Homemade firework remote control

Well.... finally got it together to finish and test the glorified nail-board! A friend asked me to make him something to shoot his fireworks... something that would take a truck to break, and that would be easy to fix if anything went wrong, so this is what he will be getting first thing tomorrow! lol I am not - in any way - saying that this is the perfect example of a nail-board-type firing system, and most certainly not saying that it couldn't be improved! It is an example of a very basic firing system that is strong, relatively easy to make, and works. It may need a little playing around to find the correct type of copper wire that suits your battery's amp rating, but, once you do, you are sorted! Since making the video, I put my money where my mouth is, and actually used it on a small shoot we had for a friend. It worked 100%, although some of the fireworks took slightly longer than others to light. I reckon the nail 'pen' might look good(ish!), but the contact it makes may not be good enough sometimes, so it might be worthwhile playing around with different contact methods... a bare wire-end held by fingers?lol I must admit... 'just in case', we had one of our smaller wireless remotes wired-up to the fireworks too! I was worried because I hadn't had the battery charged-up for months! However, we didn't need the wireless remote back-up in the end, as the nail-board system did the job.
NOTE: If you are shooting fireworks that have the green 'Fisco' fuse (which usually burns approx. 1 inch in 3 seconds) you will need to wrap the copper wire in a 'spiral' around the fuse, then connect each end to the crocodile clips. I found that a single spiral around the fuse-wire was enough... any more than this, and the wire's resistance became too much, and needed almost 2 seconds to get red hot and fire the fuse. With a single spiral around the fuse-wire (be careful that the spiral doesn't touch itself and short... keep the windings separate with a bit of tape), the fuse took around one second to fire. Again, you may have to play around to find the right kind of wire. BTW... I found that size 10 staples (ordinary office-type staples) worked well too... taking around one second to light the fuse! I just straightened the staple out, then wound it around the fuse-wire, then clipped the crocodile clips to each end.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• fireworks
• remote
• firing
• system
• firework
• control
• samui
• the
• shop
• basic
• nailboard
• homemade
• 12
• volt
• car
• battery
• powered
• koh
• amateur
• hobbyist
• samuifireworks.com
• home video

[Arkanovich]

I like the idea of using a parts case as a project box. There's some interesting possibilities there.

[thefireworkshop]

@Arkanovich Thanks for that.... there are lots of different size cases, so you could make a smaller (or bigger!) system :)

[robbertloos]

please let the birts shut up :P its annoing when listening

but nice project

greetings

[thefireworkshop]

@robbertloos he he... yeah... they get on my tits too sometimes! lol

[ThePyroNut]

I have copied this and made my own but i used a smaller plastic screw box. i followed what you did here and it works great with a 12 volt motorbike battery. I found that 2 pieces of thin copper wire from a telephone wire was perfect for a fuse, and takes about 1 second or less to ignite the firework, and i use thin household wire, like for a light, for the main wire. thank you for this, brilliant :) now all i need are some fireworks! next time i come to samui i will visit your shop for sure

[Hobypyrocom]

really great. keep up the good work.

[BeaconHillFireworks]

Questions: Could one post be used to fire multiple pieces simultaneously> Is the voltage sufficient?

What gauge wire do you use for launching?

Thanks