Hi all,

Over the past few months I've been trying my hand at electromagnetic can
crushing (Google this phrase if you do not know what I am talking about -
the basic idea is that you make a transformer where the primary is a few
turns of thick wire and the secondary is an empty aluminum can, put a
huge/fast current pulse through the primary, and the interaction between
the B field of the primary and the induced current in the can causes a
large force to be applied around the midsection of the can and it gets
squeezed around its waist).

Usually people do this with high voltage (2kV or higher) and a moderate
amount of capacitance (maybe 100uF). I got a bunch of 3300uF, 420V
electrolytic caps very cheaply and I have been trying to use them to crush
cans. Achieving the required dB/dt with only 400V is proving to be a
challenge but I am not defeated yet.

My setup charges a bank of 8 3300uF caps in parallel to 400V, giving an
energy of about 1.8kJ. A large hockey-puck style SCR is then used to dump
this current through the primary coil.

My latest attempt resulting in almost no can crushing by the coil sure
crushed itself. I put a very short video clip of the event up on Youtube
and thought that some of you might be interested:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3DkqMXJrvXaWQ

Sean
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