Humidity, Fuses, and Talon Igniters.

[Jason the Jackal]

Hello Everyone again....

As I mentioned in my introduction post, I tried a wireless firing system for the first time this year and unfortunately it did not go very well for me. I figured I would post the story here and see if I could get any feedback or advice.

First off my firing system is a DBR01-X (also known as the P1200 Control Desk) that I bought on e-bay with 18 4-cue modules. Initial testing of the system seemed to go well, all my districts and cues responded as labeled and the day before my show I grabbed two random modules and fired some e-matches (they came with the system) and then launched some mortars at the range I planned on using for the show with Talon Igniter clips. Everything looked good even though I wanted to do more testing with my system beforehand (i.e. I wanted to play with my new toy more).

The day of the show I just had to attach all my talons and connect everything together (this took a lot longer than I thought).

The weather in Kentucky was just ridiculous, it would rain for about an hour 2 or 3 times a day and just be stupidly humid outside. there was about 4.5 hours between when I started to set up and I started my show and the humidity went from 75% to 98% in that time. It even rained while I was setting up but i did manage to get everything covered with a tarp before it hit.

So I armed all my modules (I was going to use 8 for this show) and head back to start the show....
Cue 1 -- My roman candle rack goes off and looks beautiful.
Cue 2 -- Nothing
Cue 3 -- Nothing
Cues 4-12 on District 1 -- Nothing

Some of them looked liked I could see the talon flash but the fuse didn't catch.

At that point I grabbed my propane torch and a flashlight and proceeded with "Plan B".
The most difficult part about hand lighting this time was having to pull the magic tape off all my fuses before lighting them.

I was curious if anyone else has had issues with talons or fuse speed after sitting for a few hours in high humidity conditions .... or if i am just horrible at setting up talon igniter clips.


Thanks!



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[PYRODAN]

My guess would be an issue with the talons, especially since you said you thought you could see a flash. I have personally not used them, but from what some of the others on the site have said they can be troublesome. I believe there are a few tricks to make them more reliable, perhaps another member will chime in. I would just get some Firewires. They are not perfect, but I believe better that a talon or similar. Looks like a nice set-up.

[yoshisbar]

my 2 cents.. Talons are good, shot lots of them, But if your trying to lite wet visco like you describe, I take a piece of fast visco and attach it to the talon and tape over it then tape it to the visco, little more work but if rain or humidity is threatened you have to prepare. That way if it rains or humid it will lite. The hotter burning fast fuse will lite any visco...

[Icooclast]

i saw one video that said cutting just a little bit of your end fuse and exposing the powder inside the fuse and then hooking the talons to the front of the fuse allows it to spark easier. might want to think about that. and i'm pretty sure these guys will correct me if i'm wrong. but i've been looking to have a remote fired show and was looking at vids on youtube and that's what i found that i can remember.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

Okay... My $0.02.

Talons are not supposed to spark. The current from your firing system is supposed to heat up the nichrome wire at the end of the talon which then burns through the visco and ignites the powder.

So there are a few issues. I'm not familiar with your system, but the Cobra system has two settings. Talon mode or e-match mode. In Talon mode it sends a charge for 2 seconds vice .1 second for e-match. If your system didn't send the right amount of power for the right amount of time, it's likely the nichrome wire never got hot enough to ignite the visco. The other option is all the fuses got wet and the Talons just couldn't light it. Highly unlikely since you were able to light them by hand. The last option is your batteries in the remotes. Based on your description, the only remote that worked was the first one. Maybe your batteries were old and didn't have sufficient power to light the Talons??

If I was going to wager a guess, I'd say your system was set to fire in e-match mode and not Talon mode and you just got lucky on the first cue. Could be totally wrong, but that's my $0.02 for what it's worth.

[Pyro Paul]

nice racks, you been shopping at pyroboom?

[adultuser]

FWIW, I've been extremely pleased with the Talons. Used them for years, probably a thousand or so, and have never had a miss-fire related to them.
AS Yoshi said above, I do cover up my talon connection with tape after attaching it to the visco leader.

[Jason the Jackal]

I'll Take all the 2 cents I can get, pennies make dollars.

It is still possible that I just suck at using talon clips. some talons, visco fuse, my firing system, and myself are all going to have a little heart to heart tonight in my garage.

The fuses seemed dry after the rain unless the got wet from my sweaty hands or the gallons of sweat pouring off of me.

There is no Talon/E-Match mode on my firing system (its a cheap one from china) and all the batteries were brand new Duracell Quantum, I made sure to not even use the same batteries I used for testing in my firing modules. There is a time lag with my firing system I noticed while testing, I actually have to press and hold the button for a second to fire I cant just press and let go... it seems that it will apply current for as long as I hold the button.

I did tape over the talon and fuse on all my cakes but didn't on my racks. I have watched a lot of videos on e-firing and talons over the past couple of years so I was trying take care of all the basics ... insert fuses from the front, tape down and secure line, fold the lead in half to increase chances of a better connection.


I do love Pyroboom my 2 - 20 shot racks and my 6 - 6 shot racks came from them, my 50 shot fan rack I got elsewhere... it is a great rack however I notice that Pyroboom has better built racks.
The roman candle rack i built myself ... it is both incredibly janky yet also I'm pretty sure it is indestructible ha ha ha.

I know at least one talon lit but the fuse did not catch this is why my first thought was maybe the humidity was causing clumping of the powder in the use making it more difficult for the fuses to catch with the talon.

Well, I guess my family is getting a thanksgiving firework show this year so I can have another in depth test on my system.

[killer57]

check to see if it was that thin fuse they are using on cakes now. had some issues with this before, it does not sit tight on the wire and does not lite the fuse. I have gone to adding thicker fuse to those cakes that have the thin fuse on them. hope this helps and you get it figured out.

[yoshisbar]

another thought, I have done this before and it wrecks a talon. I had a buddy helping me on a show putting talons on, what I later found out, after the ones he did had failures, is that he was actually squeezing the after he put them on to make sure it got contact (as he said) then taping, thus stretching OR breaking the wire! 1 thing I learned talons are fragile especially the cheap ones..

[displayfireworks1]

If you are new at this I suspect that firing system is too complex and most likely has an ever more complex continuity check with all those mods, now add consumer igniters into the mix it going to be difficult. Your setup looks OK. If what I see is that gray fuse remember it is prone to side ignition from sparks and flame. May need covered with foil. You may need electric match

[Rick_In_Tampa]

The quickest and best way to fix ANY talon issue is to use initiators. Problem solved.