DIY Electric Igniters for Rocket Engines & Pyrotechnics - ELEMENTALMAKER
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- čas přidán 12. 11. 2017
- Here's an in depth look at how I make my homemade electric Igniters for use with rocketry and pyrotechnics. They are quite easy to make, and burn very hot allowing for ignition of very hard-to-ignite compositions.
Wireless Ignition System: amzn.to/3ikYZ3c
40AWG Nichrome Wire: amzn.to/31jL2sE
24AWG Two Conductor Wire: amzn.to/2hoXHpn
Wire Stripper: amzn.to/2hvVuw5 - Věda a technologie
Hope you guys enjoyed! Heres the parts list: Wireless Ignition System: amzn.to/3ikYZ3c
40AWG Nichrome Wire: amzn.to/31jL2sE
24AWG Two Conductor Wire: amzn.to/2hoXHpn
Wire Stripper: amzn.to/2hvVuw5
cool mixture))) new ingredients are added on a go))) science!)
Dude you seem like a guy I could definitely hang out with. You have a ton of information on what you do and a sense of humor as well.
Moral of the story: grab strippers with less aggressive teeth...
I see what you did there. 😂
Lmaorotf, no marks left
You will find single base and double base smokeless powders. The double base is mixture of nitroglycerin , graphite and nitrocellulose. Single base is nitrocellulose and graphite. You can dissolve the smokeless in acetone before adding to the nitrocellulose.
this was really helpful. Me and my friends decided to see how high we can make a rocket go (with very little prior experience) so it's always great to see stuff like this. it seems difficult to find good tutorials on diy parts that both work and aren't terribly unsafe
Well I hope you learned a few lessons along the way, because pyrotechnics are by definition unsafe.
The first being randomly mixing pyrotechnic ingredients is generally a bad idea. Second being that potassium perchlorate is a extremely effective oxidizer and care should be taken when handling that stuff. If you search the web on rocket forums you will find many recipes with accurate mixtures that have been tried and tested.
Evil genius, with a great sense of humor.
Clever!!! Now I can give my single strand of 30 gauge wrapped in a coil a rest, due to the mis-fires, at a 50% ratio.. I Look forward to this.. Thank you.
“Just the tip” 😂😂😂😂👍🏼
This is the best tutorial on ignighters on CZcams, very well done sir.
Thank you Jeremy 👍
As soon as you said "grab a stripper" I said "Hell Yeah!" and started laughing! Then when you realized you said it and then added in "that's always a good time ", I was absolutely crying! 😂 You and I have the same sense of humor and now you have one more subscriber! Keep up the good work brother!!
The only thing better than grabbing a stripper is grabbing a pair of them🤣🤣🤣
@@marinegunny826 lmaorotf
Saves a lot of money having to buy electric match or E-match as they call it I should maybe try one of these out on a couple of Excalibur shells
I'm gonna have to try that ignition mixture out. The electrical ignition system I have is very archaic lol. I use Christmas lights for the cap and just break the glass to expose the filaments and put some Zn+S mixture around them, and hook up either end of wire to another wire I can touch to a 9 volt. Doesn't always work but when it does it's glorious
From a chemist's point of view that is a most excellent witches' brew pyrogen. Love your channel.
There is a product called "Newskin" sold as a (painful) dressing for small wounds, it is a nitrocellulose lacquer.
Very cool!
hmmm interesting. In the 9 months has there been any tests using Newskin with the other required ingredients
I searched for pong balls at 3 different stores. All of them not nitro...I was literally just using new skin and saw your comment!! How random is that!? Now, ive solved 2 problems! Appreciate it sir!
Mohawk Finishing Classic Instrument Lacquer is also a nitrocellulose lacquer that works as is.
Dude, can you remake the video without the nichro wire break snafu. Use better close ups. The
cad drawing was perfect.
Focus dude! Forget the comment of a truck driving by. No need to say that.
Dude, update! No longer are ping pong balls made of nitrocellulos.
Strippers and Just the tip, sounds like fun!!!
I just switched over to using nichrome/kanthal wire as ignites. Bought 250 feet of kanthal for a few dollars. Kanthal should work better because of higher melting point, but not sure. Currently using 2-3 D batteries with a bunch of speaker wire for distance and kanthal for igniter. Works well.
The wire ignighters. ive always crushed some matches and used the wifes nail varnish to coat the wire you can always dip it in any other ignition material like black powder or thirmite. but works great nicrome wire basicly fine fuse wire can ignight with 1 aa battery, fuse wire size the higher ampage the higher voltage . yours seamed alot of work but it was very interesting nice video well explained .a1 bud
Thanks EM For Your Reply of The Video of Igniters ! Appreciate It !
i use resistors. i enjoyed your video greatly but the resistors are so much easier and better. but probably only work on larger engines.,
You could mix up the dip in a small test tube, and thusly:-
* needing much less material
* slowing evaporation of the acetone
* getting a consistent length of coating on the wire
* using a stopper, be able to store it (carefully) for next time
Years ago when I lived in Miles away from the closest hobby shop, I learned that you can substitute a bread twist tie after cleaning the paper or plastic off of it in place of ni-chrome wire
As a recovering pyro, if you've never considered this, add a little graphite powder to your pyrogen and it becomes conductive. I use like lock lube graphite. Then take your wire leads, clip just an 1/8" of insulator off and gap them with just a millimeter of space between them. The graphite allows conduction and it heats enough to fire the nitrocellulose. It takes a little more juice to fire, but I've never had any trouble as long as I was using at least a 12v source. Additionally, as a former amateur rocketeer, a trick I learned to get more pyrogen on the igniter was to double or triple fold the tip before dipping to give more surface area to stick to. Another trick was taking some spare cured propellant, GENTLY using a cheese grater to grind it into tiny pieces (never do this with propellant containing titanium or zirconium!!!) and adding this to the pyrogen to get some extra oomph when needed. According to my parents I started lighting things on fire when I was 4 years old and I can't seem to stop being fascinated by fire and explosions. :-)
Great video man.
My favorite dude!!!! Ever!!!
Solution of ZnCl2 works like a charm when it comes to soldering NiCr and stainless steel
ur ignition technic easy and good.....with love amd.
I love your videos. Thanks!
Glad your enjoying Jeff! Thanks for checking out my channel!
Great video
Used to use jeweller's soft iron binding-wire, fed from an old battery charger. The wire was stiff and thin enough to be pushed through a squib.
Thank you
AvE inspired? haha, subscribed last night love the content. Keep up the good work!!
BCox thanks bigtime! Yes I love AVE's work!
Keep your stick on the ice.
BCox keep your D**k in a vise!
I have expected him to say keep your dick in a vice. Just subscribed. Love the content
😀
Nice job !!!
When we were kids, a friend and I made our own ignites out of the twist ties on bread bags. Just strip about 1/2" of the paper in the middle then bend it SHARPLY and pinch a little bit of tissue paper between the 2 halves. Shove that into the engine and hold it in with a bit more tissue.
It takes a few seconds to get hot enough, but it works. We also didn't have fancy launch buttons so we used a length of 2 wire with alligator clips to attach to the igniter and touch the other ends to a 9V battery.
Come to think we didn't have a launch pad either so we just stuck a copper coated welding rod about 30" long into the ground with a tin pie plate for a shield and a piece of tape wrapped around to keep the rocket from sliding too far down.
Also I remember engines had one stage that just made a LOT of smoke to make tracking the rocket easier.
We were the poor kids with a hobby that was normal expensive. But we made a lot of our own stuff...including rockets without any kit or plan...the only things we really needed to buy was engines, nose cones, and balsa for fins. Oh..and glue, dope, and paint.
We made bodies out of any light tubes we could find, internal structure out of plain cardboard, and parachutes out of breadbags and shock cords from rubber bands. So instead of $20 for one rocket kit we would spend $50 for 2 or 3 dozen rockets
This is always a fun topic!! :D
you have good info and ur funny, u deserve more subs
Great video. This looks like it would be a good replacement fuse for my Civil War Mountain Cannon.
Stephen Mitchell that it certainly would be! I am very fond of keeping my distance any time I'm igniting a pyrotechnic composition, and a cannon would be no exception. Sounds very neat though! You should post a video of it
Really glad I stumbled on this video to relay this to Stephen!
DON'T. check your laws in your state and federal levels before you change out visco fuse for an electronic fuse. Changing the ignition system can "repurpose" the cannon into a destructive device, and would have to be registered with the ATF.
I am not sure of the exceptions for reenactment purposes, but the ATF *will* throw the book at you if it is required to be documented, and you haven't filed the proper paperwork.
Excellent
Tech tip for the pyrogen, pyrodex dissolves in water, then just dip and dry on the nichrome wire, you can then dip in the nitrocellulos lacquer to seal it up
smokeless powder is mainly composed of nitrocellulose. You could just uses smokeless and acetone to get the goop. If you mix black powder instead of the aluminum and iron oxide you could make some fire work stars. depending on what other chemicals are in the powders the color of the flame can be different lol
Would a 6 v remote igniter system work on your igniters? What is your voltage? For sugar rockets. Where did you get your potassium perchlorate? Love the tutorial. What volumes of chemical are you using? Any help appreciated.
Luv how you made the igniters, unfortunately I’m unable get gunpowder in England. I have a couple of Jetex motors but no fuses.
Thank you! And I'm sorry to hear about the restrictions on England. I love that country, spent some time in sheffield, but it's impossible to do any pyrotechnic related hobbies there with the crazy strict regulations. Truly a bummer
Elemental can I use speaker wire then throw on some nichrome wire to make an igniter for black powder rockets?
to my mind, it's very interesting
Fun stuff. Thanks for sharing these demonstrations.When i was 10 or 12 i would twist a couple strands of copper speaker wire around fire cracker fuse connected to. a 100 foot extension cord and set it off with a car battery. on the other end Id place them where i could set them off as someone walked near. My brother's was more often my target.
Fun times.
Thank you.
::SUBBED::
Lol I took Christmas light bulbs break the glass. Put a match head between the light fuse Stick the bulb in my homemade rockets and run speaker wire to a 9volt. It would burn the fuse then the match. Layer I used it to start sparkler thermite. All with out CZcams. Damn it think what we could have done 20 years ago...
@Matt KissMyassSocialist Lmao growing up on a farm, my brother and I would do this by running roughly 100ft of speaker wire from an 18v drill battery to our homemade "fireworks". Which were really metal pipes packed with smokeless powder😄. I remember then setting up jars of gas or kerosene on top of said fireworks and recording the mini mushroom clouds that followed😅. All from behind proper cover ofcourse.. I still wonder how I managed to keep all fingers and limbs through the years tho.
That squib burned for a while.. Nice job.. Good recipe...
Could you take a thin cardboard or metal tube and pour a tiny amount of the ignitor solution into it with the NiChrome setup, and make a small blasting cap with it?
Wonder if this mixture can be used to make cannon fuse? I have used black powder and tissue paper to make fuses before.( You have one more subscriber now, your vids are awesome!👍)
This was a VERY VERY good video! Very high quality content...🤔 Shiiiiit... wish I had you on FB... Would love to share ideas and story's. ☺️🤘
I think your as crazy as me I want to know how everything works then I get two things I worked out then find a way to add them together to make something completely different normally electronic but am thinking I should try alchemy love your work very interesting and intelligent
For an easier method, if you can't get hold of smokeless powder for whatever reason, the material on the heads of safety matches works pretty well, and will easily ignite from the heat of glowing nichrome wire too. Just crack the material off the matchsticks with the smooth section of a pair of long-nosed pliers, and crush it to a coarse powder under a plastic screwdriver handle on a smooth ceramic or glass dish.
Only do this on a small scale (10 matches worth at a time, at most), and whatever you do, don't try to grind the stuff in a pestle-and-mortar, since that kind of friction can easily ignite it - I've made that mistake before! But it can be combined with nitrocellulose lacquer, wood varnish or clear nail polish (or even superglue if you're quick about it) to make a thick paste, which you can then apply to the head of the electric match and let dry.
I think the match head material is mainly potassium chlorate with some sulfur, which is a pretty easily ignited and high temperature burning mixture, which is enough to ignite most solid rocket fuels. Just don't make the mistake of using "strike-anywhere" friction matches - that stuff goes off far too easily and you could end up with a premature ignition just from the friction of inserting the match into the rocket motor.
For igniting thermite, if you don't have access to magnesium powder or ribbon, you can use a bit of potassium permanganate powder and a dribble of glycerin. Take a little bit of your thermite mixture (about half a teaspoonful) and mix with an equal volume of permanganate, then deposit this mixture on top of the rest of the thermite. Make a small depression in the mixture and add a few drops of glycerin. Within about 30 seconds, this will auto-ignite, and burn at a sufficiently high temperature to ignite the rest of the thermite, giving you a nice time delay fusing mechanism.
Dear, can I crimp off red thing from matches, and mix it with a very small amount of watter? Would that work? Im igniting with same wire in the video.
I do solder mine. I just lay the joint on the table and let a ball of solder cool over it. And then I squash it. I've had continuity issues with just wrapping/crimping. For igniting anything other than rocket engines, I stopped bothering to dip them in anything. I use AWG 30 nichrome @18v and it never, ever fails to ignite flash, BP, NC, fulminates, etc.
If you want to be really simple I just file and break the tip off of a glass old Christmas tree light and fill it up with the nitro cellulose ignite mix that I made with acetone,smokeless powder and powdered aluminum and I little bit of black powder dust shove the end of the fuse inside and let it dry. Attach that to an appropriate length of two conductor wire plug it in to your ingition box for model rockets and off you go. Works everytime and sho doesn’t have a shitload of old Christmas lights lying around.
i’m actually from iraq, (i’m iraqi) i found this funny. Thanks for the tutorial tho 😂
Old demo-school trick to stop accidental early ignition. Twist the standing ends of your wires around each other. Split the wires apart from each other if their coatings are bound to one another, and twist the pair together down their entire length. Bind the twist with taoe if need be to keep it twisted. Prevents accidental early ignition due to radio wave interference. This is especially true if you have an ignitor wire anything over 1 foot long.
Hey ElementalMaker, have you ever trier a lower/higher gauge wire?? I've tried 32AWG Ni-Cr wire and it heats up well but only if the wire is about
Do you think some magnesium powder would work. Or too reactionary ?
Elementalmaker, try out using Christmas lights. I call them tangle lights. Nip off the tip of the glass and fill it with ignition powder. Hot glue or something to cap it and it's ready to go.
All you really need between one end of your wires is some #0000 steel wool. Once you connect it to a power source like a 9volt battery, the steel wool will glow red. It’s a lot cheaper and can be made in seconds, plus it don’t stink as bad.
I made a fuse by emptying Pixy Stix wrapper cut it in half and filled it with some rocket fuel twisted the end insert into rocket light with match worked every time
EEEEE please don’t do this, non-electric lighters are extremely dangerous and are disapproved by the NAR
You could probably use vape coil nichrome wire as a substitute
2:20
"...Sadly they are longer out of business..."
.
The same could be said about effective proof reading.
Way wah, christ got to be one in the bunch no matter where u go. So Mr. Punctuation police, have made any igniters yet? U, what igniters are talking about? Only looking to point out any little thing you have a problem w. Get a hobby, hey! Maybe rocketry! Get a life.
@@scottzell2064 and yet, if you go back to look at the caption now, it has been corrected.
It would seem Elemental Maker not only is proficient making electric pyro igniters, but also deals deftly with constructive criticism without getting getting butthurt in the least.
Would be awesome to see your build for a DIY remote trigger box.. You got a sub off of this, sweet video. Like how you explain things.
I appreciate your sub James. I will be doing a video making one sometime soon, keep a look out for it. I saw your other comments, but it looks like the one I bought years ago is no longer in production, I couldn't find it for sale anywhere.
ElementalMaker have you thought about doing an arduino micro or nano version?
Maybe have a vocal count down with some talking and some beeping, variable second countdown with a potentiometer and a 7 segment display or some such..
Would be pretty sic.
James Que that would definitely be pretty damn cool, but out of simplicity I just use a basic single channel relay. I'm not so great at coding and wouldn't trust myself with something that could potentially go catastrophically wrong.
@@ElementalMaker - I'm guessing that wireless (R/C) launch thing's not on the market anymore because it's too dangerous. First, it's susceptible to fairly easy hacking so someone could set your engine off right in your face. Second, people looking to make remotely-detonated bombs (for evil purposes -- it's the world we live in) would have a field day with it. Much safer to stick to hard-wired launch systems.
@@chapelgrovefilms nah they still look to be selling similar units all over the interwebs! Just ebay search fireworks firing system and you'll find some
also you might not wanna burn those inside cause its burning the plastic "sheath" which reminds me how the store bought igniters always had a strip of paper holding the wires apart from each other the igniters were only composed of a black powder substance and metal wires
Sometimes I want to thumbs up twice. We need a button for that.
I used to take merely one strand of copper wire from any stranded wire and either used just that, or a match head installed as well and never ever had any problems. JMHO
Gary Mucher I did that too in the past, but nichrome is much more reliable and can operate with lower voltages in my experience
ElementalMaker one source of Nichrome wire is believe it or not is BREAD TIES. I used them on my system for a while before it got old and stopped working. If you use these cheap chinesium firing systems frequently they will not last long. Yes I’m an AvE fan! Lol
did you ever make the controller, I am interested in the remote
Would Magnesium help it?the fire starters and a file should ger some fine Magnesium power and it if light burns very hot!
how would you like to have nonexplosive impact primers?
Could you use KNO3 Pot Nit for the oxidizer?
I have found that for powdered sugar rockets like you make that no pyrogen is required. I have needed pyrogen for PBAN based propellants.
Hi E/M ! Just Wondering when you will make the Video showing how to make the Firing Controller You used in this video ?
This one was commercially purchased, but I did do a video showing how to make one very similar to it a number of years ago
Could this be used for lighting fuses on pyrotechnics?
Does potassium nitrate not work for an oxidizer on this?
Haha "grab a stripper" I didn't get that until you noticed yourself lol :) Too funny!
Hi, I tried making this, but the smokeless powder seems to not dissolve in the solvent (Laquer), even after nearly 30 minutes. Also, when i tried to burn this in homogeneous mixture i was getting a slow burning flame, no way close to what you have in the video. Can you suggest, where i am possibly going wrong? Thanks
Would celluloid guitar picks work to make the lacquer?
....the MOAB (GBU-43) contains TNT and aluminum powder (to increase the heat factor)...maybe you should be working at Eglin AB...😉...
I used to use my front teeth for stripping wire but eventually through _wear & tear_ I had em pulled last week.
As much as your teeth might feel perfectly joined to your jaw & skull (in youth usually), stripping wire is best left to tools and/or a blade, otherwise look forward to Summer-Teeth (some are here, some are there) when 'ageing' :D
Did you ever post a follow-up video?
I don't know why but my pyrogen igniters never worked that great. they were never able to ignite my motors, I always had to shove up a match with them. I'll have to try your method though as I only added BP to mine.
I just use the little wires in a cell phone charger. They work really good
I'd imagine so, but that's an expensive source LOL
ElementalMaker I have a ton of those laying around! lol
A good source for kantho and nichrome wire are vape shops
what amp is the igniter? how much power to set off the igniter?
where you buy that yellow cable, link only show black intercom cable.
Where did you get the radio controlled ignition box? Got a link?
Area51Gregos amazon
Here in Australia, grabbing a stripper will result in rapid and violent removal from the venue 😂
could u use 36 or 38 gauge nichrome wire....cant seem to find 40 gauge
What are your percentages of metal, oxide and perchlorate in your mix?
Instead of nicrome wire you can use 0,25W carbon resistors or 1206 (or smaller if you can handle them) SMD resistors. You get them on reels of 3000-5000 pieces for a few buck in electronic surplus shops. The resistance depends on the battery voltage.
For my homemade "blastingmachine" wich works at 250V I use 150 - 250 Ohm. This works also with long (100m) wires.
Try and let us know! I have used 0.5ohm 1/8w resistors with success before. Quarter watt should work even better, I've just never tried the smd type.
@@ElementalMaker Here is an example for use with a batterie. This resistors are cheap like dirt. www.ebay.de/itm/SMD-Widerstand-SMT-Resistor-2-7-Ohm-2R7-5-1206-1-4W-1xRolle-5000-Stuck/362881564896
@@uwepolifka4583 I'll have to try those! 👍
I never had trouble soldering nichrome
Will these ignite thermite?
I just use old guitar strings bent into a u shape. One clip on each end, and whoosh
what is the little black box called?
What component majes that smell terrible? And whats it smell like?
Never mind his lady fingers one of the best videos on manufacturing ignighter’s on the tube.
@Whoop!
Awesome video! Also you can buy the ignighters on eBay cheap! Around 15.00 a hundred
You get what you pay for. We only use ones made in the USA. Forget the name of the company but it is run by a guy named Jeff.
Are there any laws or regulations as to how large a rocket you can build?
Elemental Maker - How do you think Estes makes an igniter which only requires 6 volts (4 AA's) to light? I've tried several mixtures of pyro-stuff (based on what you describe in this video) to coat the tip of 36 gauge kanthal wire, but it won't light. Any suggestions? Thanks!
You should try a 60 or 80 AWG nichrome wire instead of the 40 AWG. All the chemical stuff would stay the same, but thinner wire will burn easier....
Arax solder will do it,