This is the second prototype of a coil gun I am building. This one adds much more power, larger projectile, larger coil, and lower capacitor charge time. There are 4 separate charging circuits that charge the capacitors by pressing the button on the bottom of the handle. The capacitors never truly get fully charged due to the slight variation in voltage levels between the different charging circuits. I never allow the charging circuit to get to this point however and it will automatically start discharging power through resistors once fully charged. Ideally I would build in a shut off method rather than just keep wasting power when the capacitors are charged to 90%. The switch I am using is a house light switch and is a major limiting factor in the performance of the gun. I hope to get a different high current switch or use a thyrister or SCR for the next prototype. I would also like to get rid of the multiple charging circuits and have one larger capacitor bank charged by one battery bank by one charging circuit. This will help to eliminate the batteries heating up when I attempt to charge the capacitors to 100%

My next prototype will consist of a custom PCB charging circuit that charges from Lithium Ion batteries. This will require a leveling system in order to keep the pack of lithium ion batteries even when discharging. I am trying to use active cell balancing however if the cost becomes to large I will be reverting to passive cell balancing. I hope to increase the voltage of my capacitors as well as the size of my coil. I plan to use the same ammunition as this prototype.