Hi Manuel,
Quote Originally Posted by manumenzella View Post
Hi.
I am building a coilgun with some capacitors, and I would like to use a PIC handle the charging process. I read that gigh voltage capacitors are dangeroud, but what is it that makes electricity dangerous? If you were to pu 10 or 15 9-volt-batteries in series, and touch the contacts, would it shock you? Is it safe to build a capacitor bank (about 47000uf) at 25vdc?
What is the difference (speaking about dangers) betweeb DC and AC?
Thanks in advance!!!!
Manuel
Electricity thru people, is a strange acting phenomenon. It is difficult to predict what dangers or problems someone might run into making a coil-gun. It is a subject you should research in full before you start your project. There are better places to find out about general electric safety.

Capacitors have a “bad rap” because they can store a charge and catch unsuspecting victims days after the power has been removed. Proper circuit design and proper respect can keep them from surprising you. The coil can also give a nasty surprise as well.

10 to 15 9V batteries wired in series, would be slightly more than 90 to 135 Volts. Most professionals in “hands on” electronics, work around that amount of voltage on a regular basis. With nominal conventional precautions, this is considered a normal workday. Note that they do not touch the conductors barehanded (so I guess, “hands on”, may be just an expression). Wikipedia states “...death has occurred from supplies as low as 32 volts...”!

There is some beginning information and references to information you should learn. Wikipedia has a good start. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_shock There is some discussion on AC / DC comparisons too.

This should not be read as an all doom and gloom reply. It’s just your post sound like you may not have had much “hands on” experience. Do your homework and then you will be launching things on the coil-gun.

I am sure others will be adding to the discussion.
-Adam-