Canister Artillery Shells & Electric Match

[displayfireworks1]

This is a video I released on my youtube channel. We did this for something to do at the Fire Art demo. I am hoping to give some of the new fireworks enthusiast that follow my video some ideas.
PyroJoe and a few others from pyrotalk were there to help wire it up. I want you to notice how neat Pyrojoe's work is on the Cobra, you can tell he has an electrical background. Nice wiring Joe. Starts at 2:25

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZthkPvKrDY

[Northern Sky]

Leave the shroud on.

Friction will set them off. It is even more important if you nave to remove the e-match.

[PGH_Pyro]

i'm with you on that, N.S. i always just push the shroud/match-head together into the hole. no friction gambling for me .
i have a poke and just wiggle the hole to be wide/loose enough to push it all in .

[displayfireworks1]

Always a controversial issue "Electric Match". If a device has port I will not remove, otherwise I have no problem removing the cover. Of course you still have to practice a good technique. Not sure how many people were in this before maybe 2008 or so. At one time none of the shells or cakes had those little white ports. We would cut the quick match with scissors and pull back the electric match cover and insert the match head into the quick match. Literally doing this for thousands of shells.
I believe some electric match suppliers (not China) will have you sign off a waiver you want the match with removable covers. I have seen electric match that was designed that you could not remove the cover. Those are not for me.
I am 100% in agreement about removing the match. There are anecdotal report of technicians cutting into the match with scissors and setting them off tearing down a display. I believe Pyrotecnico has a policy not to completely dismantle an electric display. I heard if the sponsor does not pay, they will still fire it because it is safer. I was working with a technician once on a barge and part of show did not fire back in the old FireOne days before the two wire. He started grabbing handfuls of orange wire leaders and pulling them out of the shells 8 at a time. I told him to stop, we were out in the river the only place to run was over the side. He got mad when I told him, luckily nothing happened.

[mguerra]

Ematch is certainly cheaper than consumer imatch, for those licensed to use it. And a LOT of people caution against pulling back the shroud on ematch. Two companies I worked with made a point of their 100% accident free records, and they DO pull back the shrouds in certain fusing situations. Both companies instructed me that when doing so, they pushed the match in to position very slowly and lightly to avoid friction. I don't know for a fact if anyone has ever had an accidental ignition pushing an unshrouded match in to position. But it is a known fact that some have ignited upon removal! Of course some say never to do it, period. As far as the consumer imatch goes, I was not able to fire it with friction testing nor impact. But, I only tested a few... So if I want to pull back the shroud on a match, I only do it with the consumer imatch. What I'm working on now is a method to chain fuse a 10 shot consumer rack and ignite the first shell with a match in the lift. The trick is going to be how to get the chain fuse going without the first shell blowing it out. My first experiment is to match the lift of the first shell and run a length of fast gray paper fuse in to the lift as well, and then up to the top of the tube. Then connect the gray paper fuse to the visco chain fuse for the last nine shells. I have not set this off yet, waiting for rain. Hopefully the visco chain fuse will take fire, I will report the results.

[PyroJoeNEPA]

Since I was there & helped match these shells I will add my two cents: Like Dave said, Shroud vs No Shroud has been a controversial issue since they started putting shrouds on matches....Those particular shells had very little room in the lift cup area to put the ematch in--I don't think the shroud would have fit in most of them without the bottom of the can popping out, so it was practical to match them without the shrouds on. Also, FYI-the shells were put into the guns as soon as they were matched--they weren't laying around or getting moved about. That being said-if it is possible to insert an ematch with the shroud on it, by all means do it. But if it is not possible--or practical, well, that is ok too [in my humble opinion].
Tannerite cakes come with ematch installed as well as a lot of your A.P. Articles Pyrotechnics] products--gerbs,air bursts, etc. Guess what--no shroud on the ematches in them...and they are shipped that way.
Yes, safety is paramount in this business-we all agree on that.

[PyroJoeNEPA]

. What I'm working on now is a method to chain fuse a 10 shot consumer rack and ignite the first shell with a match in the lift. The trick is going to be how to get the chain fuse going without the first shell blowing it out. My first experiment is to match the lift of the first shell and run a length of fast gray paper fuse in to the lift as well, and then up to the top of the tube. Then connect the gray paper fuse to the visco chain fuse for the last nine shells. I have not set this off yet, waiting for rain. Hopefully the visco chain fuse will take fire, I will report the results.

The grey paper fuse may blow apart on you in the tube before it burns up to the visco chain or may not have enough "fire" to light the visco--An easier way to do it would be to use an ematch to light the entire string directly--a piece of QM between the visco & ematch works every time for me--or another method is to make a "bucket" from a dime or penny wrapper with the ematch in one end, visco in the other end & some strands of black match [or grey paper fuse] in the bucket to give you fire.

[mguerra]

The point of what I want to do is get instant ignition of the first shell, thus putting the match in the lift. Then somehow get the chain fuse lit. If I want to light the whole string I can just use a clip igniter, or do as follows:
As far as firing visco with an ematch, I tested this and found an easier method than using a piece of quickmatch. I just lay the ematch against the visco and wrap with a piece of tape. Takes fire perfectly.

[Westpapyro]

Just use two ematch or Imatch in parallel at the same time, one instantly lights first shell, second lights chain and will have small delay?

[MIpyro]

Since I was there & helped match these shells I will add my two cents: Like Dave said, Shroud vs No Shroud has been a controversial issue since they started putting shrouds on matches....Those particular shells had very little room in the lift cup area to put the ematch in--I don't think the shroud would have fit in most of them without the bottom of the can popping out, so it was practical to match them without the shrouds on. Also, FYI-the shells were put into the guns as soon as they were matched--they weren't laying around or getting moved about. That being said-if it is possible to insert an ematch with the shroud on it, by all means do it. But if it is not possible--or practical, well, that is ok too [in my humble opinion].
Tannerite cakes come with ematch installed as well as a lot of your A.P. Articles Pyrotechnics] products--gerbs,air bursts, etc. Guess what--no shroud on the ematches in them...and they are shipped that way.
Yes, safety is paramount in this business-we all agree on that.

There is so many opinions with this. I have noticed that some stuff already comes ematched like you said and in some of dave's videos, he opens boxes that have the ematch already in the port. But I think its a matter of opinion and if you feel safe ematching consumer products or not. I got opinions from the guys in my club because I wanted to save time and ematch everything at home and transport them and some said don't do it and others said they have done it before with no problems, but I stuck with just ematching them at the site.

[displayfireworks1]

At PyroJoe
That is funny you picked that up on the Tannerite M-25 cakes. I knew that and never told anyone. The red cover was still hanging on the wire on the side of each cake. LOL . For those new at this the M-25 comes from China with the electric match already installed into the lift of the first shot of the cake. China placed the match with the cover removed. I believe they were to correct this with future product.
Electric Match only makes me nervous during transportation, I remember doing a professional rooftop display years back. We "Squibbed" all the 1.3 cakes at ground level. Then went into the building into this small elevator, we had 1.3 cakes to the ceiling of the service elevator, then we all squeezed into the elevator for the long ride to the roof. On the way up I was thinking "Why am I doing this?" LOL This is the kind of thing you do when you are pushing a deadline or got delayed because of weather etc.
I also do not agree with the "Plant" placing the electric match in the product. I believe the match should be placed at the shoot site. Currently in United States I believe it is permitted to place the igniters in the product and transport it.
If you follow fireworks accidents, many of them can be traced to the electric match, a most recent example was in Canada when that entire warehouse went up. The investigation found they were storing 1.4 product with electric match.
In February 2014 I ran a video on my youtube channel about electric match. I requested comments from around the world on how they used electric match. I found reading the comments interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FPMZQlaooc
.
Please note the comments from Denmark, New Zealand and Australia.

[mguerra]

Westpapyro:
I will do exactly as you say, should work perfectly! I can't believe my brain missed that one...