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WithReport
07-16-2021, 11:00 PM
Here is our 2021 Pyromusical "Play With Fire" This followed the "Yankee Doodle" show we posted earlier.

With the ongoing DIY kitchen/home remodel, I didn't allocate as much time as I would have liked for fireworks - I bit off a bit more than I could chew. Rather than having a sound track ready back in February, my first cut was June 3rd. The scripting started June 13th in the evenings and finally done on June 30th when I started printing labels.

My wife may be too supportive of this hobby :cool: When suggesting we cut out two segments. Abby wasn?t in "agreement" - so I took vacation starting on June 30th and worked nearly all day. I?d jump in the pool around 2am, sleep for a few hours in the treehouse, and then get back to prepping. I wasn't "allowed" back into the house until 2am on July 5th :eek:

Unknown to me, Abby convinced a good elementary/HS friend of mine to come out a few days earlier for a business trip. He surprised me on Friday, crashed at our place and got as little sleep as I did. Most of this wouldn't have happened without his help.

I still found some time to take the kids down to the a fireworks tent and let them pick up a few items - which we do every year. It is tough to balance the pressure of putting the show together and the time crunch, but still letting the kids enjoy similar excitement and enjoyment of fireworks. My youngest two are most into it, and I hope to keep that excitement going. My daughter could light off the flying spinners all day long.

So here is the show - overall I'm very pleased with what we did

I think I most enjoy Segment 2 Play With Fire and Segment 7 Blue on Black



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwO1qI0MFpU


Equipment
1 FTM-99S Controller and FTKontrol App on a Kindle Fire provided Audio to the mixing board
2 FTQ-16x64 Modules
9 FTH-48Fx Modules
2 FTH-48E Modules
1 FTQ-4x16 Module - its tiny (3.5"x 3.5"x.75")

http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=5904&stc=1


Script
1000+ events (Pyro & DMX) in the script, some pyro condensed with parallel rails.
800+ igniters
8 fused racks of cannisters

Noticeable issues & Successes:
There was no script testing - even for DMX, and not much auditing of the script either. It was a script-and-go year. With all the hassle and scramble there were 79 cues worth of items pulled during setup!!!! :( I had the equipment but due to time and some mistakes I made late one night on little sleep, they got pulled. However, nearly everything that made it on the field went off as it should and most of the segments ended clean. There were some green and yellow meteors that were mis-wired - you?ll see them. I screwed up on the script for a RH mine near the end. There is an 60s blue flame that was mis-wired and in the wrong segment. I had a single shot that didn?t fire- match popped - not sure what happened. And I had one cake that didn?t go - looks like the match was pulled out during setup or when watering down of the field. And, one fountain that didn?t fire - reason still uninvestigated.

I color organized many of the consumer cannisters. Unfortunately some of them were miss labeled by the manufacture (This I'm sure of). There are two that really annoy me when I watch it.

The script-and-go DMX approach had some issues and is not recommended ;). I made some mistakes - you will see one machine never fire. There were some other sequences that didn't fire either due to my mistakes, but the DMX still turned out reasonably well. It is frustrating because last year I had 100% success with the DMX devices.

But this year had a lot of successes to - mostly Huge neighborhood support. It was unreasonably hot and dry for our area. We watered things down good on our property and neighbors property with +1200ft of hose and sprinklers - luckily the well didn't go dry. But we also had the fire department come by just before we started with a water truck and they stayed for the show. There were no fires - other than the opening zipper cake. I woke up on the 5th at 2pm and many neighbors had come over and cleaned most everything up. We've received some nice letters and even a nice medallion from the local police department - that showed up today.


http://www.pyrotalk.com/bulletin/attachment.php?attachmentid=5903&stc=1

Rick_In_Tampa
07-17-2021, 12:59 AM
Wow! If that's what you call a "backyard pyromusical" then what I did was more of a marshmallow roast sing-a-long.

Very well done!

jtfannin
07-17-2021, 08:08 AM
Wow! If that's what you call a "backyard pyromusical" then what I did was more of a marshmallow roast sing-a-long.

Very well done!

Rick?..same.

Very nice show.

WithReport
07-17-2021, 11:00 AM
Wow! If that's what you call a "backyard pyromusical" then what I did was more of a marshmallow roast sing-a-long.

Very well done!

Thank you!

Oh goodness - you have a great way with words. :) , but I have not seen any marshmallow road sing-a-longs posted.

Yours was 100% patriotic which had an impression on me - especially during these crazy times. Last year I felt very guilty for pulling the Yankee Doodle segment which was our only patriotic song for Our 4th of July. This year that was the first thig I prepared. My approach was at a minimum, we'll have our patriotic song!




Rick?..same.

Very nice show.


Thanks. I'm glad nearly all of it came together. It was very questionable at times.

WithReport
07-18-2021, 10:28 PM
I got lucky ????

Here is the cake that didn't fire from the left position during Warriors near the end. During teardown the igniter was no longer in the tube, so I assume it got pulled at setup, arming, or when people were watering down the field.

At some point the cake next to it which was used in an earlier segment caught on fire, but it wasn't sustained. The fire burned most of the wrapping on this cake, but then it two went out. I removed the burnt wrapping and saw how close I came to unintentionally igniting the fuse of this cake. I got lucky that it didn't fire off this cake at an unwanted time - that may have been worse than it not firing at all.

5912

This has me re-thinking how close I put all my 500g cakes. How does everyone else space there cakes? Do you purposely keep them separated?

Engineer Cat
07-19-2021, 03:00 AM
Absolutely fantastic show.


Wow! If that's what you call a "backyard pyromusical" then what I did was more of a marshmallow roast sing-a-long.

Very well done!

Don't sell yourself short Rick! Your shows are awesome.

I think the question is.. what do we consider a backyard? LOL ;)

esgrillo
07-19-2021, 06:47 AM
Really good stuff! You know I am a DMX fan and anyone that can do that with success gets a gold star in my book. Very impressive especially with the time crunch you were in.

Birdman
07-19-2021, 10:35 AM
Awesome show! Can't believe you only started scripting in June! I assume you must have the stash of stashes available because how else could you script and then get the product you need in that short of time? I'm already working on next year's script hoping to get a jump on ordering the product I want.

WithReport
07-19-2021, 05:01 PM
Really good stuff! You know I am a DMX fan and anyone that can do that with success gets a gold star in my book. Very impressive especially with the time crunch you were in.

Thanks. I wish I would have done some testing, but oh well. Maybe I'll go back and figure out what was up with my script. So far, I'm just somewhat relieved to be through it, and need a break.

One of the newer flame machines was a Moka unit - which I recall you said you were using in a previous discussion and fairly pleased with. It definitely seems better built than the other eBay units. However it, too, came with no instructions and what instructions I originally got from then when requesting via email was all wrong. I also remember you mentioning some concerns with their customer service, too. So I had to bring out the DMX slide board and figure some things out by trial and error.

I did notice their safety channel was somewhat mid range of the values at 100-155. I suspect there may be some reason in this - I would assume a failure at 0 or 255 are probably more likely than a mid range failure.

WithReport
07-20-2021, 10:23 AM
Awesome show! Can't believe you only started scripting in June! I assume you must have the stash of stashes available because how else could you script and then get the product you need in that short of time? I'm already working on next year's script hoping to get a jump on ordering the product I want.

Thanks.

Yep scripting was honestly down to the last minute. I had some orders in - a blind order, with some thought. I wanted a gold segment - that ended up being warriors. I wanted a neon and ghost segment, that ended up being Get Up. I know I'd likely use a Lindsey Stirling song or similar and had spinners and tourbillions in mind. So there was some rationale to my blind ordering of product.

I did have some product left over from last year; e.g., I had crossettes and falling leaves left over from last year and some 30mm meteors and jet fountains. But the vast majority of the product is cakes and cannisters/shells. Most orders were picked up that same week and there was a specific 4 hour round trip on 29th (My wife drove while I slept) to pick up four cakes for Set Me On Fire segment.

WithReport
07-20-2021, 11:14 AM
Correction


... while I slept) to pick up four cakes for the Play With Fire segment.