About the chinese "Time rain" composition

[Adrenaline]

When the Apex Formula pdf (http://pyrobin.com/files/Apex%20Formulas.pdf) first was uploaded there was alot of discussion about the chinese star formulas within the community.

Many people said that the formulas were either wrong or intentionally altered by the chinese.

I remember that the "time rain" composition was often mentioned because it seemed to be so unlikely to work.

This is the composition I'm talking about:

 

MgAl: 20

CuO: 70

Ti: 10

 

Now while this formula sort of looks like a crackling formula which is missing at least on major ingredient I actually never really saw it as a crackling comp.

It's called "Time rain" after all.

A quick youtube search for "Time rain cake" and you'll see what the "Time rain" effect is supposed to look like.

It seemst to be a mix between crackling and glitter. There is definitely some crackling but the stars rely on visual rather than accoustic effects.

I thought why not try it and here are my results:

 

I prepared the stars like normal crackling micro stars.

MgAl and CuO was screen mixed and the titanium mixed in later. I bound with NC and made some micro stars by ricing the star composition through a screen.

The resulting micro stars were very hard to light.

So I primed them with fencepost prime + 7 % red gum and finished of with a layer of green mix.

After the micro stars were dry I prepared some matrix stars using Hardt's Dragon Egg Matrix.

 

The composition actually does crackle! It's not as loud as a real crackling composition but it was mouch louder than I expected it to be.

 

Video of one 10 mm matrix star lit on the ground

http://pyrobin.com/files/Time%20rain%20ground.mp4

 

Video of three 10 mm matrix stars shot from a 20 mm paper tube

http://pyrobin.com/files/Time%20rain%20mine.mp4

 

Cheers,

Adrenaline

Edited March 18, 2016 by Adrenaline

[lloyd]

Neat! Thanks for trying it out!

 

Lloyd

[gregh]

Very nice. What mesh of MgAl and Ti did you use?

[Adrenaline]

I think my MgAl is 300 mesh. It's just the normal kind I use for color stars.

Ti was 300 µm - 630 µm sponge. But there's propbably a lot of room for experiments. The document doesn't specify any mesh size.

Using FeTi would also be worth a try.

[Adrenaline]

I did another test. I wanted to see what the stars look like in the air so I just threw together a small rocket header.

A small scoop of MCRH a few Time rain stars, a few turquoise to red stars, no spiking or pasting.

http://pyrobin.com/files/Time%20Rain%20rocket.mp4

 

The Time rain stars seem to burn a little bit to fast. I might try using tiger tail as a matrix next time.

[Seymour]

I wonder if this is used as a regular star. As in not a microstar or a microstar containing matrix, but as a full size star primed and used as if it was a (perhaps hard to light) coloured star?

[Adrenaline]

I'm not sure how the formula would behave in a regular star. It definitely wouldn't have a long enough hang time to look like the stars in time rain shells.

 

I gave it another go today. This time I used FeTi to prepare the microstars instead of Ti and Shimizu's willow formula as a matrix.

I pumped 10 mm stars and loaded them into a 3 " non-boostered rocket header.

 

http://pyrobin.com/files/Time%20Rain%20rocket%202.mp4

 

I'm pretty happy with how the stars came out. The lower left part of the burst doesn't really show much because the stars are much too close together, but the stars in the upper right corner of the burst represent

how the stars should look like in a shell with a proper break charge and spiking/pasting.

[Ubehage]

I'm not sure how the formula would behave in a regular star. It definitely wouldn't have a long enough hang time to look like the stars in time rain shells.

 

I gave it another go today. This time I used FeTi to prepare the microstars instead of Ti and Shimizu's willow formula as a matrix.

I pumped 10 mm stars and loaded them into a 3 " non-boostered rocket header.

 

http://pyrobin.com/files/Time%20Rain%20rocket%202.mp4

 

I'm pretty happy with how the stars came out. The lower left part of the burst doesn't really show much because the stars are much too close together, but the stars in the upper right corner of the burst represent

how the stars should look like in a shell with a proper break charge and spiking/pasting.

That was awesome! Thank you for experimenting and sharing your results.

[Mumbles]

I know I've been critical of these formulas, and probably this one in particular. I'm happy to admit where I'm wrong. The composition is a little unorthodox, but it's good to know that lead or bismuth are not absolutely necessary.

 

I think my biggest issue with this particular one wasn't really the formula, but the lack of instruction. ie You can't just make a comet out of this 100%. It does need to be made into a matrix comet for it to preform properly.

[Adrenaline]

Of course you're right mumbles. There aren't any real instructions about this formula. I just tried what I thought should work.

I think there's still a lot of changes one can make to my procedure. I'm particularly interested in the effect of the micro-star size on the "crackling".

I think you're right in saying that it's not possbile to make a comet out the formula without a matrix. That would basically be bound copper thermite.

However experimenting with different sized micro stars might be worth it. I gotta admit that I don't have much experience with making micro stars.

So if someone more experienced wants to give it a go your results are probably gonna be even better.

Edited April 11, 2016 by Adrenaline

[FlaMtnBkr]

I doubt the Ti or FeTi contribute much to the reaction, especially if a bigger particle size. Usually they mostly burn up outside the reaction with atmospheric oxygen.

 

I wonder if adding some other things could possibly help? Manganese or tin oxides or even antimony trisulfide. Or if a little bit of bismuth trioxide might help make them louder since we know it works yet still keep it really cheap overall? Actually, I think there is a fairly new thread in the compositions forum that would be pretty similar to just that if I remember correctly. Or maybe a little bit of aluminum powder?

 

Altering the MgAl particle size might also help quite a bit as it does with the more traditional DE microstars. There are all kinds of things that someone could experiment with to possibly make them louder. But they are pretty cool as they are! I tried a fairly similar formula that I will have to lookup, but I think just copper oxide and MgAl, and they lit fine as microstars but they didn't make any sound and just a bright flash. I can look it up if anyone is interested.

 

I need to set aside some time and do a bunch of experiments with crackle as there is something else I already want to try.

 

Thanks!

 

Edit: clarification

Edited April 11, 2016 by FlaMtnBkr

[schroedinger]

FlatMthBkr of course you could add more chemicals to get a real cracle, but time rain is not supposed to really behave like DE's, it needs hundreds of tiny cracles. You could say that if cracle is thunder, that time rain is more reasambling a wave rolling up a beach.

[FlaMtnBkr]

If regular DE are put into a matrix so they are spread out over a few seconds it has the same sound effect but louder. I don't think it hurts anything to try and optimize the composition to be as loud as possible. Plus it would then be able to be used in the traditional manner as well. With traditional formulas you can always use a finer MgAl if for some reason you don't want loud pops and want multiple quiet ones.

 

That was also just a name given in a document. I don't think anyone would be upset if a good working formula for DE was discovered that didn't contain any toxic, expensive, or hard to locate chemicals.

[schroedinger]

Did anyone try to use these with water and dextrine?

[schroedinger]

Did anyone try to use these with water and dextrine?

I tried it myself now, and can say water/dex is the way to go. I primed them with monocapa bound with red gum/ethanol. Pumped them into a C8 matrix and used them in a 2" cylinder shell, 4 rows of alternating stacked stars, broken with MCRH and 2 g 7/3/1 (KClO4/Al/S). Perfect shell with a really nice time effect. I used 10 parts of dry primed microstars (extruded through a 2 mm sieve) to 100 parts of wet C8.

[j3cub]

Did you get a chance to film it?

[schroedinger]

No, i totally forgkt about that, but i got one more of those shells, i will film that.

[Mixer]

I wonder if this is the same thing....

 

 

And their method....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeBq6CGW4TA

[FlaMtnBkr]

I did a little researching and found an old picture that said it's a CuO based formula before they started calling it magic powder.

 

They also have a special MgAl that they say is specifically for use with the 'magic powder'.

 

One of the pictures for the magic powder has a number on the bag that I was able to look up and it just said it's a magnesium aluminum alloy. They probably just grabbed a random picture though and it means nothing.

 

If it were just a CuO and MgAl mix, I wonder if the MgAl is a special alloy and not the standard 50:50 mix?

 

I also saw where they have something they call boosting powder for firecrackers and aerial shells so I assume for use with flash. Looking up the number on that bag, assuming it's correct, it was sulfur. Which technically could boost the performance of flash powder.

 

I wonder if someone contacted them and played dumb along with the language barrier, if they could find out what it contains?

[Mixer]

The boosting powder bag looks to be the same size as all the other bags, but it`s only 4 kilo all the others are between 25-50 kilo, so I suspect it`s only some lightweight filler material.

 

I wouldn`t be surprised to find the "Magic Powder" being just straight Copper oxide. They do state.........

 

"TO MAKE CRACKLING STARTS WITHOUT BISMUTH AND RED LEAD OXIDE"

I think they use the 50/50 150 mesh Magnalium.

 

Maybe it`s just simply a case of getting the formula in the right proportions?

[lloyd]

Research on Pyro-gear (UK) has lead to that same conclusion.

 

Lloyd

[Mixer]

The Pyro-gear formula utilises PVB and N/C though and it would be useful to find a good working formula which only requires a Dextrin binder.

[lloyd]

I'm not in a position to say, but I understand that some progress has been made to simplify those formulae.

 

LLoyd

[Mia]

As the owner of Pyro-Gear I can say that we have cracked it, however the formulation now lays with two companies for

Evaluation

, it is highly unlikely the formulae will be open to a public forum.

 

However keep your research going you may just get there.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Mia

[RichardH08]

As co-discoverer of our formulation, I feel I ought to add a few comments.

 

I find it fascinating to see that others are beginning to realize, as we did some time ago, that neither heavy metals nor nitrocellulose are necessary. It seems clear that this has been known in China for many years, but the information that emerged – largely in the form of automatically translated patent applications – has been hard to understand; the more so as I suspect that the documents were written to be deliberately vague, if not misleading.

 

Our starting point was different, so it probably isn’t too surprising that our findings differ in a number of respects from what is being discussed in this thread. However, I’m absolutely certain that there is more than one way of getting to a workable composition.

 

We believe that our solution is particularly effective, which is why we decided to submit it for independent evaluation before taking matters any further. Realistically, we have to accept that this process will take some time to be completed.