OldMarine Posted July 31, 2017 Posted July 31, 2017 I love my Note 3 but find the camera to be pretty sucky. I haven't found an app or setting to fix it yet. The Note 8 purportedly has a dream camera but also a price tag that does not mesh with this hobby.
PeteyPyro Posted July 31, 2017 Posted July 31, 2017 Roger, even cheapies usually have a basic menu for the camera. Unless they're not 'smart' phones. You took photos with it that look good~ish, so it probably is smart enough to have a basic menu. Youre looking for "exposure" level... it makes photos look darker when set lever. You really want darker as pyro (esp. Green) will look bleached out & too white. Seriously, try to set it very dark, and look at a green star. Your Coppers and Bariums are going to look more deep/intense, and closer to how a human eye perceives it. OM, my s7 has lots of submenus. I loved my Note 3 & Note 1, (and would have had a Note 7 if they didn't go ✴'high order'✴)
rogeryermaw Posted August 1, 2017 Author Posted August 1, 2017 (edited) Man i dug through the whole blasted thing and no exposure limit controls. There is a night setting that may approximate the effect but nothing i can adjust incrementally. The finest control on this phone is for resolution and it's only 5 presets. I've noticed through my girl's phones (she likes to keep new with that crap) android's newer versions don't record blue well. She had galaxy s5 and now s7 and all my blues appear white on hers. Edited August 1, 2017 by rogeryermaw
PeteyPyro Posted August 1, 2017 Posted August 1, 2017 Roger, do you have any older phones? I use my older Note 1 sometimes for outdoor photos, for it's got a rather adjustable camera exposure, its something I don't worry about damaging as its in a water resistant case, and I have a newer phone now. Adjusting the 'exposure' to make pictures very dark improves colors, from my experience. Perhaps I'll post two pictures. One with a star photographed with exposure high, and one set low. It should be interesting to see the differences.
stix Posted August 2, 2017 Posted August 2, 2017 (edited) nice mines +1 Have to say Roger, even your remnants look good. Edited August 2, 2017 by stix
rogeryermaw Posted August 13, 2017 Author Posted August 13, 2017 Thanks brother! How's life in Oz? Oh me oh my! Can't wait to get these in a cylinder shell! 1
rogeryermaw Posted August 29, 2017 Author Posted August 29, 2017 alright homies, be gentle. this is my first attempt at a cylinder shell over 1.25 inch. only used 12 verticles as i'm planning on finishing this up rinfasciature style. used some of Lloyd's tar on the spiking and i must say, it's a pleasure to use! it really holds your place well if you are interrupted in the middle of spiking for any reason. really stays tight! as always, i'm open to advice but please keep it entry level. i'm just getting started with cans.
Wiley Posted August 31, 2017 Posted August 31, 2017 Looks good. The only change I would make, presuming that that is a 3" shell, would be to cut the liner only 2.5" tall. The extra stars/comets in a longer casing lend nothing to the burst, and may actually muck up the pattern when using stacked comets.
rogeryermaw Posted September 2, 2017 Author Posted September 2, 2017 Wish you woulda said that before i got all fancy! Just kidding man but ya...think you may be on to something there. Not Too bad...but not so awesome either. Crossette timing could have been crisper too.
rogeryermaw Posted November 21, 2017 Author Posted November 21, 2017 (edited) a quick test of photon blue sans red gum.i had a buttload of some titanium gerb mix left so i used it to prime these. i kind of like the effect: Edited November 21, 2017 by rogeryermaw
rogeryermaw Posted November 21, 2017 Author Posted November 21, 2017 fixed it... put up the wrong link
memo Posted November 22, 2017 Posted November 22, 2017 my crossetts suck, nice looking what size star ?
greenlight Posted November 27, 2017 Posted November 27, 2017 That blue is awesome!Can you put up the composition?
dynomike1 Posted November 27, 2017 Posted November 27, 2017 Go up to a 5" with a harder break and cut your crosets a little more precise.
rogeryermaw Posted January 4, 2018 Author Posted January 4, 2018 hey everyone. been a while. hope you all had a great new year celebration. i haven't done a lot of pyro work as i have been doing a good bit of study and research on something that has eluded us as long as i know. i was hoping to have more results to share before i made this post but compositions beyond a certain sensitivity i just don't want to play with when static is a high risk factor. my current shop setup doesn't allow for effective humidification... i had been searching for a copy of pyrotechnica 14 but can't seem to put my hands on one so after some webbernet study i found a chem journal that continued on Clive Jenninings-White's work on blue strobes and had enough information to give me a base to start testing. naturally, i don't have access to all of the compounds tested so i focused most of my work on what was reported to give any sort of positive result. in the literature, it was written that the best results were obtained from a mixture of ammonium perchlorate and tetramethylammonium nitrate, 55/30 by weight with the addition of powdered copper metal. starting from this information, i looked into getting my hands on the tetramethylammonium nitrate and, as expected, nah...besides some very um...convoluted and likely not completely legitimate pathways, it's not available to the likes of our kind. as it turns out, it is not that hard to make. i have found (though a bit expensive) a source for the tetramethylammonium cation and it can be neutralized with silver nitrate, precipitating insoluble silver chloride and leaving tetramethylammonium nitrate in solution to be evaporated and crystallized out. there was a lot of effort to get to this point but now i was ready to do some testing! i have notes and a few videos that i will share here in a couple of upcoming posts. to note, i also did some testing with the guanidine nitrate formula posted on the first page of rider-x's progress thread. many of you know that it was the search for a better blue (dissatisfied with the commercial crap) that got me started in pyrotechnics and i have some info on that as well that came out of the testing i have done. i have been amazed by the color purity and depth i saw out of some of these exotic compositions. anyhoo i'm stuck at work right now so when i get home i will dig up what notes i have and get it out there. if anyone is interested in pursuing this work with these compounds, i will be glad to help you find what you need as long as you share your progress and discoveries. a huge thanks goes out to Mumbles for his extremely valued input. i likely would have not even tried this path without his wisdom. more to come very soon. and when we thaw out, i have more compounds i want to test...if a legit blue strobe can be done, i will do it and share it here. 2
rogeryermaw Posted January 5, 2018 Author Posted January 5, 2018 ok. the first of things i wanted to test was of course the guanidine nitrate formula since it was posted here. i hadn't really done any research to this point and just asked mumbles if he had worked with guanidine nitrate and what were his impressions concerning safety and any special handling. i mixed the formula as posted but as i looked further, i only had 325 copper mesh and the comp called for 100 mesh so tried it both ways. meh... i think i can do more work with these and adjust solvents etc. i'm not finished with it quite yet but i feel there is potential here: i also found they behaved differently if they were lit with prime over the whole star vs one side. these were lit with a full coat of prime: i also tried them in a shell but ignition was very poor. don't laugh.... i have since gone to a 3 layer prime system that i believe will get them going a bit better. it consists of a thermitic copper oxide prime under a flash based layer and it's all kicked off by scratch mix. next i will post some of my notes on the tetramethylammonium nitrate stars.
rogeryermaw Posted January 6, 2018 Author Posted January 6, 2018 the chem journal i found online was very enlightening concerning the nature of strobe reactions. it is a paid access deal but it was definitely worth it! it can be found here if anyone wants to check it out: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ejic.201601486/abstractthere is some other interesting reading available as well concerning the iodide and bromide copper salts used for blue emitters that can be found at that link as well.i have to go through my phone and make sure i have all the relevant videos uploaded. i feel like there are a couple of test shots missing. first i tried the base #5 formula with no additives 55/30/15: the sound is definitely that of a strobe reaction but way fast. the article i was working from was not as much about the #5 comp as it was about various additives to slow the reaction down. the first i tried was nitrocellulose ca. 3%:
braddsn Posted January 7, 2018 Posted January 7, 2018 Roger, this looks extremely promising to me man. I have a feeling you are going to nail it. I also have a feeling that you might be the first guy to ever make a blue strobe. Make the Chinese pay you for the formula!! Top secret!!! I can see it now... "Roger's Blue Strobe".
rogeryermaw Posted January 8, 2018 Author Posted January 8, 2018 (edited) Thanks Brad but i have some others that may be worth further exploration and i have eyes on a couple of compounds i haven't seen notes on yet. Just kinda packed in until spring brings the humidity up a touch. The next additive i tried was sulfur, still in the 3-4% range This was starting to show a bit of promise but still too fast. A fourth attempt with this #5 base included about 2.5% each by weight of sulfur + n.c.: This shows some promise but i feel it may be getting to where ignition will become difficult to maintain.As i had mentioned before, however, strobing behavior aside, the blue these emit is quite pleasing and bear further development. Edited January 8, 2018 by rogeryermaw 3
greenlight Posted January 8, 2018 Posted January 8, 2018 (edited) That formula looks promising. Would using larger particle size metal fuel work with this exotic mixture to slow the frequency of the flashes. It works for more common strobe formulas using MgAl. I am sure I have read a paper before that found the MgAl in AP strobes was responsible for the dark-light phases and particle size tests were done which did affect the frequency of the flashes. Edited January 8, 2018 by greenlight
rogeryermaw Posted January 8, 2018 Author Posted January 8, 2018 The metal plays very little fuel role in these comps. Tetramethylammonium nitrate acts as a fuel and an oxidizer and will actually burn on its own.
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