I remember in my youth flying model rockets. I had an electric launcher. It did not spark. You push the button and the wire would glow hot enough to ignite the propellant.
we would break the tops off of xmas tree lights exposing the filaments , put a drinking straw over the broken bulb, then pack the straw with a mixture of brown sugar and match heads.
CVA already made one of these like a decade ago. It was called the "Electra" and it seemed to be good, but nobody bought them. That's how I found out about this video. I was looking for that gun.
Jeff Rodriguez has had great success coating wires in a slurry of powder and igniting using resistance. Perhaps a heating element could set it off? Can't wait to see more experiments!
I did a similar experiment last year which worked almost instantly. You are right, you need to generate more heat. I didn't use a spark generator or any complicated circuitry. All I used was a piece of aluminum foil which was much thinner at the contact point with bp and a AA rechargeable battery. It worked flawlessly in an instant. Also I used homemade bp which I made using the so called CIA method. I think maybe Pyrodex isn't sensetive enough.
HI TIM! I got the book, it's a good read! This exercise on elec igntiion dug up some memories...walking in other's footsteps...so I assume the failures you found on the internet included the *ctmuzzleloaders* successful experiments on an electrically fired caseless breech loading bp rifle and The Electrical Ignition of BP??? Haven't read this for some time, and not sure if it was the graphite being anti static, but it's all documented on the CTML site. Enjoy.
Yeah - I've played around with it too. Its not a difficult engineering project (but I'm an EE), but takes more current and duty cycle, so a custom circuit is necessary and would take some playing around with to get it right. Wish I had the time right now. There is also the issue of the electrodes becoming fouled - especially with true black powder. But yes it does seem amazingly resistant to ignition by a simple spark because you are having to heat up a whole flake to the ignition point. One can of course use a first powder which is more readily ignited (e.g., a flash type powder) that then ignites the black powder. But again experimentation would be required. Alas - So many fun experiments which could be done and so little time. As always enjoy your videos very much . ==> Wish you'd talk some about Hugh Ross and the Old Earth paradigm which we both share -- God used that ministry to bring me to the Bible and to Christ over 20 years ago. And thankfully Jesus keeps opening more and more truths for me to walk in.
Buy a CCFL inverter and attach a high capacitance 100nF output Cockcroft Walton Voltage multiplier to that to get 2KV. Then use an outside of chamber spark gap triggered by a pressure drop using a miniature spring powered bellows as a trigger gap in series with the arc in the chamber. That may produce enough bang for gunpowder at 0.2J of energy per spark.
Arc lighters/so called plasma lighters may not work as well as a nichrome coil or a RC nitromethane glow plug would be cool to see you try the other options the Nichrome wire GLOWING red hot should be able to do it, similarly the kind of nichrome coil used in an ecig 8.4v input and instant 500c If you could I'd like to see the arc lighter with a strip of magicians flash paper or hell even ordinary paper That could solve the issue
It can be done :) However, I used a 3 ohm 26ga hot wire. This totally reliably ignited over 60 100 grain genuine 12ga blackpowder charges. Initially I made the mistake of underestimating the corrosive power of gunpowder on electronics. But by replacing the wire each time, it worked. Why bother? I can always get fine wire. I can't always get percussion caps. I used nichrome and stainless wire, having found copper and steel wire (and steel wool) developed high resistance and unreliable ignition on storage. Pre-wired cartridges have lasted over 18 months. A cordless drill pack is very reliable. I have not thoroughly tested solar charged LiPO phone battery banks, but they work to some extent and are available weatherproofed.
Someone has already mentioned model rocket ignitors. When I was a kid (and when my son was a kid), sometimes the ignitors would burn without igniting the rocket. Since there were only three ignitors in a three pack of engines, you'd have to buy extra ignitors, which was relatively expensive, and usually inconvenient. As a kid, I found that a few strands of twisted copper electrical wire would work just as well for an ignitor when you passed 12 volts through them. There is a delay as the wires heat up, but within a second or two, they are hot enough to glow red, ignite the rocket, and then burn through. If you took the drum bolster off the barrel, you could insert the ignitor wire in through the bolster. When using bare copper wire, you bend it into a long thin U shape, but you don't want the legs of the U to touch, and short against each other. So we would put the bare wire U into the rocket, and then pack between the legs of the U with a small plug of toilet paper to keep the legs from shorting out. That way, the entire length of wire would carry current and get heated up. A moderately clever person could manufacture such an ignitor that would be contained within a thin insulating coating, and that would have enough wire left on the ends to wrap around tiny terminal studs near the touch hole that would supply wire from a power pack. Of course, an open touch hole the size of the threaded end of a drum bolster is going to spout a bunch of fire near your face, so some kind of vent liner might be used to reduce the size of the touch hole, and a blast deflector might keep the flash away from the face and hands.
I thought half the point of electric ignition was to eliminate the need for single-use ignition sources, so coated thermal ignitors don't fit the bill. The other half would be to decrease lock time, which would mean bulky resistive elements that need to ignite the charge directly without the aid of a coating aren't accomplishing anything. The use-case of a handheld firearm implies performance expectations that are different than what I think most people would find acceptable for things like a rocket, a cannon, or a remote pyrotechnic charge -- tighter timing, less gas waste, better repeatability and convenience. A volume of powder in a vessel can be ignited any number of ways, most of which are impractical. As an aside, the whole point of a resistive ignitor is to get hot. In order to do that efficiently, the power being delivered to the element needs to be dissipated in a minimal mass. Making an ignitor of a single material of uniform cross-section is a terrible geometry for achieving that goal. What works in a pinch when nothing else is available is rarely an optimal solution in general.
I can not speak on other BP substitutes like 777. But I do know that pyrodex is harder to agnite than true black powder. It is in part why the in lines was developed with musket cap than 209 priming
I've done several experiments with both black and smokeless powder ignition using electric arcs, and I've come to the same conclusion: the electric potential itself does not ignite the powder, it is the heat generated by the arc. The prime factor affecting the heat of the arc plasma is the amount of current it carries, the voltage of the system does not matter except for overcoming the breakdown potential of the given gap. I found that at least 15-20 mA of continuous AC current is required to generate adequate heat for ignition, and given that at least a few kV would be needed to make a good-sized spark, the amount of power needed is too large and inefficient. Furthermore, plasma is not very thermally conductive, and even at high currents the heat transfer is not quick enough to provide a consistent lock time (at least out of confinement, haven't tested it in a chamber yet.) The use of a low-voltage filament as a primer is much more economical, and was the basis of the Remington etronX system that worked fine, but never took off commercially.
Existing electric ignition muzzleloader: CVA Electronic Ignition System, called Electra! PDF manual available online with plenty of info. Looks like it might not have been very successful, as this model is discontinued. ...got the grey cells going now...Schel Sullivan's Vape Pen Rocket Launcher was an interesting example of a readymade glow plug type ignitor...even though he was using flash cotton.
A thought occurs, I used to play with Estes brand rockets when I was a kid. They have electronic ignition via a match design. Maybe you could adapt that technology into a firearm. And, while not a percussion cap, it's certainly exposed. Yeah, I think it's plasma that would set off the ignition rather than a spark.
i'm thinking a capacitor and wind up systen would work. like the flash system out of an old film camara. i took one apparat one time and didn't know it was still charged and got the most painful jolt i ever felt. left a burn mark on my thumb. that or an automotive coil, the old kind for distributor systems. I took auto tech in collage ant the teacher was telling us about a certain type they used to use that were dangerous and actually killed people .
You should try using Xenon flash lamp driver circuit - uses high voltage to ionize air making it conductive enough to pass high current from a big capacitor (several hundred microfarads) that is charged by relatively lower voltage (300 - 500 V). High current heats the gas (air) and ignites propellant. I recommend you take a look at this website (www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/electric_ignition/eignition.html) and experiments that where undertaken with this same goal in mind! Have a great time, keep your work going and stay safe!
Interesting. Linked to the YT guy who already figured it out back in 2012, mlshooter. ua-cam.com/video/Nm6PEdBcQ6s/v-deo.html. I wonder if the current state of brass/primer scarcity would "reignite" the research field?
As an electrical engineer I would charge up a HV capacitor up to around 2 to 3 kv and discharge it with blackpowder between the electrodes in a confined space, you would need a higher capacitance around 1uf or so...for a power supply you could use CFL inverters you can get off a amazon with a HV rectifier diode
Hello! The module you are using has capacitors and resistors to boost the voltage, it results in very high voltage but low current arc. What you need is ignition module, they don't make beating sounds like this one and create purple arcs, often they are square shaped modules. They create persistent hot purple arc which can ignite paper and other material, so the gun powder will be easy for that one.
The issue here is confusion. in order to generate the heat necessary to ignite the powder, you need to increase the amperage, not the voltage. Low voltage, high current is your preferred option. This is the principle that arc welders work on. You can hook up 2 12v lead acid batteries in parallel and weld with them, but if you take the same batteries and boost the voltage, but reduce the current, your results will be less than optimal.
In a word; hot-wire. Use the equivalent of uninsulated electrical fuse, that is replaced on every shot. Just a single strand of copper wire that you couple to a 9 V battery should work.
recommend testing with actual BP. Pretty sure that like most smokeless powders pyrodex is coated with carbon dust specifically to help prevent static discharge ignition. true black powder on the other hand doesn't have this feature.
Some experiments were done by a new england website, gunpowder is too conductive to generate heat. Any spark , or arc that ignites gunpowder, or starts fires is determined by the heat of the spark, not the amount of sparks. The electric system that worked in their experiments was the flash generator from a disposible camera, which is similar to the system cva used in the short production run cva electra which was never a hit, probably due to everyones experience with electronic devices which eventually fail, flintlocks still work properly hundreds of years later.
I suspect the metal table was acting as a heat sink and keeping things too cold to ignite. I'd try a metal pin fixed upright on the table, maybe with something insulated around it to hold the powder off the table too. Then the arc would be formed away from the heat sink effect of the table surface. Others have mentioned using a low(er) voltage heating element. The problem with that is the lock-time. It would be even longer than with a flint or wheel lock gun.
How did the electric ignition system in the CVA electra work? They were on the market for a very short time; my guess is that in most areas you couldn't hunt with them because of the regulations for muzzleloading hunts in most states.
Three 9v in series can set off quite the match. And an electric match exposed to the elements should qualify as an exposed primer. Maybe a tethered capacitor or something along those lines? Interesting thought
Years ago I saw a fellows idea on electric ignition firearms. His solution was to use an ignition Fuze from a model rocket. It is very resistive, yet very thin so it(nearly) instantly turns white hot as it's consumed.
What if you used a confined cylinder like a shell casing with wadding or other obstruction keeping the powder inside then have the positive lead touching the casing and the negative where the primer would be?
try a 20 kv transformer or better an arc electric lighter. because im able to ignite blackpowder with an arc electric lighter.(essentially a cigarette lighter but it uses an arc to light it.)
Get the propellant into a cylinder of stretched out steel wool after mixing it with a pure Alcohol to allow air to escape it,dried inside of a cylindrical mould of course,as long as the steel wool is exposed at the surface a current passing through will ignite it and the resulting flame should be able to ignite the propellant.
you shocked the heck out of me ,I was sure it would flash up as soon as you sparked the powder ,not enough heat I guess. I designed pistol that used battery and nichrome wire to ignite the powder. It worked but the wire got red hot to set the powder.
Use an old camera flash to ignite the powder, old time cameras use to use powder flashes that were electrically ignited, hope this comment helps and also to see what you come up with.
I just had an idea to fix your problem with the electric ignition, It may be difficult to ignite powder with an electric charge, but we all know it is not difficult to ignite paper... so my theory, would electricity ignite a paper black powder cartrage made with nitride treated paper? (Nitride can be optional, but certainly could aid in the powder’s ignition further) You may realise this design of a paper cartrage already exists for black powder revolver for the purpose of reloading a black powder revolver more quickly, and nitride treatment of the paper as well for the original purpose of making sure all the paper was burned after the reaction takes place in the cylinder, therefore you can use stock paper cartridge formers and already existing recipes out there. It also shouldn’t be difficult for a man of your expertise to make a prototype using the exact same cartrages with an electric ignition system using this ammo, In fact, you could probably modify one of the interesting devices you’ve already made yourself for this task, like your pistol you’ve made for the sole purpose of experimenting with a .44 barrel. The rest would truly be electronics.
@@yaykruser Air is composed of easily ionized, small molecules. Guncotton is a polymer capable of charge distribution and so is not easily converted into an ionized state. What you want is a small, ionizable molecule like a simple organic peroxide or an azide that can propagate deflagration. Or use a hot wire which sets guncotton off just fine.
@@VikOlliver Now the main advantage of guncotton is thats its not a powder so it doesnt move away like a powder. Doesnt matter if the arc goes directly through it it just has to heat it. You know these Arc Lighters? thats exactly what you need .
@@yaykruser Right, yeah, I know what you mean. They create quite a lot of actual hot plasma, which sets fluffy stuff on fire. Not sure how well it would go densely packed. One way to find out...
I'm going to guess that if one takes a #2 oil burner ignition transformer and places black powder between two probes connected to it then the BP will ignite in under a second as #2 fuel oil is hard to burn as well. So hard to burn in fact they have to pump the fuel into a mist then run something like 10k volts constantly sparking between two probes in order to get a flame. The whole setup is basically a flamethrower.
My guess is no, at least not with this circuit. A primer is basically a metal cup or canister filled with an impact-sensitive chemical, so I'm thinking it would act as a Faraday cage, shielding the priming compound from the electrical spark. A different (lower voltage, higher current) power supply might heat up the metal cup enough to make the primer go off, and a spark like this might set off raw priming compound if it passed directly through it. But in any case, that would kind of defeat the purpose of electrical ignition, since the idea was to eliminate the need for a primer by igniting the powder with an electrical spark instead.
I see 2 more problems: 1: The Isolation on your wire will burn off causing it to spark trough the metal instead of the chamber. 2: Your wire is gonna die after a few uses either trough corrosion ,mechanical force from the explosion or the heat.
@@hanelyp1 Yeah, but our materials are limited, pressure and shock would be okay for rubber, but there is heat too. Electrode might work with stainless steel or iridium like in Spark plugs , but Iridium tends to break. I dont see a way this is gonna work with wires or cables, maybe with something like a car spark plug.
Back around 2008 there was a TV show called Weapon Masters that stared Mike Loads and Chad Houseknecht, Mike would present an historic weapon of some sort and Chad would make his improved one. One episode the weapon was "Dueling Pistol," Chads updated "hi-tech" version was still a black powder muzzle loader as stipulated by the design criteria but had a red dot site, a brace and electric ignition. The show was on for a couple of seasons and personally I liked it. It has been some years since I have scene the show or that episode so I forgotten all the details of Chad's interpretation of the dueling pistol other than what I have mentioned and of course it did work. StaySafe, StayHealthy, and Merry Christmas
If you could somehow incorporate a heating element, kind of like a glow plug for a diesel engine, and make it robust enough to handle the explosive environment, it should work. At least it's easy to test to see if it will light just loose gunpowder.
the arc seemed to be blowing the powder out of the way, i would wonder if it might be easier to ignite if the powder was confined
use a vape pen heater,saw one used to ignite flash cotton.
What if for the priming powder you added like iron oxide or aluminum to heat then ignite the powder?
High temperature powdered metal fouling ???
I remember in my youth flying model rockets.
I had an electric launcher.
It did not spark.
You push the button and the wire would glow hot enough to ignite the propellant.
we would break the tops off of xmas tree lights exposing the filaments , put a drinking straw over the broken bulb, then pack the straw with a mixture of brown sugar and match heads.
Arc lighters are MUCH more reliable and last longer thankfully its come a long way
CVA already made one of these like a decade ago. It was called the "Electra" and it seemed to be good, but nobody bought them. That's how I found out about this video. I was looking for that gun.
i think the carbon fouling will be a problem shorting out the electrodes if you did get ignition
Jeff Rodriguez has had great success coating wires in a slurry of powder and igniting using resistance. Perhaps a heating element could set it off? Can't wait to see more experiments!
Glow plug vs. spark plug.
I would have thought that it would have worked for sure, interesting 🤔
Great Experiment ! Next step a glow plug?
Thinking about the glowplugs in my diedel truck which hold heat ... Dumping a load of powder onto a hot glowplug might not be a good idea...
Has modern black powder had something done to it to stop it getting ignited by static?
I did a similar experiment last year which worked almost instantly. You are right, you need to generate more heat. I didn't use a spark generator or any complicated circuitry. All I used was a piece of aluminum foil which was much thinner at the contact point with bp and a AA rechargeable battery. It worked flawlessly in an instant. Also I used homemade bp which I made using the so called CIA method. I think maybe Pyrodex isn't sensetive enough.
HI TIM! I got the book, it's a good read!
This exercise on elec igntiion dug up some memories...walking in other's footsteps...so I assume the failures you found on the internet included the *ctmuzzleloaders* successful experiments on an electrically fired caseless breech loading bp rifle and The Electrical Ignition of BP??? Haven't read this for some time, and not sure if it was the graphite being anti static, but it's all documented on the CTML site. Enjoy.
Yeah - I've played around with it too. Its not a difficult engineering project (but I'm an EE), but takes more current and duty cycle, so a custom circuit is necessary and would take some playing around with to get it right. Wish I had the time right now. There is also the issue of the electrodes becoming fouled - especially with true black powder. But yes it does seem amazingly resistant to ignition by a simple spark because you are having to heat up a whole flake to the ignition point. One can of course use a first powder which is more readily ignited (e.g., a flash type powder) that then ignites the black powder. But again experimentation would be required. Alas - So many fun experiments which could be done and so little time. As always enjoy your videos very much .
==> Wish you'd talk some about Hugh Ross and the Old Earth paradigm which we both share -- God used that ministry to bring me to the Bible and to Christ over 20 years ago. And thankfully Jesus keeps opening more and more truths for me to walk in.
Buy a CCFL inverter and attach a high capacitance 100nF output Cockcroft Walton Voltage multiplier to that to get 2KV. Then use an outside of chamber spark gap triggered by a pressure drop using a miniature spring powered bellows as a trigger gap in series with the arc in the chamber. That may produce enough bang for gunpowder at 0.2J of energy per spark.
Arc lighters/so called plasma lighters may not work as well as a nichrome coil or a RC nitromethane glow plug would be cool to see you try the other options the Nichrome wire GLOWING red hot should be able to do it, similarly the kind of nichrome coil used in an ecig 8.4v input and instant 500c
If you could I'd like to see the arc lighter with a strip of magicians flash paper or hell even ordinary paper That could solve the issue
It can be done :) However, I used a 3 ohm 26ga hot wire. This totally reliably ignited over 60 100 grain genuine 12ga blackpowder charges. Initially I made the mistake of underestimating the corrosive power of gunpowder on electronics. But by replacing the wire each time, it worked. Why bother? I can always get fine wire. I can't always get percussion caps.
I used nichrome and stainless wire, having found copper and steel wire (and steel wool) developed high resistance and unreliable ignition on storage.
Pre-wired cartridges have lasted over 18 months.
A cordless drill pack is very reliable. I have not thoroughly tested solar charged LiPO phone battery banks, but they work to some extent and are available weatherproofed.
Someone has already mentioned model rocket ignitors. When I was a kid (and when my son was a kid), sometimes the ignitors would burn without igniting the rocket. Since there were only three ignitors in a three pack of engines, you'd have to buy extra ignitors, which was relatively expensive, and usually inconvenient.
As a kid, I found that a few strands of twisted copper electrical wire would work just as well for an ignitor when you passed 12 volts through them. There is a delay as the wires heat up, but within a second or two, they are hot enough to glow red, ignite the rocket, and then burn through.
If you took the drum bolster off the barrel, you could insert the ignitor wire in through the bolster. When using bare copper wire, you bend it into a long thin U shape, but you don't want the legs of the U to touch, and short against each other. So we would put the bare wire U into the rocket, and then pack between the legs of the U with a small plug of toilet paper to keep the legs from shorting out. That way, the entire length of wire would carry current and get heated up.
A moderately clever person could manufacture such an ignitor that would be contained within a thin insulating coating, and that would have enough wire left on the ends to wrap around tiny terminal studs near the touch hole that would supply wire from a power pack.
Of course, an open touch hole the size of the threaded end of a drum bolster is going to spout a bunch of fire near your face, so some kind of vent liner might be used to reduce the size of the touch hole, and a blast deflector might keep the flash away from the face and hands.
I thought half the point of electric ignition was to eliminate the need for single-use ignition sources, so coated thermal ignitors don't fit the bill. The other half would be to decrease lock time, which would mean bulky resistive elements that need to ignite the charge directly without the aid of a coating aren't accomplishing anything. The use-case of a handheld firearm implies performance expectations that are different than what I think most people would find acceptable for things like a rocket, a cannon, or a remote pyrotechnic charge -- tighter timing, less gas waste, better repeatability and convenience. A volume of powder in a vessel can be ignited any number of ways, most of which are impractical.
As an aside, the whole point of a resistive ignitor is to get hot. In order to do that efficiently, the power being delivered to the element needs to be dissipated in a minimal mass. Making an ignitor of a single material of uniform cross-section is a terrible geometry for achieving that goal. What works in a pinch when nothing else is available is rarely an optimal solution in general.
I can not speak on other BP substitutes like 777. But I do know that pyrodex is harder to agnite than true black powder. It is in part why the in lines was developed with musket cap than 209 priming
why dont you just get an arc lighter? theyre like 10$ :)
I have a couple of those, I used one to make a mosquito zapper
What about caseless muzzleloaders? Would that be classified as a firearm?
I’ve got a CVA Electra and it is exactly what you are talking about and it’s awesome
I've done several experiments with both black and smokeless powder ignition using electric arcs, and I've come to the same conclusion: the electric potential itself does not ignite the powder, it is the heat generated by the arc. The prime factor affecting the heat of the arc plasma is the amount of current it carries, the voltage of the system does not matter except for overcoming the breakdown potential of the given gap. I found that at least 15-20 mA of continuous AC current is required to generate adequate heat for ignition, and given that at least a few kV would be needed to make a good-sized spark, the amount of power needed is too large and inefficient. Furthermore, plasma is not very thermally conductive, and even at high currents the heat transfer is not quick enough to provide a consistent lock time (at least out of confinement, haven't tested it in a chamber yet.) The use of a low-voltage filament as a primer is much more economical, and was the basis of the Remington etronX system that worked fine, but never took off commercially.
Existing electric ignition muzzleloader: CVA Electronic Ignition System, called Electra! PDF manual available online with plenty of info. Looks like it might not have been very successful, as this model is discontinued.
...got the grey cells going now...Schel Sullivan's Vape Pen Rocket Launcher
was an interesting example of a readymade glow plug type ignitor...even though he was using flash cotton.
A thought occurs, I used to play with Estes brand rockets when I was a kid. They have electronic ignition via a match design. Maybe you could adapt that technology into a firearm. And, while not a percussion cap, it's certainly exposed. Yeah, I think it's plasma that would set off the ignition rather than a spark.
i'm thinking a capacitor and wind up systen would work. like the flash system out of an old film camara. i took one apparat one time and didn't know it was still charged and got the most painful jolt i ever felt. left a burn mark on my thumb. that or an automotive coil, the old kind for distributor systems. I took auto tech in collage ant the teacher was telling us about a certain type they used to use that were dangerous and actually killed people .
You should try using Xenon flash lamp driver circuit - uses high voltage to ionize air making it conductive enough to pass high current from a big capacitor (several hundred microfarads) that is charged by relatively lower voltage (300 - 500 V).
High current heats the gas (air) and ignites propellant.
I recommend you take a look at this website (www.ctmuzzleloaders.com/ctml_experiments/electric_ignition/eignition.html) and experiments that where undertaken with this same goal in mind!
Have a great time, keep your work going and stay safe!
Interesting. Linked to the YT guy who already figured it out back in 2012, mlshooter. ua-cam.com/video/Nm6PEdBcQ6s/v-deo.html. I wonder if the current state of brass/primer scarcity would "reignite" the research field?
Sounded like a cool idea ....
As an electrical engineer I would charge up a HV capacitor up to around 2 to 3 kv and discharge it with blackpowder between the electrodes in a confined space, you would need a higher capacitance around 1uf or so...for a power supply you could use CFL inverters you can get off a amazon with a HV rectifier diode
Hello! The module you are using has capacitors and resistors to boost the voltage, it results in very high voltage but low current arc. What you need is ignition module, they don't make beating sounds like this one and create purple arcs, often they are square shaped modules. They create persistent hot purple arc which can ignite paper and other material, so the gun powder will be easy for that one.
The issue here is confusion. in order to generate the heat necessary to ignite the powder, you need to increase the amperage, not the voltage. Low voltage, high current is your preferred option. This is the principle that arc welders work on. You can hook up 2 12v lead acid batteries in parallel and weld with them, but if you take the same batteries and boost the voltage, but reduce the current, your results will be less than optimal.
In a word; hot-wire. Use the equivalent of uninsulated electrical fuse, that is replaced on every shot. Just a single strand of copper wire that you couple to a 9 V battery should work.
recommend testing with actual BP. Pretty sure that like most smokeless powders pyrodex is coated with carbon dust specifically to help prevent static discharge ignition. true black powder on the other hand doesn't have this feature.
Some experiments were done by a new england website, gunpowder is too conductive to generate heat. Any spark , or arc that ignites gunpowder, or starts fires is determined by the heat of the spark, not the amount of sparks. The electric system that worked in their experiments was the flash generator from a disposible camera, which is similar to the system cva used in the short production run cva electra which was never a hit, probably due to everyones experience with electronic devices which eventually fail, flintlocks still work properly hundreds of years later.
I suspect the metal table was acting as a heat sink and keeping things too cold to ignite. I'd try a metal pin fixed upright on the table, maybe with something insulated around it to hold the powder off the table too. Then the arc would be formed away from the heat sink effect of the table surface.
Others have mentioned using a low(er) voltage heating element. The problem with that is the lock-time. It would be even longer than with a flint or wheel lock gun.
How did the electric ignition system in the CVA electra work? They were on the market for a very short time; my guess is that in most areas you couldn't hunt with them because of the regulations for muzzleloading hunts in most states.
Three 9v in series can set off quite the match. And an electric match exposed to the elements should qualify as an exposed primer. Maybe a tethered capacitor or something along those lines? Interesting thought
Years ago I saw a fellows idea on electric ignition firearms. His solution was to use an ignition Fuze from a model rocket. It is very resistive, yet very thin so it(nearly) instantly turns white hot as it's consumed.
Ceramic igniters will work. They're fast, but never going to be faster than a cap.
How about a "top hat" plunger that produced adiabatic heating like that used long ago in the Daisy caseless .22?
What if you used a confined cylinder like a shell casing with wadding or other obstruction keeping the powder inside then have the positive lead touching the casing and the negative where the primer would be?
try a 20 kv transformer or better an arc electric lighter. because im able to ignite blackpowder with an arc electric lighter.(essentially a cigarette lighter but it uses an arc to light it.)
Wow! Never would have believed that much spark would not work.
Get the propellant into a cylinder of stretched out steel wool after mixing it with a pure Alcohol to allow air to escape it,dried inside of a cylindrical mould of course,as long as the steel wool is exposed at the surface a current passing through will ignite it and the resulting flame should be able to ignite the propellant.
use a e cig coil externally replacing a match in a matchlock could be a simple solution
you shocked the heck out of me ,I was sure it would flash up as soon as you sparked the powder ,not enough heat I guess. I designed pistol that used battery and nichrome wire to ignite the powder. It worked but the wire got red hot to set the powder.
Use an old camera flash to ignite the powder, old time cameras use to use powder flashes that were electrically ignited, hope this comment helps and also to see what you come up with.
A arc lighter will probably have better chances of working
Why don't you try nichrome wire (toaster element) also try a vaping cigarette it already has the electronics and heating element
First a small patch of 0000 steel wool then the powder charge ...
I think maybe a glo plug although it would probably have a rather long lag time
the preferred method of igniting solid propellent is a nichrome like like that in a toaster
You can try NitroCellulose with the arc ignition coil.
You could add a capacitor on the output so it would have more stored energy.
Exposed cap (capacitor ) haha 😂 word play
was it black powder or a modern smoke less type .
I just had an idea to fix your problem with the electric ignition, It may be difficult to ignite powder with an electric charge, but we all know it is not difficult to ignite paper... so my theory, would electricity ignite a paper black powder cartrage made with nitride treated paper? (Nitride can be optional, but certainly could aid in the powder’s ignition further) You may realise this design of a paper cartrage already exists for black powder revolver for the purpose of reloading a black powder revolver more quickly, and nitride treatment of the paper as well for the original purpose of making sure all the paper was burned after the reaction takes place in the cylinder, therefore you can use stock paper cartridge formers and already existing recipes out there. It also shouldn’t be difficult for a man of your expertise to make a prototype using the exact same cartrages with an electric ignition system using this ammo, In fact, you could probably modify one of the interesting devices you’ve already made yourself for this task, like your pistol you’ve made for the sole purpose of experimenting with a .44 barrel. The rest would truly be electronics.
I've tried igniting paper with this circuit, and the spark blows a tiny hole through the paper, but does not ignite it.
Cva or someone sold one about 20 years ago.
Try using electric cigarette lighter
I think the ignition problem would be easy to solve with some gun cotton.
It should also be easier when the powder is compressed inside the gun.
Guncotton is not conductive.
@@VikOlliver neither is air, and the spark still went trough it.
@@yaykruser Air is composed of easily ionized, small molecules. Guncotton is a polymer capable of charge distribution and so is not easily converted into an ionized state. What you want is a small, ionizable molecule like a simple organic peroxide or an azide that can propagate deflagration. Or use a hot wire which sets guncotton off just fine.
@@VikOlliver Now the main advantage of guncotton is thats its not a powder so it doesnt move away like a powder.
Doesnt matter if the arc goes directly through it it just has to heat it.
You know these Arc Lighters? thats exactly what you need .
@@yaykruser Right, yeah, I know what you mean. They create quite a lot of actual hot plasma, which sets fluffy stuff on fire. Not sure how well it would go densely packed. One way to find out...
Here's another video where he built an electronically primed bult action blackpowder rifle. ua-cam.com/video/weC79azJInY/v-deo.html
His username is mlshooter
Spark engine diesel
Plasma lighter
I'm going to guess that if one takes a #2 oil burner ignition transformer and places black powder between two probes connected to it then the BP will ignite in under a second as #2 fuel oil is hard to burn as well. So hard to burn in fact they have to pump the fuel into a mist then run something like 10k volts constantly sparking between two probes in order to get a flame. The whole setup is basically a flamethrower.
*CyBeRpUnK 1677*
Do you think you could electrical light off a standard 209 primer
My guess is no, at least not with this circuit. A primer is basically a metal cup or canister filled with an impact-sensitive chemical, so I'm thinking it would act as a Faraday cage, shielding the priming compound from the electrical spark. A different (lower voltage, higher current) power supply might heat up the metal cup enough to make the primer go off, and a spark like this might set off raw priming compound if it passed directly through it. But in any case, that would kind of defeat the purpose of electrical ignition, since the idea was to eliminate the need for a primer by igniting the powder with an electrical spark instead.
@@TheIdahoanShow thank you sir for your for your reply electrical ignition has long been an interest of mine
Remington's new Model 700 EtronX
Try buying a electric candle lighter on amazon and try that
Also, this kid just happened to make one work just fine... ua-cam.com/video/dms0JUI8OdI/v-deo.html
I see 2 more problems:
1: The Isolation on your wire will burn off causing it to spark trough the metal instead of the chamber.
2: Your wire is gonna die after a few uses either trough corrosion ,mechanical force from the explosion or the heat.
Both are materials problems. An insulator that can take the pressure and shock. And an electrode which doesn't erode too badly under the hot gasses.
@@hanelyp1 Yeah, but our materials are limited, pressure and shock would be okay for rubber, but there is heat too.
Electrode might work with stainless steel or iridium like in Spark plugs , but Iridium tends to break.
I dont see a way this is gonna work with wires or cables, maybe with something like a car spark plug.
Very interesting
Back around 2008 there was a TV show called Weapon Masters that stared Mike Loads and Chad Houseknecht, Mike would present an historic weapon of some sort and Chad would make his improved one. One episode the weapon was "Dueling Pistol," Chads updated "hi-tech" version was still a black powder muzzle loader as stipulated by the design criteria but had a red dot site, a brace and electric ignition. The show was on for a couple of seasons and personally I liked it. It has been some years since I have scene the show or that episode so I forgotten all the details of Chad's interpretation of the dueling pistol other than what I have mentioned and of course it did work. StaySafe, StayHealthy, and Merry Christmas
If you could somehow incorporate a heating element, kind of like a glow plug for a diesel engine, and make it robust enough to handle the explosive environment, it should work. At least it's easy to test to see if it will light just loose gunpowder.
Could one use the propellent in model rockets? Like zinc-sulfur....
Maybe try making fine metal powder with priming powder.
Look at usb rechargeable dual arc electric pulse lighters...
Very interesting experiment and Very interesting results! Awesome!
Mr. Apezo the inVenter of the sparky?
You need a heat coil, a miniature car cigarette lighter coil.
Your both clams make contact on metallic table
RC plane glowplugs are what I'm planning on using for mine, makes the trigger really easy to design 😂
I wonder how well they cope with the corrosive residue?
@@VikOlliver I'm not sure. I think they're made with NiChrome wire so probably won't hurt much if they're cleaned promptly.
@@TheRealWilliamWhite My problem was the junction between the nichrome and the brass/copper crimps. Corroded like hell.
@@VikOlliver that could be an issue then, I'll just have to see what happens with it.
How well do they hold heat after power is removed ???