4 replies to this topic

[Daedalus]

Some Cat. 3 cakes have a spare fuse in case of failure of the main fuse - can anyone tell me how this is arranged? I assume it is merely a fuse running into the last tube so if it is used the cake will fire backwards. If the cake fires normally I would assume this fuse will continue to burn at the end of the firing.

My interest is in using this to daisy chain a second cake on after the first. If my assumptions on the workings are correct this should work with only a very short delay between one cake finishing and the next starting.

[Night Owl]

Yes most C4 cakes have this spare fuse but their not always at the end of the last tube, on C4 cakes you can often see where the fuse is and the dirention of the pass fire fuse from tube to tube but on a C3 cake it is of course Illegal to open it up and look for this, at some poin the spare fuse will light though so connect and see. good luck and hope it dont light half way though the first cake:)

[Bonny]

Although I'm not sure where the spare connects, it is there "as a spare" in case the main fails to start the cake. I think it does start at the opposite end though. At some shows I've worked on, we add a second ematch to the spare and activate that once the cake is mostly done to do two things:
increase the fire rate at the end
to ensure that all tubes fire before going to next cue

it looks crappy in a show when the cake 'seems' done , you shoot the next cue and then another shot pops out of the cake.

[Arthur Brown]

I thought the second fuse was usually at the final end, but it is not really common enough in the cakes I have used, to rely on it for show timing.

[Bonny]

I thought the second fuse was usually at the final end, but it is not really common enough in the cakes I have used, to rely on it for show timing.

It's not so much for timing...rather to increase the fire rate for added effect and/or to ignite both ends toward the end of the cake so tubes are all done before next cue. For example: you don't want to start lanching your finally shells and have another shot from the cake pop out...