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Christmas Light Igniters


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Whoops, didn't realize there were posts after the videos, lol.

 

Good pics, Dave!

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Sidewinder,

 

No need to suck up, just light my rockets for me at the spring shoot so I can take video!! ;)

 

D

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If the weather is warm and the shoot is during the week, I will. :P

 

I have to work every weekend, both days, all day. *sigh*

 

But if this is in a couple months, we'll see. My schedule might change.

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Working weekends beats the hell out of not working! I used to supervise the laser cutting operations at Life Fitness and worked from 3:15 PM to 3:15 AM F-Sun. 4 days off. I loved that schedule. :)

 

D

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Working weekends beats the hell out of not working!

 

That's the truth!

 

Keep me posted on the shoot schedule. I'll try and make that one since it's nice and close.

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I thought of the problems with mixing chlorate with sulpher and know there are dangers to consider. I wonder how/what people and companies use when sticking the ematch directly into a lift cup to prevent contamination? Even with the protective tube/squibb on there can still be contamination so I am wondering about that.

 

Perc and aluminum, what would the ratio be that you use, if you can tell me? I am always open to a better, safer way to do things and I have the chems to try these. I have some 120mesh spherical ALU and some Indian blackhead, which by the way have never even opened the container. Would the coarse ALU work?

 

When I mentioned ODC above, I meant ODA Enterprises, (brain fart), just wanted to clear that up so as to not confuse anyone. Has anyone dealt with them, I haven't heard back from them yet from my email a few days ago.

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That's the truth!

 

Keep me posted on the shoot schedule. I'll try and make that one since it's nice and close.

 

Looks like south of the cities, perhaps Jordan.

 

D

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I thought of the problems with mixing chlorate with sulpher and know there are dangers to consider. I wonder how/what people and companies use when sticking the ematch directly into a lift cup to prevent contamination? Even with the protective tube/squibb on there can still be contamination so I am wondering about that.

 

Perc and aluminum, what would the ratio be that you use, if you can tell me? I am always open to a better, safer way to do things and I have the chems to try these. I have some 120mesh spherical ALU and some Indian blackhead, which by the way have never even opened the container. Would the coarse ALU work?

 

When I mentioned ODC above, I meant ODA Enterprises, (brain fart), just wanted to clear that up so as to not confuse anyone. Has anyone dealt with them, I haven't heard back from them yet from my email a few days ago.

 

Gordon,

 

I have used it all from course (ball milled right off the lathe) to super fine flake that goes airborne no matter what you do. It all works fine. Use the standard 70 perc to 30 Al, 10% NC Lacquer and wet in small batches, no more then 1 ounce total. Dip, let dry, dip and done.

 

D

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Looks like south of the cities, perhaps Jordan.

 

Ah, ok, close enough.

 

Was hoping it would be at the orchards again.

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Gordon,

 

I have used it all from course (ball milled right off the lathe) to super fine flake that goes airborne no matter what you do. It all works fine. Use the standard 70 perc to 30 Al, 10% NC Lacquer and wet in small batches, no more then 1 ounce total. Dip, let dry, dip and done.

 

D

 

 

Thanks, will give that a go and see how it works out. Thanks for the tips.

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Making e-matches from Christmas lights is so faast if you have a dremel. It takes me no more than 10 seconds to break a bulb with the dremel. For 5 minutes, I make 40 bulbs ready for NC BP filling.
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Ah, ok, close enough.

 

Was hoping it would be at the orchards again.

 

Two sites are on the block, May 15th is the day though. Jordan is a no-go, too many horses around.

 

D

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May 15, you say? Cool, then it will be a 1-day early birthday present to myself. ;)

 

Keep me posted.

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May 15, you say? Cool, then it will be a 1-day early birthday present to myself. ;)

 

Keep me posted.

 

I certainly will!

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  • 3 weeks later...

Dagabu, I have another question if you will. I have been using the bulbs with great success however, I would like to eliminate the plastic housing because it is so big and I believe you said you are doing them that way. My question is, how do you solder to those 2 tiny copper/steel looking lines from the bulb. They seem to act just like nichrome, but even with acid flux I cann't seem to get anything to stick. The other thing I thought of was maybe not all these sets are like mine and some have copper wires.

 

Aside from that, I went back to the chlorate and antimony as the prime because for some reason my alu perc mix did not burn very well. They would ignite in just one little spot and the rest of the big drop wouldn't even burn. I don't know, maybe my NCL was too thick but it works great with the original prime and primer. I do give them a nice final dip in the NCL too so as to give some protection against touching any sulpher in the fuse and I don't install one unless I'm ready to shoot.

 

I looked at the filament on those bulbs with a microscope and they are coiled and appear to be the same as the filament on the clip igniters or talons. They definately give off a nice glow, perfect for what we use them for. I broke the bulbs on 60 of them the other night using the vice grip trick in about 10 min, way faster than I could have scored and broken them. Just a FYI

 

Anyway, thanks for all the help.

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  • 5 months later...

New method.

 

I'm takeing the bulb out of the plastic housing, cracking it to the VERY base, putting the light back in, and putting a PVC wire insulator piece in place of the glass. I am then going to get a syringe and load it with BP slurry..and inject my matches [=

 

Made these this morning.

 

post-9884-128742172308_thumb.jpg

 

post-9884-128742178604_thumb.jpg

 

post-9884-128742185506_thumb.jpg

 

Also, here are some pictures of my 12 channel wireless relay system.

 

post-9884-128742194947_thumb.jpg

 

post-9884-128742201733_thumb.jpg

 

post-9884-128742207968_thumb.jpg

 

ENJOY!

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I found out that breaking the glass with the cutting bit of a dremel does things pretty fast. I made 40 bulb igniters for not much than 1 hours.
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I found out that breaking the glass with the cutting bit of a dremel does things pretty fast. I made 40 bulb igniters for not much than 1 hours.

 

Yep, I think I said that in the TUT

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  • 2 weeks later...

Last week I made some bulb e-matches, but I fired them today and they weren't reliable at all. The fault was in the NC paste, it was igniting at only one spot. I've used small bulbs (2mm) and they aren't comfortable to work with. Maybe I should go buy some of the big ones.

I have a question about filling the bulbs though.. Is the tugsten wire corrosion resistant to the KNO3 in the black powder? What is the shelf life of these bulbs?

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  • 3 months later...
  • 1 year later...

Humm this seems pointless and wastefull.

 

Try NiChrome wire instead. (as used in tosters)

Benifits:

Reuseble! Flexable! Durable! doesnt snap! can be used 100s of times with 1 filement. can be powered of a small voltage like a small 12v rechargeble battery.

 

thats all i use and it costs nothing, just stuff the coil of nichrome wire into whatever your trying to light, or wrap it round a fuse, power it and it will glow hot AND DOES NOT BREAK reuseable about 100 times, just as in your toaster is same stuff!!!

 

Does'nt draw much current as its naturaly resistant

 

Ebay = Nichrome wire!

Youtube = Nichrome Wire!

 

demo for those who havn't seen nichrome wire before.

once you use it you wont go back!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK2_nHQUKus

Edited by bigminty
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Last week I made some bulb e-matches, but I fired them today and they weren't reliable at all. The fault was in the NC paste, it was igniting at only one spot. I've used small bulbs (2mm) and they aren't comfortable to work with. Maybe I should go buy some of the big ones.

I have a question about filling the bulbs though.. Is the tugsten wire corrosion resistant to the KNO3 in the black powder? What is the shelf life of these bulbs?

 

Tungsten is fairly corrosion resistant, but the filament is also *very* fragile, so you have to be careful when filling the bulbs with pyrogen.

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