Wrapping Coils? (Should I just make a coilgun threa?)

[Kurt_]

First off, I see many coilguns have more than one coil. What's the point? Is there an advantage over 1 big coil versus 3 1/3 sized coils.

Second, what is the optimum gauge? Where can I find this information? I'm using 30 gauge, but is this too small? One guy used this:

The coils consist of 8 layers of 1.5mm diameter wire impregnated with acrylic lacquer. The wire ends are terminated on brass posts and soldered in place.

Wouldn't more winds with a smaller diameter wire be better? Help!

[daguuy]

Use thin wire as long as it can handle that much current

[Triton]

and pack the winds as tightly as you can, the advantage if a multi stage coil gun is instead of one very very short acceleration stage ( half the lenght of the coil) you have 3x the acceleration stages as opposed to one which equals higher velocity and a crap more complicated in the process lol

[Kurt_]

But look at this illustration:

Code: Select all

|   ||   ||   | 
this coil hasthis
|     | acceleration range


|         |this coil has the same
|     | acceleration range

so why go through the trouble of timing 3 coils and such when you can just make one bigger one?

[Triton]

its easier to power 3 smaller coils than to dump a ton of power in to one large one to get the same velocity. there are other scientific reasons why multistage is better too but i dont know em offhand