What gauge of nichrome wire should I use for low voltage (easily fired by
a AA battery) e-matches and where can I get it?

How many times are you expecting to fire them from an AA battery?

What gauge of nichrome wire should I use for low voltage (easily fired
by a AA battery) e-matches and where can I get it?

"Lloyd E. Sponenburgh" <lloydspinsidemindspring.com> fired this volley innews:Xns9CA34AD18AB72lloydspmindspringcom at (no spam) 216.168.3.70:

#56AWG.

BTW... you'd be WAY better off buying ODA Enterprises match heads.  They're
high-quality, inexpensive, and reliable.  Just attach your own wires, and
go.  Or you can buy the un-coated "chips", attach wires, and dip in the
pyrogen of your choice.

LLoyd

"Sammy" <sales at (no spam) pvconly.com> wrote in message
news:4ad40359$0$48224$815e3792 at (no spam) news.qwest.net...
What gauge of nichrome wire should I use for low voltage (easily fired by
a AA battery) e-matches and where can I get it?

How many times are you expecting to fire them from an AA battery?

Tom

"Sammy" <sales at (no spam) pvconly.com> fired this volley in
news:4ad40359$0$48224$815e3792 at (no spam) news.qwest.net:

What gauge of nichrome wire should I use for low voltage (easily fired
by a AA battery) e-matches and where can I get it?



#56AWG. Most any maker of Nichrome wire can supply it. The Germans make
the best quality. Some of the Mexican offerings have rough spots and
necked-down areas that cause point failure, rather than uniform heating.

Expect to pay a couple of hundred dollars per pound, but expect a pound
of #56 to go a LONG way.

LLoyd

#56AWG.

Sam Grado <vonr... at (no spam) yahoo.com> fired this volley in news:87d20aea-19bd-403d-
9bfc-f57d10b2e... at (no spam) e8g2000yqo.googlegroups.com:

 I want to make my
own chips, so sourcing the 56AWG nichrome wire is the current task.
Google searches are getting me nowhere.

www.resistancewire.comcarries it down to #50 AWG, which will be slower to
heat than #56, but should still work fine on a single 1.5V AA cell.

LLoyd

Sam Grado <vonr... at (no spam) yahoo.com> fired this volley in news:25ac30ad-3391-4662-
9012-bf9b50cf6... at (no spam) f16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com:

Thanks Lloyd! (Yikes 1lb of 56AWG is $800.00!)

Yeah... but do you have any _IDEA_ how much wire that is <G>??????

LLoyd

I want to make my
own chips, so sourcing the 56AWG nichrome wire is the current task.
Google searches are getting me nowhere.

Thanks Lloyd! (Yikes 1lb of 56AWG is $800.00!)

Once per channel on an altimeter, single flight. Batteries will be changed
between flights. This is for deployment charges in high power rocketry.

What gauge of nichrome wire should I use for low voltage (easily fired by
a AA battery) e-matches and where can I get it?

Could the old type magnesium flash bulbs be used for your purpose?
Some modification might be necessary but you could probably go even smaller
than an AA battery.
It might be difficult to find a source for these bulbs though.

"Sammy" <sa... at (no spam) pvconly.com> wrote in message

news:4ad40359$0$48224$815e3792 at (no spam) news.qwest.net...



What gauge of nichrome wire should I use for low voltage (easily fired by
a AA battery) e-matches and where can I get it?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Oct 13, 11:59 pm, "ghelf" <gh... at (no spam) sbcglobalDeathToSpam.net> wrote:

Could the old type magnesium flash bulbs be used for your purpose?
Some modification might be necessary but you could probably go even smaller
than an AA battery.
It might be difficult to find a source for these bulbs though.

"Sammy" <sa... at (no spam) pvconly.com> wrote in message

news:4ad40359$0$48224$815e3792 at (no spam) news.qwest.net...

What gauge of nichrome wire should I use for low voltage (easily fired by
a AA battery) e-matches and where can I get it?- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

yes the old Mg flash bulbs are great for that purpose,but I now use
old christmas light bulbs,they bow reliably on 1.5 volts and you can
even use dollar store button batteries for those toy laser
pointers,use two or three and the ignition is foolproof,well as good
as it gets, I still have a two year old spool of nichrome sitting on
my shelf growing dust,once I discovered christmas bulbs,I never had a
use for it again.And Who doesn't have a couple bad strands of those?
unless you dont know anyone that celebrates Christmas!! just use a
small three sided file to notch the tip ,snap it off and dip away,
then once dry check for continuity ,I figure the one strand I have
will last quite a while and cost me Zero censts ,and thats a scratch
as it gets Sam