Electromagnetic Accelerator Improvements Part II

Update 9/5/2021 - STL Files in link below:

In this video I make a new version of my ring accelerator that's capable of propelling steel balls 15 times faster than my first design. This is the second part in a series about improving accelerator coils

Here's some technical specs:

Input voltage: 24V
Number of coils: 4
Wire Gauge: 24AWG

Coil Current: 13A
Coil ID: 1.1"
Coil OD: 1.4"
Coil Length: 0.5"
Coil turns: 200

The final outer diameter is ~2" due to the addition of steel wire to create a magnetic flux guide or "shell".

FET Type: IRLZ44N
On time: ~8 ms at max. speed
Energy input per pulse: 2.6J

Ball mass: 65 grams
Ball kinetic energy: ~0.52J

Part I:

Previous Accelerator design:

Music:
Serge Pavkin - Fractal
Serge Pavkin - Tech
Serge Pavkin - Unknown

[HyperspacePirate]

Hi Guys,

Thanks for your views and support. I'd like to clarify a few common questions / comments about this device:

-I think the maximum speed I saw was around 400 RPM.

-Yes, this is effectively just a coilgun bent into a closed loop.

-Yes, this the principles are very similar to a particle accelerator. However, in most particle accelerator configurations, an *electric* field is used to generate most of the forward acceleration, whereas magnetic fields are used for confinement (or focusing, in the case of an electron beam). Creating useable forces from electric fields requires tremendous voltages, and special electrical insulators to prevent arcing.

-Yes, the track could probably be balanced by the use of another ball 180 degrees out of phase, but it would increase the complexity of the coil control considerably to ensure the balls remain approximately 180 degrees apart. Left to their own devices, I've found that the phases between multiple balls will drift at random.

-Yes, a similar device could be created using an electrical current through liquid mercury. This is known as magnetohydrodynamics. Mercury is very expensive and difficult to acquire in the United States because of the health hazards.

-It's *not* a perpetual motion machine (implying 100% efficiency). In fact, I believe it's less that 5% efficient. 95% of the energy going into this from the battery is just heating up the coils.

-It's *not* capable of flying like a "UFO". I think this idea comes from the notion of "inertial propulsion" where some people have mistakenly confused the torque generated by a high speed gyroscope with translational force required for flight. A gyroscope on a shaft can appear to lift itself against gravity, but the lifting is generated by torque, so it depends on having one end of the shaft firmly forced against the ground.

-It's *not* going to be able to recover power from the moving ball with a "generator" coil. This is because the ball is not magnetized. This would be possible with a permanent magnet ball, but the efficiency of the recovery would probably be extremely poor.

[ecicce]

I would love to see a project like this escalated to an absolute maximum. Like starting from this what is the next step to increase speed? More coils? More Power? Decrease friction, perfect timing? Vacuum? better materials? Cooling? synchronize 2 balls for better stability? Would love to see this getting perfected to the absolute extreme near the breaking point of every component. I love projects like these. please continue!

[stevemeacham]

In the 80’s I created one using old-school techniques. The track was much larger, on the order of a couple of meters around. The track was three rails, with the outer rails conductive neutral and the middle rail non-conductive, but with a hot conductive surface right before each coil. The metal ball would make contact between the hot and one or the other neutrals, and the ball itself completed a circuit that energized the next coils (or several coils). The middle rail wasn’t actually conductive like the outer rails. Rather, it had a conductive surface only where it needed it to allow the ball itself to make or break the circuit.

No microcontroller. No PCB boards. Just wires (lots and lots of wire), heavy duty foil, solder, the rails, bracing, and a safety shield. And sparks, but those were fun!

And it was fast AF. Only friction, air resistance, and probably residual impedance to limit the speed.

[BlinkRepeat]

Try adjusting the distance between the coils and the sensors, and add delays that decrease as the speed increases, so that as the ball goes faster the coils can "adjust" their activation times to get more speed out of it. You could make a clock like system using the four sensors to gage the speed changes too.

[StephanBuchin]

Great project. Lack of rigidity induces oscillations that seem to slow or accelerate the ball, depending on their phase relative to the ball position.

[robindebreuil]

This is a fantastic project. You should submit it to somewhere like hackaday so more people can see this. Really great work, thanks for sharing it!

[gang]

I would recommend a micro controller to do the triggering of the coils. This will help you control the ontime of the coils depending on the balls velocity. And you can also monitor the balls speed in real time. Nice project

[DrLuke-lpvz]

Nice idea, I'd suggest adding a little more signal processing and timing systems to the control circuitry, working out the velocity of the accelerated mass and adjusting the magnetic pulse to account for the speed. As the ball gets faster you seem to be hitting the limits of your timing control system as there does appear to be a maximum speed (based on the audio). You could move the light gate sensors a little further from the coils and add a small delay or compensator to the trigger pulse that can be adaptively changed based on the calculated velocity to maximise the achievable top speed.

[nosuchthing]

Wow. The new and improved version looks like it might year a hole in spacetime.

Good job!

[Davidlahall]

You made my dream machine and called it an accelerator...it's crazy how more that one person think up the same things. You're awesome though. Kudos.

[anventia]

5:14 If you put 2 or 3 balls stationary next to each other, then accelerate another into them, will it act like a Newton's Cradle, with only 1 ball going around at a time, sending the next in line around when it hits the back of the line?

[mpwmscog]

I'm very much intrigued with your work and I'm very grateful to see this today.

[ripcdburnme]

I"m impressed you did that all with out using some sort of micro controller for the timing and ball location. Awesome project, I'm going to make a version of that for sure!

[dallinhmic]

It looks like to me you made a sensor brushless motor. really quite impressive good job.

[Youngnt]

This is amazing work. I love how you designed the coil igniters. I had a similar idea instead of a steel ball in a half pipe it was ferro fluid in a torus gyroscope . My hypothesis was that it would levitate .

[braysniper]

This is amazing and absolutely hilarious to watch it rev up and fling the balls off! My tip for the next version is to make it a tube rather than a "tray" or "track". Which a secure trap door to place the ballbearing in as well as nice and long holes for seeing the ballbearings spin visually.

[Rushian]

Soon I might be seeing home-made particle accelerators.


Keep up the good work.

[downflatdown]

I noticed a defect in the design of your track. When making your track, you neglected to subtract the length of the track, that is occupied by each of the coil modules. This additional, strait, segment of added track, warped the perfect circle, produced by your printer. Of course it still works. But, I would like to see how stable it would operate with the correction.

[FaeraGaelwyn]

Just keep doubling the number of electromagnet coils.
After that you just need some sort of firing mechanism. ;)

[kingofcastlechaos]

As an internet expert on ring accelerator videos, I feel compelled to let you know exactly how to do this right instead of building one myself.
Just kidding sir!
You keep doing this and I will sit at my desk and enjoy it. New (and possibly annoying) subscriber!