How to make a RAILGUN!

Step 2 Prepare the cameras

break open the casing on 4 or 5 cameras
take out the circuit board
take out the capacitors from all but one of them (you might want to take out the flashbulbs too they look cool when you put several thousand volts through them)
remove the swich thing and solder two wires in its place

Comments

[bh0294]

I just started looking at all this recently... If i purchase a large capacitor such as this one:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/SoundStorm+-+3.5-Farad+Capacitor+with+Digital+Voltmeter+-+Black/3404668.p?id=1218399212520&skuId=3404668&st=capacitor&cp=1&lp=11

Will it work when wired correctly?

And I can set up the switches the same? And what size power source should I use to charge it up?

[fortpinepitch]

This 3.5F capacitor is huge, but I'll bet it can't take nearly enough voltage. If you want anything to happen, you need to look for several 160+ μF capacitors that can take between 300-500 V.

[popomaster]

is there anything that i have to be careful about touching in a disposable camera? and i mean ANYTHING

[Sedro]

yer take the battery out first then press a screw driver over the two wires coming out of the capacitor, after that no there is nothing :)

[popomaster]

oh, do i need to know how to weld?

[Xellers]

Not weld, solder. Or you could use a breadboard and some alligator clips.

[MisterHankie]

if spot welding is considered welding than isnt soldering also welding?

[omnibot]

Nope, welding and soldering are two very different techniques. When soldering you heat the metal to melt the solder and the solder and metal attach like a sort of metal glue by molecular forces, ie sharing the occasional electron. When welding you add enough energy two make the two metals fuse together as one and even share an electron-cloud. Yeah, I'm pretty nerdy.

[budhaztm]

soldering is like braising which is a form of welding

[popomaster]

lol, dont know what those are XD

[Sedro]

what exactly do you want to know. like do you need to know how to solder to get the capacitors out or make a railgun or what a bread board is (I'm guessing you know what alligator clips are).

[popomaster]

dont know what a bread board is or how to solder XD im 12......

[DYLEGO]

Don't listen to a word alwinovich says. People lie him don't deserve to be members here. Search around on instructables, and you will fine many things teaching you everything you need to know about electronics.

[alwinovich]

that you are 12 doesn't neccesarily mean that you can;t do this i'm 13 and already making things like this(flyback transformer, 2000uf coilgun and things like that) and if you don't know what a breadboard is, no big deal but if you don't know what soldering and alligator clips are and you are wondering if you have to weld in this project? just wait 5 more years and do some other k'nex guns first (not trying to be rude but if you don't know how to solder i give you a chance of 1 in 10 you will make this without getting injured/killed)

[2 stroke]

I learned how to solder when I was 12 and half years old

[DYLEGO]

dude, lighten up. when you started out, i guaruntee you knew nothing about this stuff. I certainly didn't. The point of instructions like these are to get new people into the hobby, not push them away.

[evanwehrer]

I'm 14 but I started soldering when I was 11, and just recently made a rocket launcher that shoots bottles out of stuff I had lying around.

[Xellers]

You're lucky that your parents let you near half of that stuff; no flyback transformers for me... But plenty of Arduino)

[alwinovich]

ya I know, but with every project they are making sure everything is OK( not directly connected to mains, well insulated etc.)

[A.C.E.]

hey im 13, soldering is where you melt metal with a soldering iron to complete circuits or connect wires to batteries and stuff like that, and a breadboard is where you have a board with a bunch of holes that you can put wires in to make a connection without soldering. (aka solderless breadboard)

[Kurisu925]

The problem with the breadboard is you can't really put the capacitor banks discharge through it because it could weld together the connections in the bread board

[popomaster]

i know what soldering is, but how to do t, like...what i neeed and stuff like that. PS - look at our avatars, its funny, we even have the same angle and everything.

[A.C.E.]

yea funny about the avatars haha.
for soldering on this project you need:

• soldering iron
• a spool of solder (doesnt need to be that big of guage (guage = size in diameter of the solder))

you might want:

• flux: sticks stuff like wires together so you dont have to hold them while you are soldering.

hope i helped : )

[LiquidLightning]

Don't mean to be rude, but flux removes the oxides from the metals to be soldered to allow for much "stickier" solder. For example, Lead/Tin solder sticks really well to copper, but not it's oxides, so when you add solder, it removes the solder, resulting in the solder sticking much better. It's also why it's so difficult to solder aluminum, because aluminum forms an oxide layer in air in about 100 picoseconds (that's really fast).

[popomaster]

lol, yeah, you helped alot. do u take shop or something in middle school? and if you do. what school do you go to? im gonna go to valley view this year

[A.C.E.]

no i goto newkent middle school, but now im getting homeschooled. new kent sucks. it doesnt offer shop or latin, the two things i wanted. well at least i got band : )

[popomaster]

lolz

[d3monhax0r]

if you're really low budget, get a spool of solder that has flux in it already, then solder with a lighter

[lord of war2000]

the pictures are a bit fuse

[joinaqd]

i got shocked by a camera capacitor once..ouch that hurt!!!it shocked me all over my body,thats why i smashed it into bits!!

[patwalker]

dude, just dont smash it with something metal. then ya'll get shocked again!

[omnibot]

Yeah, their tricky like that. It's why you should always short them out as soon as you can.