check out this control box i made

stingray2309

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my buddy has a huge party every year and spends a ton of money on fire works. last year i ran wires and hooked the fire work wick up to a RC car glow plug and touched the other ends of the wire to the battery that worked fine but he always wants bigger and better so i built this control box for him its his idea he thinks this stuff up and then dumps it on me to build i had never done anything like this but because of this site and learning how to fix games i was pretty sure i could pull it off. i have to say it turned out great and worked perfect. the night of the party i found out i had to wire all the fire works together i dont know anything about fire works other than they go boom so here it is two hours before dark and its me and my girl friend hooking them all up she was such a big help
 

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heres a few more, the wire is 16g i wanted to use something smaller but thats all he had and i only had two nights to wire it up so i just used what he bought. you can see in the photos my girl friend was a trooper had no clue what she was doing but jumped right in to bail me out. the deal was i do the box he said he had a guy that was going to hook up the fire works all and all her and i did a pretty good fire works show.
 

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That. Is. Awesome.


My childhood dream was to be a fireworks tech. Sigh.

You have an awesome girlfriend!
 
Are you sure your girlfriend didn't build the box and your just trying to take credit for it? :D She looks like she isn't afraid of wires and electronics.

just kidding of course.
 
she put up with a lot of swearing while i was wiring up that box my friend bought all the parts like i said he dreams these things up at work his co workers tell him what he should do but wont help him with it so he goes to radio shack and buys the parts i get it all wired up and to test it i have a buzzer i hook up so when i hit the button i can hear that its working so when i hook up the buzzer to the first button its going off but i have not pushed the button yet so i try them all its the same for all of them im pissed saying things you should never say in front of a woman she tells me to walk away take a few breaths i go back to it and it hits me they game him the wrong buttons they sold him always closed buttons i was so pissed.

as for her helping me her and i had no clue about fire works but she knew i needed help and jumped right in it was pretty cool working with her i cant think of one other woman i have dated or been married to that would have done that. she is a real champ for sure.

i have to say for not know anything about fire works it sure was fun pressing all those buttons and making everything go boom and at the same time it felt pretty good to hear all the kids and adults with their ohs and wows as i lit up the sky i guess that was my ego boost for the year lol
 
That would be an awesome job! You would only have to work 2 days a year. :D
i tell you what there was a lot of prep work for one show now for a home party it was a pretty big fire works show the photo does not show everything so for a normal city size show i could only image what kind of prep goes into it. i have to say it was a lot of fun i did swear a lot but only because i was under pressure with time and getting the box done i had never done anything like that before i was stressing but it was doing that box that brought me back here i have to say if it was not for all the help i have gotten over the years from people here helping me or just reading other posts i would have had no idea how to build that so as i type this i now know what im going to name the box KLOV. im going to have someone paint that on the side because like i said without you guys that box would not have been made.
 
I did something similar a few years ago. I bet the glow plugs worked better than the model rocket igniters I used. I would have to go digit out, I think I just did a 6 station. I used RCA jacks as quick disconnects on the leads and simple speaker wire for the runs since I had a ton of it for some reason. I set mine up 12 volt with an interchangeable power cable. I can use either a car battery via large clips or a power supply from an old IBM Token Ring MAU that I have. It was 12 volts at some silly AMP monstrosity. Each of my runs are fused. I did put in a safety "key". More or less, after the power enters the box the + side loops through the female side of a 1/4" phono jack. I took a male 1/4" and simply looped the appropriate tabs with a piece of wire. Insert the male plug and the circuit is completed. Pull it out, the + side is broken, and no one can fire anything with your back turned.
 
yeah i found out the hard way that using to much power would make the glow plugs a one time uses. i tried to use the rocket igniters but again a one shot deal and was having issues with them so i came up with the glow plugs and they work really good i just hot glued the fuse to the glow plug i will have to find one of the extra ones i have laying around and post a photo of it. what im looking to do next year is use the same wire thats inside a toaster that heats up. if anyone knows what its called and where i can get some i have never worked with it but would like to try it out im sure its re useable and has to be easier than hot glueing a fuse to a glow plug
 
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