horrible show.....

[ras1986]

Sad 4th for me guys. Great things first.. audience loved the show. Heard yelling over 500 feet away over the sound of fireworks in windy conditions. So they thought it was awesome. Show was horrible tho. If anyone saw my stash vids you know I was shooting from 3 equal positions. 10 mins before show start I'm checking Continuity on all stations for the third time and verifying all mods are tied to one remote. Excellent! Everything is perfect and ready to go. I found a true thunderking re wrapped with u 0336 1.4g at a stand by my house so I bought a whole case. Lol I fast fused them so they would all go off in about 5 seconds, I used this as my 5 minute curtain call to get attention. Hit the fuse on the thunderkings then got into position. Hit cue one. Only my left station went off. Hit cue 2 only right and middle go. My right station completely went stupid and dropped programming. It's dead. Middle and left fire thru the show miss firing about 8 cakes per station. Shows over and I'm pissed off. After the show i easily got the remote to re program but decided not to fire them. We all have cakes burn, especially zippers. One of my 180 shot 8 second zippers was cue one. The wind was constant 15 mph all day and this made it burn like someone poured gas on it. Long story short the fire transfered to the box I had covering my firing system. It's toast. Melted everything. ... pissed... got home today and took apart my firing systems to get the sand out of them, they were only uncovered for about an hour..... i found out why alot of cakes misfired, all of the terminals got corroded from the brief amount of salt air. The system showed continuity but couldn't put enough current thru the corrosion I'm guessing. If anyone has shot on a beach before tell me what I did wrong. If anyone reading is this and someone asks you to shoot on a beach say no.. lol the sand and wind are killer. Sorry for the long rant. I didn't even get a video of the show. Even worse. I did get a video of the damn firing system as I was taking it apart to clean. I think even if I had a cobra the terminals would have corroded just as bad. That salt air is hell.

[matandch]

Maybe have a torch ready for hand lighting as a backup.

[ras1986]

At matandch.. i did have a torch but all my fuses were taped up tightly with the ematch. Plus when the big fire started the fire department came to put it out and took my torch because "it was too close". They wernt really there for me anyway. They had JUST put out a huge fire on the dunes a half miles down the beach and then saw my small fire.

[algrant1]

What firing system did you use?

[ras1986]

Rf remotetech Ms32q

[pyromustang]

man I feel for you i been there. but if the audience was happy your show was not a total lost. I put all of my firing systems in a tool box with batteries so that everything is covered . I shot 192 cues with 6 Rf remotetech Ms32q with my home made igniters and all went without fail.

[ras1986]

I think I'm going to pull the boards out and solder connections to each relay so I can hook up a water tight multi pin connector to the side of a waterproof case where the system will be housed. Then from that connector I'll make it go to a slat rail that will have stainless screw type terminals on it so it won't rust. The customer already has me locked in for next year to do his show so I have to come up with something better.

[Tannerite]

that's too bad. But typical with electric shows. We've reverted back to using igniter cord for the entire show and using electric cues for our "oh shit" racks in case there was ever to be a section that didn't hit the fuse. To date we have never had igniter cord "not" ignite a fuse. We use the Mantitor brand from Brazil. It's a thermalite fuse with a wire in it and a plastic fire-resistant wrapping. Burns 1 second per inch and burns so damn hot that it will ignite the most stubborn fuse. One problem: it's regulated at the moment. Or at least semi-regulated.

[ras1986]

Great suggestion I'll have my 54 soon enough so regulations wont be a big deal. It's coming up on 90 days

[chriskrc]

That sucks ras, sorry to hear the shoot didn't go so well.

[Pyro Nation]

Well, I know I have had several problems with those systems crapping out on me... made the jump to the cobra 3 yrs ago I believe now and dont regret it