Igniters, magnelite and cat5

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BlueNinja

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Today I started out making my first igniters out of cat5 and 36 gauge nichrome. Word to teh wise: this stuff POKES you. it hurts too. Anyways, I used Jim Ball's method and used a radio shack wire-wrap tool. These igniters take about 1-2 minutes for me to make, 3 or 4 including stripping. Does anyone have tips for stripping cat5? I tried the radio shack stripper, that's hard to do but gets easier with practice. I made maybe 25 in an hour. More pics later.
 
I've found if you use the 'legs' from Estes ignitors , if your battery has enough power , it will heat that nichrome RED HOT! This will ignite what ever pyrogen your using.
Karl
 
Yea... I won a 60ft length of nichrome on ebay so I'll use that... the stuff is horribly tangled though...
 
Originally posted by Blue_Ninja_150
Does anyone have tips for stripping cat5? I tried the radio shack stripper, that's hard to do but gets easier with practice. I made maybe 25 in an hour. More pics later.
BN150, do you want to strip the outer jacket or the inner individual wires? Do the inner wires seem kind-of waxy?

--Lance.
 
on the outer jacket , use a razor knife and just lightly score the surface lengthwise.. , it will than split very easily
 
I have tons of cat5 cable and used to strip it either with a knife or a sharp pair of dikes. What really got to me was straightening the wire, I got tired of it.

I have gone away from the cat5 cable. I have switched to shooters wire, strips ALOT easier and I no longer have to straighten. While I do have to buy it its really cheap try Aerocon, Firefox or Skylighter as souces.

Scott
 
Originally posted by llickteig1
BN150, do you want to strip the outer jacket or the inner individual wires? Do the inner wires seem kind-of waxy?

--Lance.

Outer jacket. I can't tell anything about the inner core except it is made of copper... :O :rolleyes:


It's AMAZING how fast 10ft of CAT5 goes. I started making them yester day and I only have about 5 wires left. Time to visit Home depot....
 
I use CAT5 and some nichrome. Inside the main jacket there should be a little thread. If you pull on that you can strip the outer jacket really easily exposing the twisted pairs. Then I use my Klein wire strippers and strip them and add about 1/4" of nichrome. Put on some KNCP and I have an ignitor for my motors.

Edward
 
I never could get a good grip on that string... At first, i thought it was fiberoptic cable... :eek:

In my post replying to Lance, I thought he meant the jackets of the twisted pair.
 
wow, acetone evaporates fast. I made a batch of igniters today, no problem there. I go back a few minutes ago to make one more. I open the jar, dip it, and pull it out. a HUGE glob of magnesium on there. Does anyone have any ideas as to preventing this? I REALLY don't want to gas out my house.
 
The pyrogen for the IgniterMan kits is acetone based, and it evaporates quickly also. I just bought a can of acetone at Home Depot and use that to re-liquify the mix whenever I'm getting ready to do a batch. It really doesn't take much, and acetone is also wonderful for removing paint from fingers. :D

WW
 
I couldn't get any of my homemade igniters to light this past weekend at Plaster Blaster. It was quite frustrating as they light on my home system with no problems, almost immediately!

Anyway, I am wondering, which kind of wire is better? Firefox has the twin lead solid core wire, Aerocon has the solid core copper wire. Also, is 22 guage the standard size wire that come with the AT reloads?

I don't know what my wire is made out of other than it is silver/grayish in color, but I use 38 guage nichrome to get the spark. I also have had no problems getting my igniters to light with a 9v battery, so I don's know why they wouldn't ignite with the systems from this past weekend.

Anyway, thanks for your help.

-Chris
 
How are you creating your ignitors, wirewrap or solder? Did you test the ones that did not fire in the field at home? What kind of fire control center do they have at Plaster Blaster? What mix are you using, a commercial blend or one of your own?

38 gauge is a little small for wirewrap, at least in my experiance. I do not think that I got a good connection between the nichrome and the copper. I find that some times with wirewrap ignitors you have to hold down the button for a few seconds to get the pyrogen to go.

Oh, both the Firefox and the Aerocon shooters wire works great.


Scott
 
mabey check them all with a meter, so you can sort out any bad ones.
 
Radio Shack has 24 gauge intercom wire that is solid and connected. Works great.

Edward
 
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