? I have never seen a reference to such a gun. I also think that the main point is illustrated best when the coils are simple — not overly long and not overly dense. And, oh, I replaced the static image with an animation. --ZeroOne (talk | @) 21:49, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding picture of a completed coilgun

Does anybody mind if I add a picture of completed coilgun? possibly:

single stage coil gun 1 or single stage coil gun 2

Lima-1 06:53, 27 December 2006 (UTC)Lima

Not at all as long as they are your own. --TTLLOGIC 01:48, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] reversing polarity?

is it possible to have a coilgun where the projectile is pushed instead of pulled? or both, so that the projectile is pulled towards the coils in front of it while being pushed away from the coils behind it? Skullers 18:39, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

-The idea of using the coils to push the projectile instead of pull it is interesting. I believe that it could work. But the effect of switching the polarity of the coils would not make much of a difference in the overall velocity of a projectile fired. Therefore it is possible, but not necessary. As to the idea of using alternating magnetic fields to "push" and "pull" a projectile simultaneously, the basic fact of magnetism is that opposites attract. So while it may seem that by "pushing" and "pulling" at the same time, you would increase a projectile’s velocity, the reality is that you would simply be creating conflicting magnetic fields. This would not only affect the path of the projectile in a negative way, but it would also put unnecessary strain on the coils themselves due to the fact that they would be constantly pulling on each other. So in the end, alternating the charge of the coils to “push” and “pull” would make it harder for the coil-gun to function. [(User: Crusnik 03)January 23, 2007]

[edit] Need an article on Gauss guns

If someone has time, there needs to be an article on Gauss guns. I edited the coilgun page to reflect the difference between the two - they are not the same. Both weapons attract the payload, but Coilguns use solenoids and Gauss guns use electromagnets. See: This Page for details.

Someone would also need to edit the Magnetic_accelerator_gun disambiguation page.

Acehunter 20:20, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

Also, since there is a difference, why does "Gauss Gun" redirect to here? It makes no sense. O0drogue0o 11:12, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauss_gun. Article must be redone.