An energy storage system for use in a magnetic pulse welding and forming apparatus includes a bank of capacitors and a very-low inductance conductive bus system interconnecting the capacitors. In some embodiments, the instrument support apparatus may be for supporting an instrument having a shaft extending along a shaft axis relative to a patient positioned adjacent to an external frame. An analog-to-digital converter digitizes analog signals representative of the magnitudes Vbe1 and Vbe2. The various layers may be deposited by colloidal spray deposition or aerosol spray casting. At least one coupler further includes a coupling direction changing mechanism which couples the at least one coupler with a predetermined position of a structural member corresponding thereto so that the center line of the body of the at least one coupler can be orientated in a desired direction. The illustrative embodiment comprises a plurality of servers, a queue of jobs to be assigned to the servers, and two queue managers\u2014a primary unit and a secondary unit\u2014such that the secondary fills in for the primary unit while the primary unit is down.