Squibs Unsucessful

slimdog55 · Post by **slimdog55** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 12:05 am

I tried the squibs today. Didn't work. What went wrong? I tied a wire onto a nail and that went to the firecracker. I tied another wire around the battery's Negitive(-) Terminal, and that went to the firecracker. I took the 2 wire that were at the firecrackers and tied them together and put them inside of the Black Cat Firecracker. Then, I took another wire and tied that one around the Positive(+) Terminal. Then I touched the nail, it makes sparks, and nothing happens. I got a car battery, so it sohuld go off right away. So when the wire gets hot, I take it off the nail. Anybody knows whats wrong. I'm using 18 gauge wire. Its two small white and red wires wraped around each other. Please, somebody help. I want squibs in my movies!

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 12:46 am

You need an ignitor wire, take a single strand of copper wire from a stranded lamp cord, or preferably go to a hobby store and get nichrome wire or model rocket ignitors, This goes between the ends of the 18 guage wires and is inserted into the cracker. Do not pull the fuse from teh cracker, cut it flush with the top. The fuse on a black cat is what is called 'black match' it ignites easily and burns quick and hot, and you need the little stub of it to get it to ignite. You actually probably had two problems...
1) The 18 guage wire was too heavy, it carried the current thru as a dead short, and didn't generate enough heat to ignite the cracker. The nichrome or single light strand of copper wire will glow red hot and burn through almost instantly when the current available from a car battery is applied, getting hot enough to light he black match.
2) If you pulled the fuse, you probably didn't get the wire inserted into the cracker far enough to contact the flash powder in the cat. That is why it is important to leave the stub of the fuse, and make sure your ignitor wire is in contact with the fuse.

Remember, you aern't really firing this electrically, you are using the battery to create sudden intense heat in the ignitor wire and using that heat to ignite the cracker, well actually in this case the stub of the black match.
Do a search on ignitors on the forum, Camclub and I have both posted our attempts at drawing and explaining how to assemble the ignitors.

Here's one link
http://www.matthawkins.co.uk/forum/view ... ht=ignitor

El Brenty · Post by **El Brenty** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 11:10 am

Yeah, look over in the tutorials section under Cheap Detonator. You'll see something similar to what Raptor describes, with a photo that shows the "ignitor" wire. All you were doing was causing the battery to short-circuit. That could have been dangerous, you could have been burnt, and you could have wrecked the plates in the battery, damaging it.

slimdog55 · Post by **slimdog55** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 7:02 pm

So how do you not short-circuit the car battery?

Raptor · Post by **Raptor** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 7:46 pm

A short circuit is a continuous run of wire from the - terminal to the positive terminal of the battery - the short is what caused your wires to heat up. By using the nichrome or very fine copper wire, you will cause the heat to build up in that smaller wire more quickly ( almost instantly) enough so that it will 'open' that continuous run when it melts. Even though you don't have one continuous run of wire you do have a continuous logical circuit through the nail board. Draw it out on a piece of paper and it will be obvious what you had. You need some type of 'load' on the circuit, which is what the very fine ignitor wire provides.
I'd also suggest you go to the library and read a couple of books on basic electrical circuits so you have a little better background understanding of how it all works. It will make it a bit easier to design and trouble shoot more advanced effects circuits.

pdj · Post by **pdj** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 11:32 pm

CamClub-looked high and low for the 'cheap detonator' tut you speak of and...I canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t find it! Thanks for your help

Themovieman44 · Post by **Themovieman44** » Fri Apr 02, 2004 11:39 pm

Watch the flick El Mariachi with Director's commentary Rodriguez tells all about sucessful cheap squibs and detonators.

slimdog55 · Post by **slimdog55** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 1:08 am

Themovieman44, I've seen El Mariachi so much! Actually, I saw it the other night. After I'm done watching Once Upon A Time In Mexico with the commantary on, I'll watch El Mariachi with the commantary on again. Someday, I'll get these squibs to work. (When I get Nichrome wire)

BrownCowStudios · Post by **BrownCowStudios** » Sat Apr 03, 2004 4:37 am

Poco? You mean Moco?

townshend88 · Post by **townshend88** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 12:49 am

i watched the 10 minute film school in el mariachi (which was fantastic and very helpful by the way) but unless he talks about homemade squibs somewhere else i think he actually bought real ones, because he talks about how they didnt know which squibs were body squibs and which were wall squibs and they had to test them out on one of the set guys. if im wrong, please let me know where in the commentary he talks about homemade ones since i would love to know.

slimdog55 · Post by **slimdog55** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 1:57 am

Last place I remember him talking about the squib in the commantary is when Azul walks in the bar and kills 4 of Moco's men.

Themovieman44 · Post by **Themovieman44** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 4:40 pm

That is where it is, he speaks of the squibs that HE made and how at first they were unsucessful and he explains how he fixed em.

El Brenty · Post by **El Brenty** » Fri Apr 09, 2004 9:12 pm

pdj wrote:CamClub-looked high and low for the 'cheap detonator' tut you speak of and...I canÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t find it! Thanks for your help

You didn't look very hard, it was on the first page of the tutorials section!

Here's the link for the lazy!:

http://www.matthawkins.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2215

In case you're wondering how you don't short circuit the battery, well, the "fuse" wire blows out, preventing this.

I don't use any special type of wire, just plain ol' stranded copper wire, and use a strand for the fuse. (Raptor calls this the ignitor). I guess if you use different wire, you can get it hotter still before it burns out.