Cobra quick plugs

[Greenville Pyro]

Hey y'all,

I am looking to go to e-fire this year and looking at Cobra. They have something new called the "quick plug". It looks like it reduces the time to add wires to the board. Has anyone used it and impressions?

[Devo]

I have the quick plugs and haven't had any problems with them. I do some modest shooting on Memorial day and a little less modest on the 4th, and they make my relatively small set ups go pretty quickly.
The problems came in when I was using the Talon igniters, I won't be buying them again - lesson learned.

[gnavarr]

The quick plugs are fantastic. Use the MJG Initiators over the Talons.

[Birdman]

If you're doing large shows with many cues I can see where they would be more convenient and make for a faster setup. But if you want to wire in series or (even more so) parallel, you will still need to cut/splice wires or purchase breakout boards. What if you need to add a run of scab wire? Then you're splicing at two ends or adding quick plugs. I just feel standard cues offer more flexibility and really don't take much longer to connect. I just don't see any real benefit unless you fire really large shows and available cues/mods are basically unlimited. For me, the cons outweighed the pro's, but that's me. I only have a few mods, nimble fingers and I like to stretch my cue count with series and/or parallel wiring where I can. I also have a local source for standard MJG wires when I need them but not quick plug wires. Now, with all of that said, I may be getting quick plug's on my next set of 18m's so I can use mini slats. But I will be using standard connector slats. Still thinking that decision through....

[gnavarr]

If you're doing large shows with many cues I can see where they would be more convenient and make for a faster setup. But if you want to wire in series or (even more so) parallel, you will still need to cut/splice wires or purchase breakout boards. What if you need to add a run of scab wire? Then you're splicing at two ends or adding quick plugs. I just feel standard cues offer more flexibility and really don't take much longer to connect. I just don't see any real benefit unless you fire really large shows and available cues/mods are basically unlimited. For me, the cons outweighed the pro's, but that's me. I only have a few mods, nimble fingers and I like to stretch my cue count with series and/or parallel wiring where I can. I also have a local source for standard MJG wires when I need them but not quick plug wires. Now, with all of that said, I may be getting quick plug's on my next set of 18m's so I can use mini slats. But I will be using standard connector slats. Still thinking that decision through....

Of course you can't account for every situation but with the small and convenient breakout boards available from multiple outlets and just the smallest bit of extra planning in advance the quick plugs make the setup day very streamlined and...quick:D Again, not every situation can be accounted, but switching to quick plugs has been heaven for me.

[Greenville Pyro]

Definitely looking to go MJG not talon. It seems that I'll just make the jump to hand fire to cobra/mjg all at the same time and save multiple stepwise headaches. I've heard there are black friday sales. Hopefully, because I'm saving for it

[BMoore]

I've also been analyzing this recently and the one thing that's making me think about converting is those 3rd party series break out boards. The thing I hate about e-firing is the cutting, splicing and stripping wires. That takes the most time and seems to be where I tend to make the most mistakes especially when pressed for time. It makes me wonder though why series break out boards don't exist with the standard speaker terminals. Or do they? Seems like a clean, intuitive way to wire in series with or without quickplugs.

[gnavarr]

I've also been analyzing this recently and the one thing that's making me think about converting is those 3rd party series break out boards. The thing I hate about e-firing is the cutting, splicing and stripping wires. That takes the most time and seems to be where I tend to make the most mistakes especially when pressed for time. It makes me wonder though why series break out boards don't exist with the standard speaker terminals. Or do they? Seems like a clean, intuitive way to wire in series with or without quickplugs.

That's exactly what slats are.

[ssmith512]

I'll be making the jump to e-fire as well. I decided Cobra with quick plugs will work best for me. Also waiting for Black Friday sales!!

[Greenville Pyro]

I'll be making the jump to e-fire as well. I decided Cobra with quick plugs will work best for me. Also waiting for Black Friday sales!!

:cool: Awesome

[BMoore]

That's exactly what slats are.

Not really. Slats as I understand it mimic the module with each cue on the slat firing with the corresponding cue on the module. So, say I have 12 items I want to fire in series off cue 1 without splicing any wire. That's going to require 12 slats with the product wired to cue 1 on each slat. The quickplug breakout boards on the other hand are just one small board with 12 plugs. You plug each item into the board and plug it into cue 1 on the module. Hit cue 1 and all 12 items go. For smaller shows it seems much easier and more economical than slats.

[Birdman]

Not really. Slats as I understand it mimic the module with each cue on the slat firing with the corresponding cue on the module. So, say I have 12 items I want to fire in series off cue 1 without splicing any wire. That's going to require 12 slats with the product wired to cue 1 on each slat. The quickplug breakout boards on the other hand are just one small board with 12 plugs. You plug each item into the board and plug it into cue 1 on the module. Hit cue 1 and all 12 items go. For smaller shows it seems much easier and more economical than slats.

There does appear to be a bit of a difference. I believe slats are meant more for when you want to fire multiple cakes in different locations in your layout (e.g. left, center, right). The series breakout board(s) appear to be a better option if you want to fire multiple cakes in the same general location in your layout.

[gnavarr]

Not really. Slats as I understand it mimic the module with each cue on the slat firing with the corresponding cue on the module. So, say I have 12 items I want to fire in series off cue 1 without splicing any wire. That's going to require 12 slats with the product wired to cue 1 on each slat. The quickplug breakout boards on the other hand are just one small board with 12 plugs. You plug each item into the board and plug it into cue 1 on the module. Hit cue 1 and all 12 items go. For smaller shows it seems much easier and more economical than slats.

I got what you mean now. I think it's because there would be less of a time difference/impact with a breakout board using standard terminals as opposed to simply twisting/splicing the igniters together. Whereas with the quick plugs you'd obviously need to start cutting as well as twisting/splicing and it's just a bigger inconvenience then without a simple breakout board.

[Scotty Rockets]

aka MTA100 connects... I already have custom slats from muuxbrd.com for my firetek system... successfully shot a pyromusical 2 weekends ago using exclusively quick plug connects.

[gnavarr]

aka MTA100 connects... I already have custom slats from muuxbrd.com for my firetek system... successfully shot a pyromusical 2 weekends ago using exclusively quick plug connects.

I ordered a ton of breakout boards from him, too. They worked perfectly on the 4th.

[Rick_In_Tampa]

I converted half of my Cobra mods (6) last year to quickplug cues and bought quickplug slats. It was definitely a mistake to not buy breakout boards for all the series wired effects. I spent a ton of time trying to splice everything together. Having said that, I did have a mod with a dead battery (my setup helper left it on all day and at showtime it was dead). I grabbed a spare mod and it took maybe 1 min to swap over the 18 cues. So the quickplug connectors saved me time there. So IMHO, go with the quickplug cues, but buy enough breakout boards if you wire anything in series!