Capacitor bank charger

I need some plans for a capacitor bank charging circuit to charge five 1000µF 200v electrolytic capacitors I want it to have a LED to let me know when its charged, I would also like it to beable to simply plug into the wall instead of having to have a battery or power supply or anything like that this is for a coil gun so i want it to charge the caps and then be able to discharge them to the coils... thanks for anyhelp

NickLee said:

I need some plans for a capacitor bank charging circuit to charge five 1000µF 200v electrolytic capacitors I want it to have a LED to let me know when its charged, I would also like it to beable to simply plug into the wall instead of having to have a battery or power supply or anything like that this is for a coil gun so i want it to charge the caps and then be able to discharge them to the coils... thanks for anyhelp

Click to expand...

A 5,000uf 200v cap being charged from standard DC power derived from standard home AC power will charge up in just a few seconds, not worth the effort and cost to implement a voltage monitoring device.

I guess you could just use a bridge rectifier wired directly from the 120vac and it would charge the cap to around 170vdc (120 X 1.4). However good safety practice would require that you use a isolation transformer instead of direct connection to the AC. Be sure you fuse the power source.

Lefty

NickLee said:

I need some plans for a capacitor bank charging circuit to charge five 1000µF 200v electrolytic capacitors I want it to have a LED to let me know when its charged, I would also like it to beable to simply plug into the wall instead of having to have a battery or power supply or anything like that this is for a coil gun so i want it to charge the caps and then be able to discharge them to the coils... thanks for anyhelp

Click to expand...

There are a lot of coil gun sites on the internet....google it!

I built a coil gun, and charged the caps with a simple voltage doubler straight from the mains (but with 700v caps). Its dangerous this way, but coil guns are fairly out there anyway, so you take risks ;-).
The charge time is not important, so a simple circuit will do, you cant charge straight from the mains via a bridge, the surge current with cause havoc.
Are you then seriesing them up for the money shot, or in parrellell?.

Triggering these mothers into the coil is no walk in the park, a relay is not really the go, the contact arcing is horrendous. A monster 1200V 1Kamp SCR is the go, worked a treat, fast and clean. I inserted a bolt into my coil, and it shot clean across the workshop and destroyed a shelf ( well, dented it).