2 replies to this topic

[Pete B]

Quick question really...

I've never tried firing a rocket with ematch before because I've always had the fear of "what if it takes the wires up with it", so was wondering if anyone had some ideas and suggestions on how to do this properly, in other words making sure the ematch disconnects from the fuse when it pops.

Ideally I'd like to have all my rockets in a rack and do it this way instead of by hand.

[Arthur Brown]

Firework rockets or Rocketry rockets?

An ematch will not reliably ignite visco, so the optimum method seems to be to use a sleeve of quickmatch over the visco and ignite that with an igniter. If the qm is lightly attatched to the visco and the igniter is only loosely inserted then the igniter fires the qm which fires the visco, the qm flare pushes the ematch out and the motor pushes the visco out along with the expired qm.

[pyrotrev]

There's a neat way I developed for bigger rockets that come with those plastic fuse protector thingies:
1) remove fuse protector from rocket
2) cut off the end of the fuse protector at a diameter where you can insert the ematch from the bottom, tape in place.
3) cut the visco down to about 2cm with a slanting cut
4) place a couple of strands of thin black match or a bit of meal BP in the fuse protector and replace on rocket
On firing, the black match/BP lights the visco and blows the fuse protector off to avoid TRS (tethered rocket syndrome) - reasonably waterproof too