Coil Gun Turret

For this project I wanted to use a few different technologies to create a coil gun turret. The first would be some basic electronics, the second 3D printing and third C# programming.

There are a number of materials that make up the 3D printed coil gun.

- 2 Gear Motors 142:1 (Available from Solarbotics and others)
- Arduino Uno
- Wire
- Capacitors
- Momentary Push button
- Coil Wire

A coil gun is basically an electronic mechanism that generates a strong magnetic field, once the magnetic field is generated the coil gun will launch a metal projectile out the barrel of the gun. I wanted to expand on the idea of the coil gun and setup a turret that both rotates and allows the user to select the tilt of the gun. I wanted this to be computer controlled, to hook up the motors that will turn the coil gun an Arduino is used. To connect the Arduino to the computer we open up a serial port to the Arduino from the computer using a USB cable and then send single byte instructions over this. Once the Arduino receives a command it turns on the appropriate motor in the correct direction. To shoot the coil gun another command is sent to the Arduino and this activates a circuit that allows the transfer of power found in the capacitors to reach the coil. Once the power reaches the coil, the projectile fires.

You can build this project yourself by following the instructions in the download and installing the required software on your computer and the Arduino. Simply 3d print the parts found in the download file and attach them together using machine screws. You can see a video of the turret in action below.

Enjoi!