/diy/ - Do It Yourself

I was thinking of an interesting project to do at some point and the idea of making a mass driver came to me after playing far too much 4X.

Now I don't want to make a weapon,
I want to build two coil guns and make a sort of elevator or more interesting contraption.

Basically you fire a capsule from one coil gun and the other coil gun receives it counteracting the force due to gravity and holding the capsule at a certain position within the barrel.

I can't think of any use for it aside from it being a fun project to tinker with. Now I am yet to figure out how much to spend on it and what sort of design parameters I am aiming for I guess I'll figure that out with some research once I get into it.

I'll most likely start by designing one mass driver and firing a projectile into the air vertically to map it's trajectory which would be a good start before moving onto using two in tandem.

I'd like to tinker round with the capsule imparting spin on it and what not and just see how it behaves when I fire it through the tube, or perhaps utilize the magnetic field somehow to impart spin whilst firing it.

It'd be nice to experiment with the projectile, like put some liquid inside a capsule and fire it, or put some jelly inside one etc... and just see what happens for the hell of it.

I just wanted to spark a bit of discussion concerning this matter, perhaps you can offer some insight or give some interesting ideas for a project that involves mass drivers even if different.

The driving mechanism doesn't have to be a coil gun to make for an interesting project so feel free to discuss alternative ideas for projects using mass drivers.