Hate Estes igniters what can I do

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rocketdoctor99

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I had a big launch with my 4H kids last Sunday lots of issues with the estes igniters failing. I can't believe after 40 years they still suck. any suggestion on better igniters to use for low power launches. any recommendations for home made ones? This topic was probably brought up before on this forum ,a reference to a previous post would help.
 
Quest Q2G2 igniters will work, but be careful using them with an Estes launch controller. The continuity test of the Estes controllers provides enough current to ignite the Q2G2.
 
Unfortunately, Q2G2s are always hard to get these days.

Were your igniters firing but not lighting the motors, or just not firing?

I honestly have seen very very few Estes flat out misfires (igniter goes off and doesn't light the motor). Biggest issues always seem to be 1) fresh batteries (they really do take a kick to get going) and 2) inexperienced users - wires touching, not inserted far enough, bad clips on the launcher leads, etc. Given that this was a apparently big girl scout launch, both are strong possibilities.
 
Yeah, I'm surprised at that amount of misfires. They are generally very reliable. I believe they recently changed to a "safer" pyrogen composition but not positive. That might affect it, but overall this isn't an issue

And yes, your best bet are Q2G2s or buy some MF wires and MF dip from www.rocketflite.com and dip a bunch. That's their ematch equivalent igniter kit, designed to light blackpowder.
 
I'd be curious to know what kind of launch controller was being used, and exactly what the failures were. Did the igniters burn through without starting the motors?

Chris Michielssen has discussed home-made igniters on his blog, and also talked about dipping Estes igniters into various goops to make them more reliable.
 
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I've only had one or two Estes misfires... Two solutions: 1) make sure your batteries are fresh and. Or strong. A car battery works far better than the AA batteries...
2) add a couple grains of BP. Insert starter, add BP, plug
 
thanks I am using a 10 pad launch controller that runs off a heavy duty 12v batter I use for my trolling motor. The failure I get is just not getting continuity, I'll admit I had a lot of amatures putting their own igniters in but I did a couple launches myself and had some bad igniters. I did have a couple fail on igniting the motor but I think thats because they weren't inserting the igniter far enough.
 
No continuity = broken starter bridge wire from mishandling/abuse or you are using "toothed" alligator clips that have their teeth filled with non-conductive crud.

This is astoundingly simple to diagnose and prevent: if you have no continuity, carefully remove the plug and inspect the starter to see if the wire is broken at the tip. if not, then inspect the clips for crud build-up.

MANY adults break the starters by splitting the starter when they cram the plug directly between the thick wires. Never do that. Install them per the instructions. They even have pictures.
 
"Starter" = clear tip covering.

"Igniter" = black tip covering which is a pyrotechnic composition called "pyrogen".
 
They're very easy to break. If they're not inserted far enough the plug can break them too, as well as being a problem in itself.
 
I've had great luck with Estes igniters both the older black dipped igniters and the new ones. I just came back to rocketry this year, so I've really only used the new clear ones except for a couple of C11 motor packs. Looking at my excel spread sheet, including the scouts, I've launched around 410 Estes black pounder motors and only have had maybe 4 or 5 that did not ignite the motor.

You might want to check the clips that you attach to the igniters to see if they are dirty or if there a broken wire in the system. At the club launches sometimes the clips are dirty, but nothing that cannot be fixed with a small brass brush.

Thanks
Joe
 
thanks I am using a 10 pad launch controller that runs off a heavy duty 12v batter I use for my trolling motor. The failure I get is just not getting continuity, I'll admit I had a lot of amatures putting their own igniters in but I did a couple launches myself and had some bad igniters. I did have a couple fail on igniting the motor but I think thats because they weren't inserting the igniter far enough.

Like others, my success rate is probably 95%. I recently used one that was rattling around my range box for probably 15 years.

Your trolling motor uses a deep-cycle battery, correct? Maybe you need a cranking battery?
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again. When I was a kid, I had misfires like crazy, those igniters back then really sucked back when I scrounged old batteries and clumsily installed the things. Now I am an adult with access to fresh strong batteries and carefully install the igniters in the proper position. Miraculously, Estes igniters have stopped sucking! I don't dip or use black powder or any other wacky stuff. I could count on one hand my igniter failures with a couple fingers left over. This includes a lot of "starters" with the white tips they sell now.
 
I have helped out with a number of scout, school and other amateur launches. Igniter failure rates are always higher for these events than for club launches where everyone knows how to use igniters/starters. Failures are almost always caused by:

1) Failure to insert the igniter properly due to being unfamiliar with the proper procedure. You can solve this problem by having experienced people insert the igniters for those people who don't know how to do it. For big events with hundreds of inexperienced people our club usually sets up an assembly line to pack the rocket with wadding, chute, install igniters, and then the motor. If you don't have a lot of experienced people you can train a few inexperienced, but competent people, how to install igniters in just a few minutes.

2) The other big failure reason is people playing with the rocket and/or igniter after it has been prepped for launch. To prevent this you should tell people to avoid handling the wires as they can be damaged. It is amazing how effective just a few quick words can be even with kids. Another thing to do is limit the hands on time that people will have with their prepped rockets. Prep them, put them on the rod and launch them in as short a time as possible. Its still a good idea to double check the igniters on rockets that the youngest children have handled. This includes those 50 to 60 year old "kids" that invariably show up at these big public launches. You can usually spot them pretty quickly.
 
Now that is serious note-keeping!

I was always running our of a motor size or two when I was launching rockets, so I started doing it to figure out how many of what motors I needed to have on hand to not run out. Well I quickly found out that I just needed to keep a lot of every one but my OCD hasn't let me stop keeping track. :)
 
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I throw away the Estes plugs. I use a small ball of poster tack and a pencil. Place the igniter in the nozzle, then the ball of poster tack, then use the pencil to push the ball up into the nozzle. Never had a misfire doing it this way.
 
When we do Scout launches, we have the adults put the igniters in. They do that before the motor is put into the rocket. That allows for easier handling of the motor/igniter and it's easier to get a feel of whether or not the igniter tip is touching the grain because the motor is held upside down while the igniter is inserted.
 
Way long ago, when the Solars first came out, they were unreliable because they were so fragile and easy to short.

Then, someone at Estes created the plastic ignitor plugs for each nozzle type, and that helped to make the Solars more reliable.

But still, there were some years when the pyrogen was more like nose snot (brown), to non-existent. Since the late 1980's or early 1990's, quality control got a lot better and they were pretty great. I even did clusters with them, that I'd never have even tried with them in the late 1970's or 1980's.

With the plugs, sufficient battery, and the old pyrogen, they have been incredibly reliable. The key is installing the ignitor correctly without damaging it, so the pyrogen head is far enough in, and wire not shorted. It's not hard to do, just can't do it haphazardly - and need to tell, and show at least once, to "amateurs", how to do it right.

The new BATF-forced change from real pyrogen to the "epoxy" or whatever the new flammable but non-pyro coating is….. seems to be not quite as reliable but not horrible. For example for contest flying, I try to use the old black pyrogen tipped ones and sport fly with the newer ones, since a misfire for a sport flight is not as annoying as during a contest flight.

Once I run out of the old black ones, I'll start adding my own pyrogen to the new ones (mix of dissolved Ping Pong Ball and old Firestar pyrogen, as I used for my 100% home-made nichrome ignitors this past spring)

As for battery power, for Solars, you do not need a deep-cycle discharge battery or trolling motor battery….. unless you were trying ignite dozens of Solars at once or wanted to run a huge launch with hundreds of flights. I mean, if you've GOT the battery and it's not an inconvenience to use, GREAT. But it's overkill for 99% of non-clustered personal flying as far as Solars go.

The old AA's are definitely too wimpy, UNLESS they were replaced by Nicads or NiMH's (NiCads and NiMH's deliver far more current to a short than Alkalines do). For most of the 1980's, I used a control powered by eight AA sized (500 mAh) Nicads, that fit inside of the enclosure:

QTmSUqx.jpg


One drawback to that was if the Nicads were not charged, the whole controller was dead. So when the nicads got to be a bit too old rather than replace them I rewired it to use an external battery again, and still use it (that controller has been rewired several times, the only original part is the enclosure itself)

Small 12V Gel-Cel batteries were my Go-To ignition battery, for many years (1990's till 3-4 years ago) 4.5 Amp Hour to 7 Amp-Hour.

Now in more recent times, I use 2200 mAh three-cell 11.1V LiPo battery packs for power. They produce a plenty of current and could perhaps launch hundreds of flights in between charges. I have them, and use them, due to the fact that they are very popular for R/C electric planes and multicopters, so there's plenty of the packs available to use and easily charged up (they need a special charger, but have good chargers for R/C use).

- George Gassaway
 
I sometimes use Thermalite ignitor ribbon on BP motors as the nozzle and propellent core is shallow. It works flawlessly. Another way I use Estes ignitors is my dipping mine in Pyroxylin gel made from Cellulose tri-Nitrate (flash cotton) and Acetone.
 
Its all about the prep with the Estes igniters they are fragile, you have to store them in a safe place and treat them with kindness when you prep your rocket.

I pinch the tip and the igniter leads just below the tape and bend the two ends in a kind of loop then on the pyrogen side of the tape I make a 90 deg bend all the while holding the leads stable, to not break up the pyrogen, then its just being careful as I install the igniter in the motor.

I vary rarely have a fail, there are a few igniters that I don't even use because the are in bad shape to begin with. For the most part they work great if you treat them very carefully. You will get the hang of them they are not so bad once you get used to them.


TA
 
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The clear tip new "starters" have no pyrogen on them, just the bridge wire which must be touching the propellant.
 
I sometimes use Thermalite ignitor ribbon on BP motors as the nozzle and propellent core is shallow. It works flawlessly. Another way I use Estes ignitors is my dipping mine in Pyroxylin gel made from Cellulose tri-Nitrate (flash cotton) and Acetone.

Rube Goldburg called...
 
Last year at my school launch we had three miss fires on 122 launches with the old Estes style igniters with me loading them all. This year at our first light launch of just 40 flights we had about 10 misfires with the new igniter.

We use 12V car battery with all clean connections.

I noticed that the new igniter wires seem to be closer together, so when you put them in the motor and press the retainer caps in, these igniters want to collapse together and not stay separated, also, if you spread them a little they seem to break easier to me as compared to older design. I view this as a weakness in the design.

Also, had a different launch control supervisor, I did notice on a couple of times the students just bumped the fire button instead of holding it down which flashed the igniter for a mil second which broke the thin fire without burning fully. This accounted for around 1/2 of the misfires, not Estes fault.
 
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