Who makes thier own igniters?

TopRamen said:

But apparently some of them are not. There was a thread here awhile back where someone put the chopped up balls in the Acetone and just ended up with chopped up ping pong balls in acetone even after a couple of days.

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That was me. The reason that I figured out is that I was using nail polish remover. I needed to use acetone. I added some acetone and it dissolved instantly.

blackbrandt said:

That was me. The reason that I figured out is that I was using nail polish remover. I needed to use acetone. I added some acetone and it dissolved instantly.

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Cool.
I searched for the Thread but could not find it.

I think some nail polish remover isn't acetone. But if it dissolves nail polish it should also dissolve ping pong balls, they are both NC

TopRamen said:

Got my Firefox NC Lacquer today. The UPS guy handed it to me in perfect shape.
As I mentioned earlier, I'm only making Igniters to learn how and because it is fun. Thusly, this is way more than I will likely ever need.
I've done a few with the Ping Pong Ball Lacquer, BP and Mg and they have worked/tested fine, but the heads were too large for a 24mm Nozzle. They would likely work on a 29mm Motor like the G80, or in a 24mm reloadable if inserted into the grain before loading.


View attachment 258292

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Try not to dork up the metal insert plug and try to reuse it if you can. It helps seal it up better. You can try adding a little acetone to the contents when you seal it up after pouring some out to keep it thinned down. I had a can last over 5 years taking extra care with it. I eventually grew lax with monitoring the can (plus I had a "backlog" of prepared igniters) and about 3/16ths of the contents hardened up on the bottom. Not worth trying to regenerate it.
I have some stringed instrument lacquer I've used and it works reasonably well. I use the clear stringed instrument lacquer to give a top coat to protect the pyrogen.

Remember, if you get a batch that goes "pop" instead of "burn and flare", take a small pliers, hemostat or your fingers and carefully put some transverse cracks across the pyrogen head just before you put it in the motor. If you do it carefully, the pyrogen won't fall off.

When an igniter goes "pop" a chunk of pyrogen blows off and the nichrome bridgewire breaks. I suspect that perhaps some gases of combustion build up unevenly and fractures the pyrogen and breaks the wire. Putting a few "cracks" in the pyrogen allows
"venting" and an even flame front to form. I noticed during testing with some of the effected igniters that the flame will start from the cracks and then propagate up the pyrogen to give a nice flame. Of course if your igniters don't have the popping problem, don't worry about it but if you get a batch of "poppers" try the "head cracking" trick and they might work for you rather than throwing them on a burnpile. Kurt

ksaves2 said:

Try not to dork up the metal insert plug and try to reuse it if you can. It helps seal it up better. You can try adding a little acetone to the contents when you seal it up after pouring some out to keep it thinned down. I had a can last over 5 years taking extra care with it. I eventually grew lax with monitoring the can (plus I had a "backlog" of prepared igniters) and about 3/16ths of the contents hardened up on the bottom. Not worth trying to regenerate it.
I have some stringed instrument lacquer I've used and it works reasonably well. I use the clear stringed instrument lacquer to give a top coat to protect the pyrogen.

Remember, if you get a batch that goes "pop" instead of "burn and flare", take a small pliers, hemostat or your fingers and carefully put some transverse cracks across the pyrogen head just before you put it in the motor. If you do it carefully, the pyrogen won't fall off.

When an igniter goes "pop" a chunk of pyrogen blows off and the nichrome bridgewire breaks. I suspect that perhaps some gases of combustion build up unevenly and fractures the pyrogen and breaks the wire. Putting a few "cracks" in the pyrogen allows
"venting" and an even flame front to form. I noticed during testing with some of the effected igniters that the flame will start from the cracks and then propagate up the pyrogen to give a nice flame. Of course if your igniters don't have the popping problem, don't worry about it but if you get a batch of "poppers" try the "head cracking" trick and they might work for you rather than throwing them on a burnpile. Kurt

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Thanks for the Tips!
I have no reason to open the can yet, but I was wondering about shelf life and what would be under the lid to seal it.

cwbullet said:

I found a new recipe that uses an odd ingredient. I will post more soon if it works. It uses plasti-dip.

I will not post the formula. It is trademarked.

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Is it from Chris Pearson? I know he has a formula using plasti-dip.

Found the plasti-dip formula.... google. It's in a pdf...

N

No. It is from a patent and the Gerlach club.

blackbrandt said:

That was me. The reason that I figured out is that I was using nail polish remover. I needed to use acetone. I added some acetone and it dissolved instantly.

Click to expand...

taiwanluthiers said:

I think some nail polish remover isn't acetone. But if it dissolves nail polish it should also dissolve ping pong balls, they are both NC

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Until several years ago, nail polish remover was acetone, a ketone. Since acetone has been determined by California to be harmful (ok CA) many companies reformulated their nail polish remover to use ethyl acetate in place of acetone. Ethyl Acetate will dissolve nail polish but not ping pong balls..... The ingredients are listed on the label. Get the one that still is acetone if acetone is what you need.

BTW the same goes for MEK (Methyl Ethyl Acetate), another ketone solvent less volatile than acetone, which is sold as a paint solvent/remover. If you need MEK, do not purchase MEK substitute which contains acetates and alcohols. Read the can labels. If it doesn't contain MEK, it won't work for many rocketry applications where you need MEK.

Bob

I am glad they have MEK at my local Lowes.

Look at walmart in the nail polish removers one of the16oz versions is acetone for $.99

Hey Rocket Peeps,

I've got a quick question re pyrogen igniters. A year ago (exactly) I bought some kit pyrogen matches from Rocketflite (MF-12s). I didn't want to keep the Pyrogen laying around so I made over 50 of them and planned to store. Most of them were using their stock kit, but about a dozen I dipped were christmas lights, for very low voltage use. Last year I used about 16 of them in testing and in three flights. All 16 performed flawlessly and the tests were spectacular displays of pyrogen ignition. This kit also includes a red sealer dip as the final step, so I figured I was good storing the unused for a long time.

Now a year later, I pulled them out to test a new ebay. The four I pulled all had good continuity and the test with two altimeters seemed to go perfect, but the igniters didn't seem to fire -- although they lost continuity. So, aparently the filiments burned, but the pyrogen didn't. That was odd, so I took more of the stored igniters out and tried them one by one, using a confined tube as prescribed by Rocketflite. I tested 8 more for a total of 12. I tested using new 9V batteries and a bench power supply just for my sanity. Only 1 of 12 fired normally and a few gave me a spark, the others just burned the filament internally without igniting the pyrogen. All of these were made at the same time as the 16 used last year and I tried a mix of RF wires and my dipped christmas lights, so I assume the only variable is something about storing them broke down the pyrogen. These were all stored together in an ammo can in a explosive magazine in a cool dry place. Temp never went above 75 or below 50 in the garage.

I read a few earlier posts about wire/solder breaking down after a year on homemade jobs, but what about pyrogen breaking down? Anyone else store dipped igniters for long periods? Not recommended?

What other good dual-deploy ignitors do you recommend? (9V systems)

I store my ML igniters without a problem. They work every time but they were not christmas lights.

I almost always use a Pyrodex pellet for solid motors (29mm to 98mm) The top grain I core out so that it fits tight in it and then use an e-match.

Edward

I save all of my used igniters and re-use them.

I save match books and crumble the phosphorus off of the match heads store the powder in a small container. I dip the tip of the used igniter in my wife's clear fingernail polish and then dip it into some collected phosphorus powder and let dry. These recycled igniters have never let me down. I remember when Estes would give you an extra igniter AND recovery wadding with their engines. Now there is no room for error and I refuse to buy what Estes always had included in the first place all these years.
I refuse to buy recovery wadding and chose to make my own as well. I have only bought one bag of Estes Wadding and it was because HobLob mismarked the large bag for the small bag price and with a 40% off. I could not pass it up.

Some had mentioned using the stuff from the old school sparklers. Dollar General has the old school sparklers with the metal wire for $2.00.

TopRamen,
If Dollar General has sparklers, I will give them a try and see how they work in comparison with phosphorus from match heads. Just in time for July 4th.
Thanks for the tip.

JERRYR708 said:

TopRamen,
If Dollar General has sparklers, I will give them a try and see how they work in comparison with phosphorus from match heads. Just in time for July 4th.
Thanks for the tip.

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I have'nt tried it, but remembered someone in this thread mentioning it so I thought I'd share the info.

Hi,
for small motors like Estes I use a bridge wire made of graphite and some glue (I use red gum), works very well. It is completely pyrotechnic free. I got the idea from here (in german):
https://www.rocketronics.de/pyrotechnikfreie-graphitzuender/

I have considered buying the magnelite kit for larger igniters, but they do not tell you what are the chemicals inside.
For me it seems quite strange to mix unknown chemicals to form some pyrotechnics.

The main question is, what is the oxidizer, since several oxidizers are prohibited for private possession in the European union.
I assume it is some form of flash powder, so the oxidizer is some perchlorate is this correct?

Funnily the mixed form would not be a problem, but buying the oxidizer separate would be illegal if it is a perchlorate.

I have had excellent results using nitrocellulose single base smokeless rifle powder (Varget) dissolved in acetone as the binder for BPN aka BKNO³ on a 32awg. nichrome bridge wire assembled with a wire wrapping tool. Finely ground Bp with magnesium also works very well. Search BPN pyrogen for more information, this stuff is used by NASA to start solid propellants in a vacuum, and in automotive air bags where "instant ignition" is important.

Where did you find varget? the stuff is impossible to find.

BPN seems exotic... is it even possible to get boron?

My Varget is about six years old, but any single base smokeless would work. Most ball rifle propellants are single based. I bought 200 grams of boron on eBay for $35 free shipping. That's pretty much a lifetime supply for initiators. Kno³ is just stump remover.

I wanted to make up some simple ignitors to use with Estes & Quest motors. Always end up stealing Solar ignitors from an unopened pack, tired of that. And for Quest, I am saving the old Q2G2's for clusters, as I do not know how reliable the new version is for cluster ignition (I am not saying they are not good, but I know I can trust the old ones).

So, after searching and finding info including this thread, I got 100 feet of 30 gauge nichrome from eBay. It's stiff enough to work well, and the R/C plane type 3 cell 2200 mAh Lithium Polymer batteries I use for a launch battery provide plenty of power to get them hot.

I used 1/32" music wire as a mandrel to wrap one coil for the head.

For the pyrogen, i have some left over pyrogen from Firestars, but it is old and was dried up. Acetone re-dissolved it, but it dried crumbly and fell off too easily.

So, I wanted to use the dissolved ping pong ball trick. I got a pack at the Dollar Tree. Uh, yeah, plastic balls, not the same material as real ping pong balls, the acetone did nothing (apparently polyethylene plastic). So, got some real ping pong balls, cut up half of one into little pieces which dissolved nicely.

I used a mixture then of the dissolved ping pong ball and the Firestar pyrogen. So pyrogen-wise it's mostly the Firestar doing the work, while the dissolved ping pong ball is acting like a plasticizing and binding agent to mechanically bond the pyrogen to the ignitor. The coil also helps mechanically, versus a simple "V".

I have some 1/4" wide green masking tape that is used to help hold the wires spaced apart and to secure the wires from shorting or moving around, as with the white tape on Solar ignitors. The masking tape is folded back onto itself, sticky side to sticky side.

So far, so good. A test fire of an ignitor looked good. Have not used one in an engine yet, waiting for a good reason to fly. But I'm confident these will work well enough.

- George Gassaway

TopRamen said:

I have'nt tried it, but remembered someone in this thread mentioning it so I thought I'd share the info.

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Yeah, that was me You would not believe the ball of fire you get from the sparkler dust. Use wooden or ceramic mortar and pestle to grind the sparkler. I made my own from a wood block with a big hole drilled into it and the rounded end of an old broom. Wear a face shield and other protective things, but I've ground up a lot and have never had a problem. You can even leave it a bit chunky, the chunks fire off further enhancing the spread of the ignition. When I get my Nikon back I'll get some photos of mine. The blue sparkler seems like it burns the hottest of all the colors. I can't remember what the pyro guys use to make blue, strontium I think, but they sure burn hot

Looks good, George. They should work OK. Keep us in the loop on how well they perform.

no, blue uses copper. When making blue you want a lower temperature flame or else the color washes out. For sparklers they may use metal based composition simply because you can hardly tell the difference as far as color depth goes... (they need to be seen from afar to appreciate the color difference).

I do not recommend grinding sparkler, especially colored sparkler with a mortar and pestle because the comp contains metal, and many will contain titanium (to make beautiful sparks) which tends to spark with itself when rammed. Which is also why titanium bearing composition should not be rammed whenever possible. Color sparklers may be sensitive especially if it contains chlorate (it should not, but you never know).

Most sparkler is bound with dextrin so I would just wet the sparkler, and it should turn into a paste. Then you can safely remove it from the wire.

Sparkler powder is an old trick. Works well as folks are finding out but the safety precautions should be heeded.
.030" is about 20ga. wire. The wire coil wrap without pyrogen was in the oldest Estes instructions and the wire was included with the motors. The blue pyrogen igniters came later I believe in the mid-60's? Kurt

dave carver said:

Wear a face shield and other protective things, but I've ground up a lot and have never had a problem.

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Good to see you warn people about that.

I ought to check out the ground up sparkler method, as an alternative to the Firestar pyrogen. I think the Firestars and sparklers may use the same key ingredient for the hot sparks.

In the past, I have ground up something that, well, I ought not to mention what and please, no speculation. Anyway, it was so hard that there was no way to grind it with the mortar and pestle method. I ended up using a Dremel and cutting bit (not wheel, cutting BIT) to grind it, CAREFULLY. Holding "the item" in vice-grips, and wearing safety goggles. Did this outdoors, which is a good idea no matter what method. The resulting ground up material, powdery, fell into a foil plate. At all times, treated it like it might catch fire at any moment.

Then I would usually use clear model airplane dope mixed in to make a slurry. Now i would use the dissolved ping pong ball method if I wanted to make up a pyrogen slurry using that other ground up stuff.

- George Gassaway

George,

Neat way to make Estes like igniters. Could you use 24, 26, or 28 AWG nichrome? I have some to try. I am not sure what volt/ amp that would require.

Chuck

cwbullet said:

George,

Neat way to make Estes like igniters. Could you use 24, 26, or 28 AWG nichrome? I have some to try. I am not sure what volt/ amp that would require.

Chuck

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The largest gauge I have is 30. I will say that these get hot REAL fast, using the "12 volts" delivered by a 3 cell (11.1V) LiPo battery that has a capacity of 2200 mAh (2.2 Ah). I have not tested any other power source but they'd work with more powerful batteries like 12V Gel Cells and car batteries. Given how fast they get hot, they would probably work on lower capacity LiPos and say 2 cell 7.4 V Lipos.

They might work with 12V of eight AA batteries, or might not. I'd be surprised if they worked with 6V of four AA's. So if one wanted ignitors that would work well with small batteries, they'd probably want smaller diameter nichrome.

Take note that not all batteries are alike, for a given voltage. Typical cheap 1.5V AA's do not deliver very much current. Alkaline AA's deliver a little bit more current than non-Alkaline. Nicads, the AA size cells only have 1.2v per cell, but they deliver a lot more current than Alkaline AA's. And those all have the same physical size.

Lithium Polymer batteries deliver a lot of current for their size. But of course the larger the capacity, the more current that a LiPo battery will deliver. For example a theoretical 550 mAh Lipo would deliver about 25% as much current as a 2200 mAh Lipo, all other things being equal (same manufacturer, same discharge rating, etc.). I am using 3 cell (11.1V) 2200 mAh Lipo's because those are very popular for a lot of R/C models, which I have access to. Before then, my launch battery of choice was a 4.5 to 5 Ah size 12 volt Gel Cell.

So, a person could make up an ignitor tailored for a certain battery type. Like say make up ignitors that work fine with four AA Alkalines, like the Solars are just able to use when the batteries are fresh enough. But the very fine bridge wire the Solars use, is a PITA to replicate by soldering longer leads to it (The Solars are spot-welded by some sort of machine), and an ignitor made up out of just that fine bridge wire nichrome would be too wimpy and fragile. So for home-made ignitors for BP motors like Estes & Quest, , it would make more sense to upgrade to a more powerful battery that can fire some dumb-simple and easy-to-make ignitors.

Now, the flip side, since you were asking about larger diameter nichrome because you have 24 or 26 or 28...... it depends on the battery you have in mind. My 30 gauge ignitors get so hot so fast that I'm sure 28 gauge would work with these lipos. Maybe 26. Now if we are talking 12V car battery, then 24 gauge nichrome would probably work. But of course if you have any of that, it is easy enough for you to test. Just cut off a 3-4" length , hook launch control system to it, and press the button to see if it gets orange-hot pretty quickly, or not.

Of course the larger the gauge, then the larger the coil is going to end up being, unless you try a smaller mandrel diameter. A larger coil might be a problem for fitting thru the throat of 13mm A3 motors, but probably fine for 18mm motors. I wanted for these to work with any Estes/Quest BP engines, other than MicroMaxx.

BTW - I made up 55 of those ignitors. I did fly one Sunday to test fly a rocket, and the ignitor worked fine. Of course a single test is not a statistically useful reliability data point, unless it had failed. And I did not make these to be more reliable than Solar. If they are 10% less reliable than a Solar, that would be fine since my pan is to use them for sport flying and test/practice flying when misfires are not a big deal. For contest flying i'll stick with solars and old Q2G2's.

- George Gassaway