Starters and plugs

Do these come with the engines or do you have to purchase them separately? If they come with the engines do you only get one for each engine or are there some spares? Thanks.

If you are referring to Estes motors, you get 1 plug & 1 starter per motor.

The new Estes starters are a bit more finicky than the old igniters. Make sure you get the starter all the way in so that the tip is touching the propellant. A good method is to insert the starter into the nozzle until it stops. The wires should not be spread apart so much that they are resting on the nozzle. You also do not want the wires touching each other so that they short out. You want the tip of the starter touching the propellant to be what stops the starter. Then push the plug into place without moving the starter.

I have had much more success with the new Estes starters ditching the plugs and using a piece of recovery wadding shoved in with a mechanical pencil (a dull #2 would work.). something I picked up from Der Micro Meister, a legend on this forum. Take a tiny piece of wadding, roll it up into a torpedo. Put igniter in as far as it will go and place the wadding over it in the nozzle and use the pencil to push it in. It should be in tight enough that you can actually hold a small rocket up by holding the igniter wire is just by the force of the plug. My success with ESTES starters has gone from about 75% to about 95% with this technique

I prefer the method described by @BABAR above. If you do use the plastic plugs, make sure you use the right one for each motor; the flag on each group of plugs will tell you which nozzle it fits.

Also, if you use the plastic plugs, be sure to pick up the used ones along with the starters after your launch. Leave your launch area better than you found it.

Thanks for the refresher course. When I was growing up and launching rockets in the 70's I remember using red colored cord fuse as an igniter. You'd clip off a few inches, shove it up in the nozzle, light it and quickly retreat. It worked almost every time.

Docdrew said:

Thanks for the refresher course. When I was growing up and launching rockets in the 70's I remember using red colored cord fuse as an igniter. You'd clip off a few inches, shove it up in the nozzle, light it and quickly retreat. It worked almost every time.

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Let’s just say that is heavily frowned upon now!

timbucktoo said:

If you are referring to Estes motors, you get 1 plug & 1 starter per motor.

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Actually, in a three pack of engines you get;
Three engines, three "starters" and four of the plugs.