Troubleshooting Igniter for Fireworks

[bassfreeak]

igniter HELP!

hi i don't no if I am doing this right but its my first post or whatever u call it ...anyways i need help making an igniter for fireworks. I saw a plane online i thought i could make farliy easily but I am confuses. Ok it said that if you have nichrome wire witch if u don't no is the wire inside of a toaster that gets red hot... u can take the wire and atach a 9 volt battary to it through to wires... so i bought a toaster took the wire out hooked it up to a 9 volt battry and it did not get hot enof to set off a fuse sooo if u know what I am doing wrong or if u have any advice it would help a lot.

 

[Danger]

Welcome to PF, Bassfreeak.
To start with, be very careful dealing with this stuff.
As to the question, nichrome wire in a toaster is a lot thicker than that used for rockets. It's designed to work with AC mains electricity, and a 9-volt battery just can't provide enough juice to heat it up. You can buy real exploding bridge wires at most hobby shops that deal with rockets. (I think that Solar is a brand name.)
If you can't find them, you can always cut the glass off of a camera flashbulb and wire it up.

 

[bassfreeak]

thank you is the igniters u r talking about use the blackpowder tip and if the wire in a toaster is to thick do u no where i can buy thin wire for cheap

 

[Danger]

I'm not sure exactly what composition is used, nor where to find cheap wire. You could try eBay, since I've seen stuff like this for sale in the hobby-rocketry category.
In the meantime, here's a link that might be helpful.
http://www.estesrockets.com/assets/downloads/ingniters.pdf"

 

[xez]

You don't really need especially thin wire if a somewhat
slowly increasing heat is sufficient to ignite your fuses.

If you get a standard car battery or something at least
comparably powerful, you can easily cause red-hot heat
and rapid melting of a couple inch long piece of,
say, 30 gauge magnet wire or wire wrap wire.

Just take some heavy battery 'jumper cables', clip them
to your 2"-3" long thin wire, then *momentarily* connect
the other end of the jumper cable to the battery and
that thin wire is going to glow white hot and melt within
well less than a second.

For thin wire you could also just unravel some strands of
wire from a thin stranded appliance cord from
some broken household appliance / gadget. Typically
you'll find seven or more strands of bare hair-thin copper
wire woven together to make the cable.

An alternative would be to use something like an ignition
coil setup from a car -- ignition capacitor, diode,
coil, momentary physical contact to energize the main coil
with 12V of the appropriate polarity, and a length of high
voltage wire from the output of the coil to a couple of wires
held 1mm apart where the spark is desired.

Disclaimer: use appopriate heavy gloves, overalls, eye
protection, and physical / chemical / electrical safety
when doing anything like this. You can easily destroy
the battery if you let the jumper cables short together,
or if you let high current continue to flow for more than
a several seconds before you recharge the battery.
Even 12V DC from a battery can be lethal if you were
to conduct it through yourself, so don't let that happen.

 

[bassfreeak]

thanx but from the linx i saw u really don't need a big car battery like this like used a nthin pice of nichrome wire


http://youtube.com/watch?v=45nBAhNkPLA also i just want itred hot to lite a fuse not so hot it melts

or like this link it says to use nichrome wire but he used jelery wire i teryed that to but it never got red hot

http://www.instructables.com/id/EO60OUFKSOEQHOADNJ/?ALLSTEPS

but thanks for your comment i can take what i can get

 

[xez]

The advantage if it melts is that the battery often
disconnects itself from the wire so that current stops flowing
rapidly.

Anyway, yes, they make commercial igniters which you can
order online or get at a hobby store, or you could use some
of the thin nichrome wire and a smaller battery.

I'm sure if you had a jacob's ladder or tesla coil handy
those could be used too.

Use whatever works for you; there are a few choices.

 

[bassfreeak]

thanks do u no where i can buy thin nichrome wire because i called homedepo lows hobbylobby and they all had no clue what nichrome wire was so if u no that would be great and if i do gey how low of a battry could i use and how would i use it

 

[xez]

That's probably the commercial solution for you.

http://www.towerhobbies.com/rockets/listings/rocket_engine_igniter.html

For nichrome wire .. try:
http://www.heatersplus.com/nichrome.htm
or use your favorite search engine to look for other
suppliers; maybe OMEGA sells some.

Try the 31 gague or maybe something between 30 and 40;
anything with a lower number may be too thick and not
easy to heat without a lot of current.

An easier to find local source might be just buying a
wire-wound resistor with as high of a resistance in a
small form as possible e.g. 500 ohms, crack it carefully
open on one end and unwind the wire.

I know that 6V lantern batteries could be used, but they're
rather expensive and not commonly found these
days, that's why I suggested a car battery or a similar
motorcycle battery or a small lead-acid battery from the
battery backup of a UPS or alarm system or emergency
battery backed up exit light or something.

 

[bassfreeak]

thanks agen i gess I am going to have to order it online but like i was sayin people on the enternet are useing a 9volt to get like 1 inch of nichrome red hot .. if the 9v worked i have one of those modle reocket igniter boxes it the two wires that have alagator clips on the end how would i get it to work with that

 

[bassfreeak]

i can't seem to find the hobby box that u put it all in if u no were i can find 1 tell me

 

[xez]

9V batteries don't have much energy, one would be
dead after only a few uses, that's why it's better to use
a rechargable battery.

I'm sure that if you put eight charged
2000 mAh rated AA batteries together in series it would
be much better than a 9V battery, and they'd be
easily recharged in a common charger.

You'd be looking at something like 36ga or
even thinner 40ga. nichrome for best results of
conserving the battery to allow for maximum use.

You could just use 16ga speaker wire to couple the
battery pack to the nichrome, and put a somewhat
heavy duty 120V/8A rated momentary normally open
pushbutton switch in-line on the speaker wire to
actuate the thing.

At least in the good old days you could get a battery
holder for 8 AA batteries at Radio Shack; maybe you
still can.

 

[bassfreeak]

if i was going to combind 8 aa batterys y can't i just combined 2 9v... and do u no were to get that littel black box

 

[xez]

Well eight AA's have way more energy than even two
9V batteries, that's why it's better to use 8xAA rather
than 2x9.

Also rechargable AAs are often cheap whereas even
non-rechargable 9V batteries are expensive, and the
non-rechargable ones are more so. That's why they
use AAs in all things like cameras and never 9V batteries.

You can use 9V batteries if you want but they'll cost you
more and go dead faster; if I was going to spend the
bucks I'd spend it on a small lead acid or several
NIMH AAs and save money and time in the long run
rathar than weak 9Vs. It's your choice.

I don't know about pre-made igniter units, I'm sure
that most any online store that caters to model rocketry
would have them for sale.. but there's not much to them
other than a few batteries in a case and a switch..

I already showed you where you could get the igniter
electric fuses for rocketry, and I'm sure they'd work for
most consumer fireworks on the fuse too.

 

[bassfreeak]

thanks I am going to buy 40 gage wire off of ebay and i got a black penciel box bit i acnt find where to get the 8 aa battry thing

 

[xez]

thanks I am going to buy 40 gage wire off of ebay and i got a black penciel box bit i acnt find where to get the 8 aa battry thing

http://www.radioshack.com/search/in...032058&kwCatId=2032058&kw=battery+holder&pg=2

There are a few slightly different kinds of
8*AA battery holders available there inexpensively.