Hate Estes igniters what can I do

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I don't fly BP much anymore, but for clusters, I put a little BP in the nozzle before the plug. That made 4 D12 clusters using just the better solar igniters easy (old black ones). I never tried the white / clear ones.

I hear of people using an old igniter with the bridge wire in tact and getting 4-5 flights from a single igniter. Doubt with a 12V, probably fries the NiCh instantly.

Buying some Ni-Ch wire and using that might work fine.
 
I just ordered some Rocketflite Cluster Fire Pyrogen for this. Last launch my son averaged over 2 igniters/flight, and I had some failures too. The new Estes igniters can work, but there is ZERO forgiveness in the placement.
 
1.5v-b-sm_Pocket Continuity Tester Circuit_01-83.jpg1.5v-d1_Pocket Continuity testing cluster Q2's_09-06-05.jpg
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.

Sorry to hear about your troubles:
Been using Estes igniters at club, Scout and 4H launches for decades. we check each igniter before and after they are installed in the motors. Yes we do use the plastic plugs and are sure to fold the igniter leads into a U on each leg to make better contact with the Micro Clips.
I've found it is those who JAM the igniter into the motor nozzle that break or short out the igniters by forcing the wires to touch below the pyrogen or white coating.
There is Not a thing wrong with either estes igniter if the folks using them use minimal care during the installation process.

Making a cheap and easy continuity checker is very simple.
 
New product (current production product) from Estes is called a "Starter", not an "Igniter".

It will make it much clearer when these discussions appear if everyone trying to help would clarify the terminology for the new folks 9and for the old folks who are stuck using the word 'igniter' for everything).

Estes Solar Starters are not as forgiving as the previous Estes Solar Igniter because there is no pyrogen to flame/spark and ignite the propellant face if the starter is not making direct contact.

Both Estes Solar Starters and Estes Solar Igniters will fail in the hands of beginners or careless veterans who crunch the wires together or twist the wires until the short circuit. When installed carefully, they work fine, but you will have more misfires with the Starters than the Igniters.

Of course, switching to a higher power battery and simple nichrome will eliminate most misfires.
 
To be honest, I tested my new 12v launch system and had a couple of problems with eight tested and the new starter not even in the motor.

I thought the controller had problems at first and it was the igniter and not the controller.

In the days of yesteryear I use it like the centuri sure shots.
 
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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.

I've personally fired off over 100 Estes motors this year already and have had a few failures on the new white tip starters, but never on the old black tip igniters (that I can recall)...even ones so old that they rusted to the point of falling apart (long story, but beware of purchasing motors in bulk unseen). This is using an Estes E-launch controller as well as the little orange Astron controller. I now covet my supply of black igniters and save them for the important launches.

The most important things to me include making sure the igniter is all the way down in the motor nozzle; fresh/strong batteries, good clean connections* and a good long press (as you've noted).

*Instead of gently unclipping the spent igniter from the igniter clips, yank them out so that it saves the trouble of sanding/cleaning the inside contact points.
 
I’ve noticed an increase of failures at local club LPR launches since the new igniters came out. Anecdotally, there seems to be at least one or two in every bank of 10. Sometimes it’s more. I’ll let the LPR kids know they need to pay extra attention when putting their igniters in, since they’re more finicky.
 
Those new igniters are finicky for sure. Had to stop and help a father and son who had a misfire at the local park over the weekend. Was a new igniter and the placement was questionable -- possibly not in contact with propellant and the pyrogen head was bent almost in half, possibly broken. Didn't continuity test as we were in passing...just had them get a new one, placed it for them explaining to do it gently, ensure it touched the propellant and that the wires couldn't cross/touch metal, etc. Told the kid to press and *hold* the launch button and he had a successful first flight. That could have been the problem all along as he was just tapping the button before. Nevertheless the new igniters can definitely slow things down a bit.

Man that brought me back!
 
I don't understand why just 'tapping' the launch button is a problem.

If there is enough current to blow the bridge wire, then that's it. Either it produces whatever heat it's capable of before it melts/blows breaking the circuit, or it doesn't and the bridgewire is still intact, and circuit is still good.

a) If it has melted/blown, then the circuit is now broken and no amount of holding the launch button down will do anything.
b) If it hasn't, then the continunity buzzer will still show it's intact, and a slightly longer tap on the launch button will result in whatever this ignitor is going to produce.
 
The break is not instantaneous on electrical timescales. A small portion of wire meltsplodes, and while doing so it's still conductive.

At a guess, since plasma has far less resistance than wire, the freshly blobbed edges continue the process until the air gap is too wide to arc across.

Note: I'm not an expert and could be very wrong.
 
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Curious. Plasma?! There isn't enough voltage to ionise the hot air, but it's an interesting suggestion. Maybe someone with expertise here will chime in.

I'm sure there is a zillionth of a sec when if the power is cut early there is still enough heat already generated by the resistance wire to melt it, but the wire hasn't melted/blown yet. Meaning an extra zillionth of a sec's heat could have been generated by this longer button press. But at the moment I'm struggling to imagine a real world difference in measurable heat generation.

The imaginations of many on this forum are far more educated than mine however!
 
I hear that ematches will briefly maintain the circuit and can be wired in series (low current to set off). I never heard this with Estes igniters and it may be irrelevant as they take a higher current to fire.

In general holding the button will give more time to hat the element if an igniter won't light. Also to it for clusters to try to get all lit.
 
Curious. Plasma?! There isn't enough voltage to ionise the hot air, but it's an interesting suggestion. Maybe someone with expertise here will chime in.

I'm sure there is a zillionth of a sec when if the power is cut early there is still enough heat already generated by the resistance wire to melt it, but the wire hasn't melted/blown yet. Meaning an extra zillionth of a sec's heat could have been generated by this longer button press. But at the moment I'm struggling to imagine a real world difference in measurable heat generation.

The imaginations of many on this forum are far more educated than mine however!

The air is not ionized, the most resistive point in the bridge wire becomes an asplodey mess of liquid, solid, and gas.

The path of least resistance within this rapidly expanding cloud maintains the circuit, and this spark chain does, in fact, produce a tiny bit of plasma. I think.
 
Since I have a large backlog of the old igniters, I had been putting the new ones to the side. I finally decided to see for myself how they perform. Out of the 20 - 30 used, I had one misfire. My current plan is to use the new ones when the launch rate is high and lines are small so a misfire won't hold me up. I'll pay heed to the wire spacing too. FAIW, I had one misfire with the old ones this year too. Both failure rates could be attributed to user error on my part.
 
I think that sometimes the pyrogen (or whatever the new stuff is) will burn up without burning the bridge wire. So the additional time keeping the button pressed down can continue to heat up the bridge wire for ignition.
 
I think that sometimes the pyrogen (or whatever the new stuff is)

It in no way resembles a pyrogen. I suspect that Estes dropped the good stuff (fuel and oxidizer) and just kept the hide glue binder. All it is good for is protecting the bridge wire from mechanical damage.
 
It in no way resembles a pyrogen. I suspect that Estes dropped the good stuff (fuel and oxidizer) and just kept the hide glue binder. All it is good for is protecting the bridge wire from mechanical damage.

Ummmm, Folks, all it takes is a little search for pyrogen or buy some commercial mixes and dip some plain Nichrome wire. I remember in grade school where
Estes just said to make two loops of the provided wire over the tip of a sharpened pencil and use 12 volts. No pyrogen. They then had the igniters for many years that had a blue pyrogen in the middle. I recall is was soft and rubbery so one could bend the wire in the middle of the pyrogen without it falling off. I have some unopened blue engine tubes that likely have some of those in there.

I even took some of the black, bridgewire igniters and augmented them with whatever dip I was using for some home made HPR "lighters" "initiators" or whatever "politically correct" term one wants to use. They really worked as long as one didn't smush the bridgewire with the plastic plugs. Never had a problem with clusters. Kurt
 
I just did 126 rocket launch at my school and notice that when the fire button is pressed, you can't let off until the rocket engine fires. If someone bumps the fire button without holding it down the new igniter misfires where the old one wouldn't because the old coating would still carry the firing of the motor.
 
That's my understanding too. Allow enough time for the several? ohms of resistance wire to become hot enough to ignite the bp - instantly frying the bridge wire, or till the bridge wire just blows itself up, which ever comes first. Either way an event has now occurred & the circuit is broken.

Rather than arguing about whether or not the very hot gases can conduct this sort of voltage, it seems unanimous that a short tap on the launch button may not allow enough time for the naked nichrome bridge wire (ie no pyro added) to either cause or experience an event on it's own.
 
I used a couple of the new igniters for grins (I still have a ton of the old ones) and maybe once or twice I had to re-insert the igniter into the motor, and that's because the lead wires shorted in the nozzle. On a 12v launch system I have yet to have had one not ignite a motor.
 
I have supervised two school launches in the past 60 days and the new Estes "starters" had a 66% fail rate. Q2s were 100% reliable but a call to Quest tells me they have about a million of them on a dock in the PRC and they can't get them into the US. I dug in my drawers last night and found some original Igniterman kits. They were dry so I added some acetone to get them back to life. So far the bridge material seems weak and depleted. The pyrogenic dip lights like a house a fire but...the dip for BP motors barely sizzles.

I'd like to build some with bridge wires but I have no idea how to secure the bridge to the main wire. Any ideas?
 
I made a batch of 100 Q2G2 type igniters from my own conductive pyrogen. I will post the results.
 
Q2s were 100% reliable but a call to Quest tells me they have about a million of them on a dock in the PRC and they can't get them into the US.

Sounds like we need a team of highly trained commandos to spirit these out of Chairman Mao's socialist workers paradise and into an undisclosed, remote location in America's southwestern deserts!
 
I have supervised two school launches in the past 60 days and the new Estes "starters" had a 66% fail rate.

Which launch controller are you using? I have been been having good results with the Estes starters using a 12 volt launch controller. The Estes PSII launch controller will do a much better job than the Estes electron beam contoller. The Q2G2 igniter takes far less current to fire than the Estes starters so they would work much better with the Estes 4 AA or 9v launch contollers. Also, it is important that the launch button is held down for a few seconds instead of just pressed and released.

Best regards,
Brian
 
Sounds like we need a team of highly trained commandos to spirit these out of Chairman Mao's socialist workers paradise and into an undisclosed, remote location in America's southwestern deserts!

More like a call to congress critters to get them to light fire under someone's rear so hobby igniters can be manufactured without so many headaches.
 
I made a batch of 100 Q2G2 type igniters from my own conductive pyrogen. I will post the results.

Only problem Chuck is I thought it was a no-no to post recipes in the open forum? All's it takes is a little search and igniter "kits" can be purchased online or one can find out what it takes and DIY. Only suggestion I will make is making
igniters is fine and easy. Don't bother with ematches. I learned, got 'em to near 100% reliability and it's too much of a PITA to do. I rolled my own chips as the commercial ones weren't reliable. Not worth the effort and don't
bother with ematch kits. It's one thing for a failure to light off a pyrotechnic firework, it's another to have a deployment failure. Too many commercial opportunities now for ematches. Kurt
 
Which launch controller are you using? I have been been having good results with the Estes starters using a 12 volt launch controller. The Estes PSII launch controller will do a much better job than the Estes electron beam contoller. The Q2G2 igniter takes far less current to fire than the Estes starters so they would work much better with the Estes 4 AA or 9v launch contollers. Also, it is important that the launch button is held down for a few seconds instead of just pressed and released.

Best regards,
Brian

I, too, have used quite a few of the 'new' estes igniters with 100% success. I'm using a cheap remote fireworks firing system that uses 8AA batteries for 12V, and a clip lead stolen off the electron beam estes controller that came with a starter set.

I'd bet they really go well with 12V SLA power as well.
 
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