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Im basically entirely new to Electrical Engineering, however I really want to challenge myself to become a better one, so I decided to try to mod a nerf gun to be a coil gun, more or less. Now, I know physics like the back of my hand, but when it comes to wiring everything up, I am at a loss.

Right now, I need to change a trigger pull of indefinite length into a quick pulse of voltage where I could tweak the pulse length to make the gun fire consistently. I did some research and it looks like I'll essentially need to wire up a rising edge detector more or less...

Am I on the right track? And if so, how would I go about doing this physically?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Coil gun projects are easy in terms of complexity, but be very careful as they tend to be potentially lethal on the electrical side, even if the projectile is kept to a "safe" velocity (it's actually quite a challenge to do high power delivery. It appears you want to build a fully automatic coilgun, so I'd recommend that you copy someone else's project if you really have your heart set on automatic mode (the challenge of efficiently and repeatedly charging a mid voltage capacitor bank is considerable), or better yet learn with a single shot design first. Before that, learn electrical safety! \$\endgroup\$
    – K H
    Commented Nov 10, 2018 at 23:13

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Your description is minimal but it sounds like you should use a monostable multivibrator. This is a device that generates a single pulse upon receiving a trigger. The width of the output pulse can be varied. Monostable multivibrators can be built out of discrete transistors or from dedicated integrated circuits. I suggest you search on them and decide what you need to meet your specific requirements.

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