[HELP][DIY] My coil gun with some queries

[pramudit]

My exams are over so me and my friend are gonna work on My Coil Gun. We are making it hand mounted with a better power source. Before that i have some queries for it, please do help me...

Query 1-
We wanna have voltage as high as ~400v in DC for 12v battery. Can we make a inverter with IC555 as oscillator and then feeding its output to a step up transformer? A wave like|Sin(x)| will not bother us as we will rectify it...

Query 2-
We currently have 1mf capacitor with 160V rating, how much voltage we can apply without damaging it? currently we have gone to 200V.

 

[avinandan012]

^ don't know if op is responding to this thread or not ....

general usage scenario of caps is

one can use higher capacity & higher voltage than required but not the other way

for ex. suppose in a circuit one need X-volts & Y-farads rated capacitor, so one can use X+n volts & Y+z farad rated capacitor, where n & z delta in value increased

as for op's
Query 2 -
DONOT use higher voltage than rated cause it may blast the capacitor & release hazardous gas, small ones(in the range of few micro farads) pose no threat but as you go higher in capacity things go pretty hazardous.
i'll suggest getting higher rated caps

 

[Techguy]

a 160volt capacitor can take only 160volt.. anything more.. it will blow... go for 330 volt capacitors used in camera flashes.. put 3 or four of them in parallel..

 

[anirbandd]

the rule of thumb for using cap in charge storing appli is that the cap voltage rating should be atleast 2times of the max input voltage.

555 IC will not provide you with sinusoidal wave. it'll give you square wave. what is the transformer IV rating?