THE FOLLOWING ARE SOME QUESTIONS ABOUT THE SYSTEM
1) How many devises can this thing ignite at the same time?
2) How long does it take to heat up the bridge wire?
3) What would happen if you upped the current to 24 volts? ( I would use two 12 volt batteries.) Would 24 volts fry the switches?
4) Does the distance to the devise limit the number of devise you can light at the same time?
5) What's the farthest effective distance the board can be from the firework devise? If you use the maximum firing distance does this mean it wont light multiple devises?
6) I've also been considering making a 30 to 50 cue system and I'm wondering if that's possible with a 12 volt system
7) Are there any other limitations that I should be aware of?
If you look at the beginning of this one:
http://www.pyrouniverse.com/firingsystems/joe3.htm
there is an overview of a firing system, how to make a wire wrapped igniter, how to make a shooting wire and some answers that you are looking for are buried in there.
1) You can put at least one igniter or ematch on a cue. If you use ematches, you can usually put more on one cue (at least 5). Though you can also fuse together a number of items and have that one cue fire it.
2) How long depends on several things. First off, the thickness and length of the bridgewire. In an ematch it usually a minimum of 38 gage and can go higher than 50 gage. Note, the higher the gage, the thinner the wire, the faster it heats up. It also depends on the type of bridgewire. Generally nichrome wire works best. It also depends on how much voltage/amperage you are using. More power means it heats faster. It also depends on how long and how thick the shooting wire out to the device is. So for example, 12 volts, 2 inches of 32 gage nichrome bridge wire, 50' of copper 18 gage shooting wire. This will probably heat the bridge wire in less than a second. Another example, 24 volts, 50' of 22 gage cable goes to 16' of 18 gage shoot wire to 2" of 31 gage nichrome bridgewire. I can ignite five of these in less than one second at the same time. Most of the time if you use ematches, it is almost instanteous.
3) As mentioned, higher voltage means faster response time. The switches in the 20 cue system you mentioned are 110 volt AC switches. 24 volts DC is not going to bother them a bit. Though if you use any lamps in the circuit (power or test lamps), you will either have to use a 24 volt lamp or use a 12 volt lamp with a resistor. Or you can use a LED with a decent resistor as well. My current system was designed to use both 12 and 24 volts.
4) Yes. If you get too far, you won't even be able to light one device.
5) As mentioned above this will depend on the thickness of the shooting wire, the distance, the thickness and length of the bridgewire. As a quick rule of thumb, using 18 gage, I would say 50-90' = 12 volts, 100-150' = 24 volts. Though, I lit one cue with 24 volts, 18 gage at over 200 feet. But if you have ematches those distances are even further.
6) Adding more cues is generally not a problem. I have a 144 cue system that can fire 6 cues at once. It is the number of cues you want to fire at once that is an issue, not the number of cues you have in total.
I think I have made 4 fire systems so far. A few things that are really nice.
My first system used switches like the above mentioned system. They were cheap and quick. But I really liked push button fire buttons instead. Some people like momentary toggle buttons. You can wire them so you can push them one way to fire a cue and them push them the other way to fire a different cue.
It is much easier to drill a round hole for a momentary button or toggle switch then cut a square hole for a light switch.
It is almost essential to have some way to test the circuits to see if you have continuity. Otherwise, you can hook up your whole show, and you will not know until you flip the switch whether it was hooked up properly or not. By then it is too late. Even a simple push button test continuity light is better than nothing at all.
I really like having a key lock switch on my system.
Wire wrapped fuses are much cheaper and usually easier than ematches. Just wrap the nichrome wire around the fuse, but some tape on either side to keep it from sliding and you are done. It does not ignite as fast as ematches and needs more power to ignite, but it some cases this can be considered a safety feature.
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