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View Full Version : Slice cross fire prevention



Jay_
05-17-2020, 04:08 PM
Is there anything that you guys do to prevent your slices from cross-firing when you have them all shoved in a rack together?

I either had a cross-fire or rouge cue that caused a slice to fire out of sequence last year, and i'm wondering if there is anything that i should do different. Is staggering them with fuses on opposite ends good enough? Does it matter?

To be clear i'm talking about having all of my slices jammed together on a board held in place by the two plywood endcaps.

Rick_In_Tampa
05-18-2020, 04:49 AM
I don't run large clusters of slices together normally, but I do run multiples together, and I've never had that problem. I would think that if you just put a piece of tape over the initiator/QM junction, that should prevent any rogue spark from getting in there and lighting one off. I really can't think of any other way one could go up unplanned like that. Seal the access points and you should be fine.

Mattp
05-18-2020, 06:28 AM
i agree with rick.. if you tape up where your eport is... i really dont see how that can happen... maybe for safe measure also tape up the alternate(unused) e-ports ...ive been using slices for only a few years now... but i do the same jammimg them in method.. without an issue

krayg
05-18-2020, 09:21 AM
To be clear i'm talking about having all of my slices jammed together on a board held in place by the two plywood endcaps.

I had 25 slices on one board like that last year with no unintentional firings. It was an overly long board and I really jammed them together before securing the endcaps. As other have stated, I also covered the eports with tape.

Robbro097
05-18-2020, 12:10 PM
This is going to b my 1st year with slices so no 1st hand knowledge but seen discussions on cobra fb group about how to stop them from catching fire when shooting them like that and multiple people on there recommended wrapping each slice in saran/palat wrap to prevent them from burning. I imagine if it works for that it would work for preventing crossfire as well as water proofing

Jay_
05-18-2020, 06:29 PM
Thanks guys, looks like tape it is! Good enough for you, good enough for me.

Appreciate it!

jamisonlm3
05-18-2020, 06:47 PM
I've helped with shows that have used slices of difference sizes and I've never seen one catch fire that I can remember. It might be that the racks they were in partitioned each slice off to it's own space, but I'm not sure. Cakes are a different story altogether though. It was fairly regular that at least one for two cakes would need a good soaking.

esgrillo
05-18-2020, 07:14 PM
Rick and the others are on point. I have some pretty massive slice racks that are what you have... plywood with book ends. I do try and "dress" the igniters away from each other as much is reasonably possible and tape them down as necessary to do this especially with the dominator ones that have the quickmatch lead. Never had any problems.

You can see some picks of them assembled in the beginning of my video from last year.

displayfireworks1
05-18-2020, 08:33 PM
Would be great if some of the more experienced fireworks members would get some daytime pictures this Memorial Day and/or July 4th of your Article of Pyrotechnic modular (Slice) setups. Some of the newer advancing members can benefit from seeing it. My experience has been when you place any pyrotechnic product right up against another product there is a high chance the fire will jump to the next and prematurely set it off. The strange thing is, it will jump to the next one and even if you are right there watching it, you can not figure out how it happened. Since most of us do not have dedicated racks to accommodate these AP products , the most logical way to approach it is stabilize and separate the modulates (Slices). Have more wire, match and firing system ques than you think you need.

PyroGyro
05-21-2020, 02:01 PM
Is there anything that you guys do to prevent your slices from cross-firing when you have them all shoved in a rack together?

I either had a cross-fire or rouge cue that caused a slice to fire out of sequence last year, and i'm wondering if there is anything that i should do different. Is staggering them with fuses on opposite ends good enough? Does it matter?

To be clear i'm talking about having all of my slices jammed together on a board held in place by the two plywood endcaps.

I'm not an expert on slices and jamming them together inside of a slice rack, but from what I've heard slices are prone to catch fire. Maybe one of your slices caught fire and lit another slice? If this is the case, wrapping each slice in plastic wrap before jamming them together may prevent both problems. I plan on doing this for an upcoming show, not because I was worried about a slice causing a different slice to ignite, but because I worried about slice fires. The plastic also acts as weatherproofing too.