Initiating 500 gram cakes with Quickmatch. Looking to brainstorm.

[Monstertke]

Hand lighting the show this year with ~42 500 gram boxes, and 50+ 200 grammers most of which will be in groups.

My idea is to pyro-poke the main fuse hole, insert a ~6" piece of bare blackmatch as far as I can get it, taping that piece of BM to the main visco fuse so I have good contact, but with match exposed before and after the tape joint. Then I'll slide a piece of QM over that whole assembly, tape it up securely, etc etc. From this I can tape the boxes together, do whatever else to group them, then just connect all of them together with a bucket with a piece of visco. I have one that I made up for a test, I'll light that tomorrow night to see how it goes.


Pros -

Direct black match contact with the lift in the initial tube.
Intimate contact with the main fuse, should provide redundancy.
More or less equal length leaders should give me pretty good simultaneity.


Cons -


Well, that's why I made this thread.


BONUS - I can poke the finale row, do the above jazz and take fire over to a little rack, putting some shells up at the exact right time.

I'm really really looking for that first shot out of 3,4, 5+ boxes to be more or less simultaneous. I have never had good timing results using ANY type of fuse connected to the main cake fuse.

I have seen Dave's video on e-matching boxes without a port, and it seems that the lift firing has no problem getting the main timing fuse going, so this should work well.

However, I don't want to trust my entire show to some left field concept.

So, please tear this idea to shreds. Also, does anyone have a picture of the QM connection on a 1.3 box?

[PyroJoeNEPA]

I would suggest instead of using bare black match you use quick match with a 1" piece stripped back and inserted & taped into the poked hole. Less chance of the BM wicking moisture/humidity. Don't be concerned about the length of the quick match--a piece 100 ft long will go off quicker than you can see the fire fly down the length of it, so an inch or two is totally insignificant.
If you do not need "exact ignition", another method I have used in the past--mostly with a block of four 200 gram cakes is to poke along side the existing piece of visco and insert a short piece [3-4"] of yellow fast fuse. Slide the quick match over that fuse & run to the top of the cakes. Add a bucket and they are ready to go. This works well with very small bore tubes where you might have difficulty getting a good "poke" for the black match from the the quick match. I have a separate smaller brass poke that is 3mm [same dia. as the visco] that I use for poking fuse holes.
Following along the same thought lines, we put a piece of quick match [poked & taped] in all the 1.4g cakes to be efired and add an ematch port to them. That way, they are not pre-matched, and can be connected in the field by anybody that knows how to put an ematch in a port. It eliminates the "match in the product" argument.
If no one else posts a picture of a 1.3g ematch connection I will get a picture of one at the show we are setting up tomorrow [Saturday] night.
BTW-----be sure your quick match is Black Match---NOT the grey perchlorate stuff that is commonly sold as "1.4 quickmatch". The grey stuff is very violent and likes to blow itself out of connections!!! Been there, done that. Trust me!!!

[BMoore]

Seems to me you are are making it overly complicated. If I was going to fire a cake with Quickmatch I'd do one of two things:

1) Do as PyroJoeNEPA suggests and expose some black match on your QM leader and insert that into your poked hole and tape it up.
2) Cut the original visco at an angle and slide your QM over top of it and tape it up.

Option 1 will give you the most exact timing while option 2 will still be pretty close. Remember, spliced sections of fuse always burn at the the rate of the faster fuse. The visco outside of the cake will burn virtually instantaneously so your only delay will be the tiny section of visco passing through the wall of the cake. Trying to pass both the visco and BM into the cake like you suggest really isn't necessary. I guess it might offer a tiny bit of redundancy but you are introducing more potential for failure with a multi-step fusing process. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by wanting a picture of a QM connection on a 1.3 box. 1.3 items with QM leaders are basically what is described in option 1. Instead of visco going into the lift charge it's a piece of QM. Plain and simple.

My advice when working with QM is to keep your runs as short as possible and secure it very well. The stuff burns very violently (especially the perchlorate stuff) and it moves around A LOT. Most failures come from it ripping itself away from the product. Lately I find myself using more and more fast fuse rather than QM even for 1.3. Its easier to work with and in most situations the speed difference is indiscernible.

[Monstertke]

I would suggest instead of using bare black match you use quick match with a 1" piece stripped back and inserted & taped into the poked hole.

@PyroJoeNEPA, Thanks a lot, this is exactly the advice I was looking for. What I have is bare blackmatch and hand rolled piping, I will use the suggestion of keeping it a single piece, the reason I suggested 2 was so I didn't have to poke quite as big a hole as I have single strand and 2 strand match. I built my own 3/16" and 1/8" brass awls so I'll follow your advice for the 200 gram boxes as well, I have a couple of rolls of that super fast white fuse from years past.


Seems to me you are are making it overly complicated.

Trying to pass both the visco and BM into the cake like you suggest really isn't necessary. I guess it might offer a tiny bit of redundancy but you are introducing more potential for failure with a multi-step fusing process. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by wanting a picture of a QM connection on a 1.3 box.


@BMoore, I get what you are saying from an ease of application standpoint, I personally think going directly into the lift offers more than a tiny bit of redundancy though, and I don't think its anymore overly complicated than poking to add an e-match. As for the photos, I specifically would like to see how the QM is affixed to the tube at the point of entry on a 1.3 box.

[BMoore]

[QUOTE=

@BMoore, I get what you are saying from an ease of application standpoint, I personally think going directly into the lift offers more than a tiny bit of redundancy though, and I don't think its anymore overly complicated than poking to add an e-match. As for the photos, I specifically would like to see how the QM is affixed to the tube at the point of entry on a 1.3 box.[/QUOTE]

Yes, going directly into the lift is more reliable and no more complicated than e-matching. What I was referring to is your suggestion of trying to incorporate blackmatch and the visco as a form of redundancy. Unless I misunderstand what you are saying, that seems like overkill to me. I don't have any 1.3 pictures to share, but usually the QM leader just enters a hole in the first shot no different than how visco enters the tube on a 1.3 cake. It usually has tape to secure it. It's nothing fancy. Its literally just QM rather than visco.

[Monstertke]

Yes, going directly into the lift is more reliable and no more complicated than e-matching.


Ok, we are on the same page here, I could have been more clear. I am not doing this for redundancy at all, I was just remarking that it was a side effect, if for some reason the QM going right into the lift doesn't fire it, there is a good chance that the visco is going to be lit, just as it would be if It wasn't going into the lift.


Unless I misunderstand what you are saying, that seems like overkill to me.

Don't take this wrong, but It doesn't matter to me if you think its overkill, what I wanted was for someone to say "No, that won't work at all for X, Y, Z reasons", and no one has yet, so I'm going top proceed with some testing incorporating @PyroJoeNepa and your suggestions and see how it goes. I'm really interested in tapping into the finale rows to pass fire to something else now, the lack of a resounding "Nah, that wont work" has me pretty convinced that this should work out ok.

Thanks for the help.