What not to do!

[camino75080]

Yesterday, before I went to school, I tried to fire up my jam jar for the first time. I was using denatured alcohol, which didn't seem to work very well, it would whistle and the puff two or three times. Then, it lit without realizing it was going weakly, i blew into it to give it some fresh air and woosh it shot a tourch of flame straight into my face. The wounds aren't that bad a slight burn on my eye, just under my iris, no eye lashes, no hair in my nose, second degree burns on my nose and just under my eye. At the time, I was horrified, but typing this, I can't help but laugh at my dumbness. Does anyone else have a story to tell?

[Uodygin]

I fire the "jam-jar" electric (by Cr-Ni wire & a flash lamp) -i use it for fireing explosives, and for jam-jar [safety-is most important!]
this is my "electric ignition box":

and now the "bad experience" :(
I made to litle whole and jam-jar exploded, jar was made from thin glass, but i'm fine, i fire it electric, and i was 15m from engine. [on test's i like to be safe, if its a 1kg rocket engine or a simple "jam-jar"]
safety is the important thing! :)

[steve]

I have done that too, but didn't get burned. It just scared me a bit- sort of like the first time I tried to start a lockwood with my hand and the aircompressor nozzle directly in front of the intake. You learn pretty quick that you should only blow into things at an angle.

[Viv]

Ask Nick about blow starting a BCVP

Viv:-)

[Mark]

I fire the "jam-jar" electric (by Cr-Ni wire & a flash lamp) -i use it for fireing explosives, and for jam-jar [safety-is most important!]
this is my "electric ignition box":

and now the "bad experience" :(
I made to litle whole and jam-jar exploded, jar was made from thin glass, but i'm fine, i fire it electric, and i was 15m from engine. [on test's i like to be safe, if its a 1kg rocket engine or a simple "jam-jar"]
safety is the important thing! :)

What kind of jam jar did you use specifically that was thin glass? I once thought about using some nickel wire to start my jam jars. I bought some gold plated pure nickel wire that is fine but flat like ribbon if you looked at it under a microscope. Do you have a picture of the wire apparatus that you flash heat to start your jars? 15 meters is erring on the side of caution or paranoia for a jam jar, a sheet of plexiglass would be enough I think.
I've used that much distance for a 7.5 gallon beer keg jam jar, that is 30 or so feet of wire and parked it near the base of a tree to be on the safe side. I can hardly wait for cool weather to do some beer keg jam jarring experimenting. Once it starts cycling, I walk up to it and enjoy the pulsating combustion, yet I don't have it running as vigorously as my little 2.5 gallon snorkeler yet.

Mark

[Mike Everman]

Does anyone else have a story to tell?

Oh, yeah. When I was a teenager I lost the hair on the side of my head by trying to blow out the pretty little blue flame hovering over the hole! That one's a long story made short). Recently, having forgotten that lesson, I lost my unibrow blowing in an engine with meths still burning.

Good times. Glad I can see!

[Mark]

One time I was running a glass jam jar in winter. I stopped it and then aired it out and let it sit for a bit to let it cool down, then I lit it again prematurely and it only lit into this little dome of blue fire that resided on top of the hole in the lid, sometimes such an effect will make a little resonating tone. So I removed the lid thinking it was still too hot and too rich to run afresh. But when I removed the lid, the inside of the jar caught fire, the flame advanced. So now I had a flamey jar and I blew into it and it only excited the fire, so I clicked my grinder on, it has a wire wheel on one side that catches and throws some air that in the past I have used to air out some tubes that I had barked with methanol. Anyway, I swung the open jar into the breeze from the wire wheel spinning hoping to suavely waft out the flame. It only became a fireball of activity, so I instinctively capped it with the lid of the jar and quickly twisted it snug, like catching a bee in a jar, trying to contain it, but to my surprise the jar then sprang to life and started cycling feverishly, and getting hotter all the while. Imagine hoping to cap out the fire and it starts jam jarrring on you! Finally I stopped it with my finger or something, but I was lucky the jar hadn't cracked with all my inadvertent clowning.
Mark

[camino75080]

Yeah, I guess that it was only bearly going, when i blew into it. Oh well, on major harm done, execpt to my ego.

[Nick]

Ah Viv, you are refering to my patented

"No Razer Insta-Shave System"

:-)

Nick

[Tom]

I feel so inexperienced, only haveing ever gotten a singed fringe or the like. THats with fire. With electricity, i've been shocked by photoflash caps, 480v transformer outputs, 110-240 mains, had my vison screwed up enough at one point to see the flash of wire vapourizing as a blue ball of plasma all around me, etc etc.

Tom

[Viv]

Ah Viv, you are refering to my patented

"No Razer Insta-Shave System"

:-)

Nick

Yes thats the one mister velcro beard:-)

Viv

[Mike Kirney]

With electricity, i've been shocked by ... 480v transformer outputs

Far out! Details please. I've only ever absorbed 120V and 240V. Two-forty was very uncomfortable and I could feel funny things going on inside my arm.

[camino75080]

Okay, if y'all want to trade electricity stories, here's one. When I was about 12, I got my first laser, it was a HeNe tube laser. Well, I quickly found out that ifI held the outputs near each other, it would spark. Not knowing that the power supply's copper foil outside was gound and not knowing the rules of high voltage safety, i grapped the box, so it wouldn't move and the HV out and BAM. I was knocked back 4 feet and blacked out, I woke up like 5 minutes later and only remembered touching a wire. I was lucky in that it was only 30 mA @ 15KV. Remember, "Its the volts that jolt and the amps kill you," sorry i could remember all of the ryme.

[Tom]

Mike,
Details are as follows. Ouch. As you and others may know, i spent 4 years in canada. While we were there, we got some x-formers, to let our gear from both continents work in either. we had a selection of power in and out cbles to go with them. The crappy 110 - 240 ones were just voltage doublers, regardless of what went in. So when we got back to the uk, using the cables, i set up my canadian nintendo 64, and i had unknowingly plugged in the wrong cable from the rats nest. the cables for the american gear included some double plug ended wires (=)------------(=) with the doubler plugged in to uk the wrong way round, so it doubled instead of stepping down, i brushed accross the output of the doubled side with my hand,. much cursing and shouting later, i binned the doubler for a safter transformer.

Tom

[Stuart]

I have a design that is loosely a pressure jet. I tried starting it by pooling some gas in the bottom of it, but got an unexpected fireball out the intake that singed my eyebrows. Didn't work on it again until I learned about this forum a few years ago and got smart enough to try propane. Still get the hair on my knuckles singed ocassionally, but propane is much easier to work with, more predictable.

As far as electrical, when I was about 10 I sawed the motor out of a refrigerator (it was encased in oil). I hooked it up, but all it did was sit there and buzz, so I tried to turn the bare armature with bare hands, that knocked me out cold. Then there was the TV coil I touched while fooling with it, that burned a hole into my thumb and out my middle finger.

I have a friend who peed on an electrical cow fence, his sister found him lying there knocked out.


Our engines really aren't toys.