BP and electrial ignition

[flashpanner]

I was always curious to know if BP would ignite with a spark discharge. I found a link that answered my question. Thought I'd share it
[url] http://www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/mlexperiments/sparks/sparks.html[/url]

 

[Claude Mathis]

That article has been posted several times.

The author, Dr. Stephen Wardlaw, has written two excellent articles that can be found here.
[url] http://www.brimstonepistoleros.com/Articles/wardlaw.htm[/url]

 

[Smokey in Oz]

Thanks for the link Claude. As a new guy to this BP shooting it's not enough (for me)to be told 'dont do this or that will happen'. I like to understand why. It couldn't have been put any simpler.
Cheers, Smokey. :winking:

 

[MikeFromON]

Sparks from your flint and frizzen ignite black powder because those sparks are actually tiny shards of red hot metal that fall into the pan and transfer their extreme heat to the powder grains directly. As the linked article states, electric sparks (arcs) do not ignite the BP well because they are really just electric current passing through the air (making it glow momentarily, but imparting almost no heat at all), so they just pass through the BP as well on their way to ground and not enough energy builds up in the powder to cause it to reach ignitioin temperature. Does anybody know the ignition temperature and/or the electrical resistance of BP? Could a couple of 'D' cells or a little hand-wound magneto be wired in series with a capacitor and a coil of small-gauge resistance wire to make a circuit that provides a moment of high heat to ignite a BP charge?

 

[Zonie]

I believe Black Powders ignition temp is around 475 degrees F so sure, if you had a wire or something that would heat up due to electrical current flow it would ignite the powder.
How reliably? I haven't a clue.
Besides, it is more fun to set it off with a nice shower of sparks from a fine flintlock. Barring those, a Percussion cap works very well too! :grin: :grin:

 

[jderrick]

I just saw on Wikipedia that black powder is used in some model rocket motors. Such rockets use electrical ignition systems that I guess could be reworked to fire a ML....

 

[Old Ironsights]

I just saw on Wikipedia that black powder is used in some model rocket motors. Such rockets use electrical ignition systems that I guess could be reworked to fire a ML....

The electric ignition of a model rocket is a resistance coil surrounded by a low-temp combustible. the battery heats up the wire and the combustible fires the bp igniter in the solid booster.

So it is Electrical only tangentially.

 

[cheapeats]

I used to work for a company that built industrial explosion protection equipment and msot anything that will burn when it is made into a powder that can be airborn will ignite with a spark. We used to create an explosion in a 10 foot diameter metal sphere using 1 pound of corn stacrh and an electrical spark. This created enough of an explosion to create a pressure rise of 150 psi. If the corn starch wasn't airborn it would do nothing. We provided protection for sugar plants, grain mills, dog food factories, machine shops (aluminum and magnesium dusts are highly explosive.
As far as the rocket motor ignitors we would improvise an ignitor by wrapping a paper match head with fine gauge(28 or 30) and hitting it with a battery to ignite no capacitors needed.

 

[Old Ironsights]

I used to work for a company that built industrial explosion protection equipment and msot anything that will burn when it is made into a powder that can be airborn will ignite with a spark. We used to create an explosion in a 10 foot diameter metal sphere using 1 pound of corn stacrh and an electrical spark. This created enough of an explosion to create a pressure rise of 150 psi. If the corn starch wasn't airborn it would do nothing. We provided protection for sugar plants, grain mills, dog food factories, machine shops (aluminum and magnesium dusts are highly explosive.
As far as the rocket motor ignitors we would improvise an ignitor by wrapping a paper match head with fine gauge(28 or 30) and hitting it with a battery to ignite no capacitors needed.

Try non-dairy creamer some time. Works better than corn starch.

I was EOD. Dust initiators (atmospheric saturation) are fun. We would destroy old buildings with a 5lb bag of flour. Splitting Grain Silos like banana peels is child's play.

The point was that BP does not ignite via electrical spark without the addition of heat, either through resistance alone or less resistance and more sensitive conbustibles.

The battery required for Estes Motor igniters is either a 9v or 12v carbon lamp battery. Never needed a capacitor.

BP Dust is a ghod-awful wonderful saturation explosive though.

 

[K38]

I can speak to the rocket motor thing. The small motors are BP, and the big motors are Ammonia Perclorate (APC) in a synthetic rubber matrix, other wise known as a composite motor. The BP ones will light with almost any battery and ignitor 6V or better. The big ones need an electric match that usually is pretty hot and nasty, and needs a big battery (I have used (9.6V Makita tool batteries) The place BP gets used a ton in big rockets is as the ejection charge to deploy the parachute. Generally healthy amounts of FFFFg either ignited by a flasbulb (the little peanut size) or a sensitive electric match (I don't know where they get the flashbulbs from
anymore, but they do.

Dwight
NAR High Power Level II (up to L motors)
(Big, loud, lots-o-fun)