DIY magnetic accelerator.

[unambitious]

For those wondering why we don't use this for perpetual motion, the energy to reset the balls at each segment would require more energy than the projectile will ever have.

[bubbajohn55]

@KaiserVadin this is basically how gauss rifles work.

[Fr0stOverOswego]

"Use it to fight off velociraptors."

I don't quite understand the logic here.

At least I'm well equipped for zombies and/or toddler attacks.

[aqrzproductions]

is the max energy a limit because of terminal velocity, where the initial force of launch reaches the same force of friction?

[Starcross42]

@aqrzproductions Yes. Attraction force is a function of the magnets. Stronger magnets = faster.

[viva0la0life]

WHY ARE WE NOT USING THIS FOR PERPETUAL MOTION?! WHY?

[KaiserVadin]

Someone called this a gauss gun ?

[renynzea]

@KaiserVadin A gauss gun would be the closest equivalent. A gauss weapon (aka coilgun) uses a series of magnets (generally electric) to accelerate the projectile. This is an example of how a multi-stage coil gun would work, with some obvious mechanical differences. The guy in the video calls it a rail gun, but a rail gun uses electrically charged rails to accelerate projectiles. This thing is not electric, so "gauss gun" is the closest equivalent.

[TheHappyWhaleshark]

guass rifle

[snlplus6]

if you made one in a circle your might be able to make a never ending cycle.

[Boofernut]

YEAH DINOSAUR!

[Ozimandias84]

Damn, powerful enough to take down a Velociraptor!

[punchy001]

HMMM, WHAT WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU CREATE A CLOSED LOOP? IS IT POSSIBLE TO ACHEIVE PERPETUAL MOTION?

[EDMUNDDOYLE]

@punchy001 No, risitance between the ball bearing and ruler.

[gmail740]

@punchy001 no not this way but i think i got it i just need to take it off the blue print

[SasquacthKid]

is it posible to get these free anywere i have no money and i am 12 so cant buy them and my parents wont get me some

[Starcross42]

@SasquacthKid You may already have the parts. There is a popular magnet toy that lets you build things, GEOMAG is one brand name. Steel balls and plastic pieces with magnets at either end. You have to remove the magnets from the plastic pieces but that works great.

[Starcross42]

@SasquacthKid And your home page says that you are 17. :)

[SasquacthKid]

@Starcross42 i made this bage a while ago FYI lol would magnex works

[snlplus6]

@SasquacthKid im 13

[sailing96]

Hi, I'm going to be doing this or a science project and I was wondering if you can tell me some details about the magnets and ball bearings like pull strength, weight, etc. It does not have to be the same as the ones in the video, I just want to make one that is powerful enough to be impressive, but at the same time I do not want to be dangerous.

[Starcross42]

@sailing96 One of the adds on this video is for a company that sells magnets (actually a couple of companies sell magnets, but one is for hobbies and the other is for industry). I got 1/2 long rod magnets from the hobby company. I ordered a case of ball bearings from some industrial supply company but you can probably get a few at a hobby store or even an auto parts store. If you can't find them email me and I can hook you up.  Good luck.

[Starcross42]

If you look at the adds that appear at the bottom of the video or on the right of the page you often see one for a magnet store. You can get magnets there.

[christos1709]

hey where do you get the little rod magnets from i want to make one

[justdfactsmaam]

Good thing he had that rail gun. Did you see how close that Velociraptor was? WheeeeeeW!

[macmac88cookie]

I might be doing this for a science project

[Starcross42]

@macmac88cookie If you need any help you can contact me through my web page.

[macmac88cookie]

@Starcross42 Thanks :D

[ForDizzyAndMe]

I'm putting that infront of my railgun so ethat ven though THIS has a certain limit of energy it transfers the railgun will be like a "second stage" and accelerate it even further.

[Starcross42]

@32103940 There IS a Newton's cradle with magnets. Pretty sweet.

Yes, a bit of kinetic energy at the start would add to the total, but that would defeat the purpose. Good thinking though.

[DakireProductions]

THAT'S how dinosaurs got extinct!

[dagerazod]

sooooo railguns snuffed out the dinosaurs! who knew?!?!?

[MrHacker3000]

this is Newtons second law of Action-Reaction .... xD nice though!

[MrHacker3000]

@MrHacker3000

sorry! yes u r right! third law, but you did get the point, right?? LOL thanx 4 the correction! ;)

[weirdlounge]

That poor velociraptor...

[heatseeker4474]

lol, he says maggots instead of magnets

[KCP100]

THUMBS UP FOR KILLING DINOSAURS!!!

[BaldurandVali]

wow that is pretty damn cool

[adrin45]

Good. I've been looking for a way to solve my tiny dinosaur problem.

[adrin45]

Good.  I've been looking for a way to solve my tiny dinosaur problem.

[misaluvakatsa]

balls of steel :D or what ever metal...

[kurdtpage]

A meteor didnt kill the dinosaurs, a railgun did ;)

[dnangelmegaman]

to sand on the indentations ,can you just use a peice of sandpaper

[DeadlyRuler007]

buy ball bearings in the magnetix sets..haha

[Nebelvir123987]

if you put more magnets, i mean A LOT more, would the final velocity increase? or would it stop speeding up at some level?

[MrGreenbottleblue]

what would happen if you were to make the first ball berring go faster before hitting the magnet with a rubberband would that make the energy transfer faster?

[sgttaco1]

im gonna make a mac (magnetic accelerator cannon) gun but it won't be like this...cool though

[christopherremmel]

two things:

1 i thought what you made was called a gauss gun.

and 2: you can get ball barings relatively easily (they are just sold as slingshot ammo)

that's what i use when i make gauss guns

[fierwall5]

that is not a rail gun a rail gun works by using metal plates and compacter and using magnets is cheating

[1962SatanTookOver2]

Fascinating.

[revolvingdoo]

This feels to me like it defies logic, i know it sounds quite amateuristic, but if the only input of energy is a small amount of kinetic, and the output is a larger amount of kinetic, and it is seemingly a closed system does it violate the conservation of energy?

[darkmaster388]

It does not violate the Law of energy conservation.

The energy comes from the act of pulling the magnets apart, which provides potential energy to the system. When the magnets are attracted and snap together the energy is transferred into kinetic and heat energy. Its as if the magnets were hot-wheels cars, you can bring them off the ground to some height (Potential energy) and then place them on a track and get kinetic energy, and a little heat energy from friction.

Thanks,

DM

[ShadowGh0st]

Well I might be a bit late on this, but a gauss gun which is shown in this video is a finate cycle.

[grimelab]

i built a model with much larger magnets that can fire nails at high velocity. search "gauss gun firing nail"

[Dth091]

Nice Gaussian gun :D

Good description too.

[helehole]

hey, you can get ball bearings (or how ever its spelled) from geomag =D

[bartybum]

geomeg*

[helehole]

nope, it is Geomag.

[threextoedxsloth]

rail gun? nope.

[hendersonhigh]

That's a cool model. If you had this 100 times longer would the ball bearings hit each other so hard they will break each other?

[travisbrkr1234]

poor dinosaur lol. this is actually pretty cool, especially if you can get some neodymium or rare earth magnets

[wanky448]

someone has way too much time on their hands

[cr4zyp4nd4m4n]

hes just demonstrating how it works

[Phlatpop]

Uh thats not a railgun

[TheJzzy]

You don't know what a railgun is do you?

[tylers911]

poor dinosour

[alexgamer5555]

shit if u had one like in the begining and if it was a 100 feet long it would be powerful.

[Starcross42]

Like many things, scaling up is difficult. The object reaches a terminal velocity very quickly. But longer runs are fun!

[gmail740]

@alexgamer5555 im gesing you would like to reload it

[KWestergaard]

did the raptor die?

[kopper101]

dont ball bearings come with magnetics (the tower building things)

[Starcross42]

Yes. My initial comment about ball bearings had to do with buying boxes of 1000. I had to provide additional ID and it was a bit of a pain. Getting a few at a time is no problem at all.

[retardrepellent]

2 things.

A) question= plz dont be a dick, but why is it called a Gauss? is he the original inventor?

B)comment= the original ballistic firearms were powered by gunpowder and combustion and were single-shot. they were considered the pinnacle of modern technology. nowdays, railguns are powered by magnetic energy and kinetic energy. idk about you, but i consider them to be advanced. perhaps this IS where the future of weapons lies. after all, we made fully automatic firearms, why not railguns?

[Starcross42]

Gauss was a German mathematician and scientist. His name is used for a unit of magnetic strength and is often used in reference to magnetic devices. Your computer has a degausser which was important with old CRT tubes where the magnetic fields could distort the image. Im old and use the term to refer to any magnetic device.

The electromagnetic device called a rail gun will indeed replace the cannon and the navy has some mounted on ships.

[fierwall5]

@Starcross42 not quite yet they require emnise amounts of energy and produce a lot of heat as well as the capacitors needed to lots of electricity and take up a lot of room so they are still a bit of unless they make a air craft carrier just for a rail gun it wont happen for a while

[pironx23]

dinosaur got pwned

[hpjc10]

i don't think you'd get a very good physical life out of those magnets... they would end up chipping and breaking from the ball bearings hitting them...

[ExtraordinarilyPlain]

Thats how the dinosaurs really went extinct...

By magnetic rail gun wielding humans! Ohnoes~!

[BLxAnthro]

wuts wrong wif IEDs??? lololol

[waffle652]

To be quite honest: Nothing is wrong with them. It's what most people use them for.

No technology is bad, it's only what uses we put it to that are bad. So, really, nothing in the world is bad, not even the H-bomb. We, humans, are bad.

[BLxAnthro]

i like being bad XDDDD blowing stuff up is fun

[Qball914]

for example...the didlo.

[minirockettube]

Goto walmart and buy some magnetix

[eddisonvader]

im not being pickey i really dont care what its called

[Starcross42]

My centiments exactly

[eddisonvader]

OMG! you killed the dinosaur . Loved it

[Starcross42]

Well, not 'Killed', but rather 'incapacitated'. Want to be very specific with the 'rail gun vs. gauss cannon' group.

[Pwntzyou]

I believe that is a Gauss cannon

[ikazukinokami]

how can you improve the "fire"power of this "gun"?

with stronger magnet? or

the distance between magnet? or what?

[Starcross42]

Experiment, but I think you quickly reach terminal velocity.

[Lokivoid]

Not a railgun. not even the same principle.

[TheTomD]

@Lokivoid Very much the same principle.

[MrWombatPPC]

hay could you make a Loop. and have it continualy going around and around.?

[Starcross42]

Yes, but you would have to run very fast to reset the 2 balls on each magnet. Probably not a viable option.

[picassopainter]

Rail guns fire a concentrated blast of electricity and gauss guns fire projectiles via magnetism. This would be a gauss gun.

[parkourjordz]

Yes a common misconception.

[Tordekar]

No.

[picassopainter]

Did you just disagree with the fact that rail guns fire electricity and gauss guns use magnetism to fire projectiles? If you did you haven't done your homework.

[Tordekar]

Nope. Railguns don't shoot electricity. Check the wikipedia to see; they shoot a conductive projectile laid over a rail using a force generated by the interaction of current and a magnetic field.

The closest thing to shooting electricity is a taser.

[picassopainter]

Ok I should have worded that better but that was basically what I was saying (what you said).

[Helge129]

nuh-uh, Railguns fire the projectile by electrifying two metallic rails, thus railguns, but they don't fire the electricity itself.

[slinkee2k]

I'm pretty sure that's a gauss gun, not a rail gun.

[BlackBabaroga]

I confirm that ;)

[Sheaxyz]

i agree (you mean the comment below, right?)

[Yyyyzyyy]

My heart goes out to that dinosaur and it's family.

[Starcross42]

If you knew what that raptor had done... you would not give it your pity. And it's family has done worse!

[woopwoopninjas]

you can get ball bairings out of bike tires if you take the middle pice out

[Starcross42]

Are they large enough?

[itsabomberscope]

So thats how the dinosaurs went extinct! LOL

[101pyromaniac]

nice i am defanatly going to make one of these and go raptor hunting

[utubejudger]

OWND.

[garrison0395]

lmao, NO!!!!! NOT THE DINOSAUR!!!!!

[Starcross42]

The raptor had it coming! If you knew what he had done!

[Sinjinator]

oh no, we're not falling for your trickery again.. ;)

[Starcross42]

Yes. You caught me. There is No Way in the World that this would ever stop a raptor. Well, if you got it in his EYE! That might work!

[SuperSonicSuicide]

amazing what you learn on the internet

[tinanancollas]

I love the idea and the production value of your videos. Keep up the good work.

[bv90andy]

Use it to fight off velociraptors. haha :D

[nkrichnk]

nice and well done, but you forgot something,your next video( this one) was suposed to show the answer of the transistor coil setup :(

[Starcross42]

Sorry. Got snowed in and have been wanting to do this one for a while. The big reveal is coming soon. And actually, my 'next' video was the long run.

[15443215112]

ball barring i think are the magnetixs things

[Starcross42]

ah, yes. Good source for ball bearings. However the magnets from the set won't work.

[15443215112]

i think you can cut open the plastic and get the raw magnets, and it has some smallish column magnets, not sure if they are strong enough though. ug i cant spell

[Starcross42]

I tried them. Yes. Too small.

[15443215112]

Is there any place i could get the magnets without buying them online?

[Starcross42]

Sorry man. I've looked. That's why I put together the kit. I had to order 100 at a time. Shipping alone would be $3.95.

[PorscheHead124]

sorry i dont live in an area populated with raptors. will it work on the rare summersaulting brown flamingo?

[Starcross42]

One can only hope!