MJG QuickFire ignitor clips

[MontanaMike]

Is it a good idea to use these red QuickFire clips for the consumer initiators on 1.4 cakes? I don't really see where they're beneficial, unless it's to direct the fire more precisely...is that it? Is it OK to just stick the initiator (with shroud) into the first tube of a cake or does the quickfire clip make it better somehow?

I plan to wire the initiators to our modules in the shop, but not insert the initiators (with or without the clips) into the cakes until out in the field.

This is my first year using the initiators and I want to get as close to 100% ignition as possible...if the clips help in that regard I'll go for it. Thanks for any comments.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

I bought a few hundred of the red clips you're talking about and never used them. Seemed like a good idea at the time, but proved to be just a pain to use.

As I understand it, the whole point of them is so you can poke the cake without using a brass awl to attach the initiator. It turned out to be a whole lot easier to just use the brass awl to poke the cake and insert the initiator. IMHO it's also a lot more reliable because the installation is clean. By that I mean there's no red plastic bobble hanging onto the side of the cake that can get knocked off. By using the brass awl, the initiator is inside the cake and taped over. It's not coming out! A few years ago I think I had 1 cake (out of over 300) that didn't fire. Last year I didn't have any failures due to the initiators.

[MontanaMike]

That's pretty much what I thought. Thanks for the response.

[Mattp]

ya, rick hit it right on the head..if your comfortable enough to poke a cake with a that plastic thing.. get yourself a BRASS awl... and just use that.. stick initiator in..tape it.. done!!!