hmmm...well, with my luck I'd be "finished"....then try to shoot my first projective, the rail would explode and a fragment would tag me in the eye. Or the capacitors would explode like a bunch of firecrackers and peices of silicon would tear out my eye. Or I'd be hooking up the current switch, slip, and apply several hundred thousand volts to my hand (and my eyes would explode out of my head). Or the whole assembly would come loose, flip around, and I'd end up the first human to take a rail gun round to the eye.

I really like my eyes.

Lol.

But seriously, the worst thing that can happen is that you apply a too high current and melt your coils, but that will only cause you to wind new ones.

Dammit, I think I'm really gonna try it some day, the only thing I need is some guy from Electrotechnics at uni, I'm sure I can find one, a first year student should have enough knowledge.

Ive had to learn the hard way. Electric cattle fencing when i was a wee lad.

Oh and also, never EVER, try to dismantle disposable cameras!

Heh...back in the days, we used to force ppl into touching volted fences around meadows, or we pushed them against it for a few minutes using non-transferring material. It's good fun cos the shocks are timed usually, so you know when to expect the next one. There's even a sens of sado-machosism in i, those shocks are too small to hurt you, they just scare off, and it's cool to feel volt ru your body.







does it show that i'm not a very scientific person? never heard of thermodynamics law before, go figure. It sounded too good to be true hehe


The tarp over the lake is a good idea, but then again, most lakes have a river ending in them. That's what i was thinking of as generation thing too, a (obviously down-stream) runnign river into the lake. Maybe i need a huge filter at the river's ending into the lake, that would be a two-way solution.

I'll check for natural springs in siberia.


Not gonna try building a railgun: deadly for a techno-analphabet like me

If you fund me, I wanna build one for you.

heh...jesus. Never heard of the laws of thermodynamics. That's pretty screwed up.

Arathorn said:
But seriously, the worst thing that can happen is that you apply a too high current and melt your coils, but that will only cause you to wind new ones.

Are you sure about that? I mean, you're talking about very high currents going through metal.. and though the metal is as resistance free as possible, there's still some. Resistance + electricity = heat. You get enough heat all of a sudden and the rail could explode. Or the projectile. Projectiles welding themselves to the rails is common enough... I don't see why you might not get explosions too. Blah, anyway, I would be tempted, but I'd wanna do it with someone that's an electrical engineer (or at least a student).

ermmm... never disassembled a disposable camera (thankfully). Never messed around with cattle fences either. You people live in the freakin' boonies. heh. I've disassembled toasters, game consoles/controllers, computers (heh), phones, fans (like air fans)...buncha other stuff. I know better than to take apart a power supply or a television.

If you slowly increase the current, you can feel if it's getting too hot.

And not having heard of the laws of thermodynamics is no excuse, if we could make a machine generate more energy then we put into it, why do you think we're still running out of oil?

but you can't slowly increase the current. That's how the rail gun works... you have to very rapidly apply a huge current (or voltage or whatever), which causes a powerful magnetic field that shoots your projectile.

I mean when you test it off course. I don't suggest you should be that near your rail gun when you're firing it. To be honest, I would probably use a very long cable and apply the current from behind a wall when not testing.
The good thing about electrics is that nothing can happen without a current.

That guy from the web page is building it a different way then I would do it though, he doesn't seem to use coils.

[quote="derf]
Oh and also, never EVER, try to dismantle disposable cameras![/quote]

damn straight. I used to develop photos in my part time job, and to get the film out you gotta dismantle them of course. i never got shocked but my boss got shocked twice and my manager got shocked once. and apparently it's not very nice! not that i laughed at my boss...

Hehe...talking about crazy:



http://biz.yahoo.com/rb/031211/life_gam ... ans_1.html


what bullshit!

Yeah read it too. What a bunch of morons.

Thats when we turn to perpetual motion

Oh and Pev; Its quite a nasty experience. Discharging the capacitor on your index finger is somewhat confusing. At first it feels like youve been punched in the back, then you look at your finger to see a little black hole.

lol good description there. *looks at finger* nope, nothing there...oh my god, not even a finger!

ha ha! lol! you must have touched the capacitors on one of those huge 1930's flashes!