SpudFiles

I saw a vid last week that showed how a 9v battery could ignite steel wool.

Got me to think that such a combo would be a reliable way to fire off my cannon.

I'm thinking of mounting the battery to the cannon, and running a couple of wires into the removable cap (chamber access point). At the ends of the wires would be alligator clips, with a bit of steel wool connecting in between.

I would then run the wires to a remote, push-button switch that would close the circuit and ignite the wool.

Steel wool is pretty cheap, and I think it would be a lot more reliable than a spark gap (which seems to fail more often than it works). Plus, the wires could be of such a length to put the steel wool out into the middle of the combustion chamber.

Has anyone done something like this? Any thoughts?

appleorchard
fond du lac, wisconsin

sounds like something worth trying, i have never been able to igninte steel wool with a 9v but maybe i was doing something wrong. let us know how it works out dude.
_______________________
www.freewebs.com/spuddin

Check out this vid...I think this looks promising!

Yes, It works I just tried it its pretty cool.

Spread the steel wool apart so it is not compressed and air get get tot the center an it will throw sparks

well, it might be really inefficient it use an whole clump. what i would do is take a few strands(4 maybe), bunch/coil em up or leave em as wires. this way you wont have the molten metal burning at your chamber, and you use alot less.

This has been tried several times. My understanding is that it is (1) hard to get the steel hot enough to ignite the fuel and (2) a PITA to change the steel wool for every shot.

Couple of links;
http://www.spudfiles.com/spudtech_archi ... steel,wool
http://www.spudfiles.com/spudtech_archi ... steel+wool

Yeah, just a handful of strands is what I was thinking...I have to imagine those would burn just hot enough to cause ignition.

I'll be messing with it this weekend...I'll report my results.

(Although that second link above is making me wonder...)

i think an even cooler idea would be use a modifid cap gun

i have a friend who tried it, modified a clean out to accept two small electrical clips which were connected to a momentary switch and a 9v battery. it made the iron wool burn but it didn't work at all. each time he put in about a fist sized clump of iron wool and nothing. your better off with a grill or butane torch igniter

Maybe a bigger battery? Or several 9v bats in series? Give it more of a spark?

I messed with model rocket engine ignitors at one point, but they're not the cheapest.

you could have a fan to help get air to it because steel wool needs oxygen to burn.

Ok this is how your do it. You have 2 alligator clips which is ran by the 9 volt, you get 1 strand of steel wool and put a the alligater clips on each side. run the current through and it burns safe!

I used this exact ignition method on an aerosol combustion a LONG time ago (my first gun, I think. I was about 14, lol).
It didn't work very well. Even when the fuel/air mixture seemed right, it only ignited one out of every three or so tries.
A cheap BBQ sparker or even a flint lantern lighter is a better bet than steel wool and a battery.

If you need something you can use remotely, try making a camera flash circuit with 50ft of wire for the low-voltage relay that fires it....

Peace,
Pete Zaria.

how about a car spark plug??

ever thought of using one of them
i've never had a go at using one in fact i'm in the middle of designing my first cannon so mabye i should open a topic just for my spark plug theory?