How to make many small, controlled explosions?

[Smoke Marijuana]

Originally Posted by tordek battlehammer

Anyone ever seen the WWII film/series "Band of brothers?" Excellent stuff, the artillery blasts were done by burying tubes filled with dirt/sand in the ground then blowing them out with quick blasts of compressed air. Easy to make and very impressive and realistic.

I was looking up compressed air tanks, saw a portable simple one, if i say hook up small plastic tubes to one tank that branch off to small tubes filled with dirt, have a pinch on the middle of the tube before it branches off, let air out of the tank, then undo the pinch... would enough air pressure reach each of the tubes to create an outburst of sand...? just bouncin' ideas here

[Spongebob]

^Basically what you would want to do is have each tube leading to something like tin can filled with sieved dirt. That may do it fast enough. I know it is bad form to repeatedly recommend your own method but I think that if you used the butane and scaled down potato cannon idea you would get a better burst, here is a revised design (I initially mistakenly assumed you were working in miniature):


You can use two strand wire to take the charge to each one in parallel or you can use multiple clickers so each can be fired independently.

[Spatula Tzar]

The sparker needs to be wired in series, else only one will go off at a time. This might be a desired effect however.

[Flamethrowa]

Originally Posted by Spatula Tzar

The sparker needs to be wired in series, else only one will go off at a time. This might be a desired effect however.

I doubt a single BBQ clicker produces enough current to jump 4 gaps and make it back..

[Spongebob]

^My bad, both of you are right. While the sparker would only jump one gap Spatula, Flamethrowa is just as correct, in series the sparker would not have the voltage to jump all the gaps. The best thing to do would be have multiple sparkers fired simultaneously.

[Spatula Tzar]

It depends how big the gaps are. My grill sparks across three gaps just fine.

[tordek battlehammer]

Or you could just make the sparker that little bit powerful?!

[blinky04]

You could always just use quickmatch, and some extra fuse for delays if the timing has to be perfect.

[Red Shift]

Originally Posted by Spatula Tzar

My glory must be fading if no one suggested this yet...

http://godlovesmeat.com/spatulatzar/squibs/

Actually Tzar.. I was just skimming through the thread looking for "Tzars tut on squibs?"

=]

[cac0]

Test out the dry ice "bomb" idea and see if you get the effect you are looking for. Don't bury that sucker too deep though.