Introduction: How to Mass Produce Electric Matches (igniters)

About: Fire is beautiful

For a while, I've wanted to make a simple, cheap, effective and mass-produce-able igniter. Just to satisfy the inner tinkerer/engineer. You could easily buy electric matches off ebay or some other website, but it seems like such a simple concept that you shouldn't need to buy it. Now things like visco fuse I could make, but at the effort/expense ratio, I'd rather just buy that.

Ron Swanson - People who buy things are suckers

Step 1: Parts

I've seem some instructables for igniters as well youtube videos (Grant Thompson), using anything from wire to christmas lights. I've borrowed inspiration from the aluminum foil rocket igniter (cut so there is a very thin bridge). However, all of them seem like a bitch to mass-produce, pardon my English.

Sometimes you want a decent supply to experiment with and making them one by one is torture. Here's my solution.

It requires only 3 parts

  1. Aluminum foil
  2. Nichrome wire 40AWG from ebay
    (you could possible use any other thin wire, just up the amperage, i.e. parallel)
  3. Electric tape

Step 2: Prepwork

First, cut your aluminum foil into two. Also, cut your wire into small 1 in. pieces. Precision isn't necessary.

Step 3: Lay Out the Wire.

Lay out the wire a cm apart on some electric tape (the length of your aluminum foil).

This is the tedious part of work. I'd appreciated any method to streamline this process.

Step 4: Lay the Aluminum Foil With a Gap

Now lay one piece of aluminum foil down and lay the other down a cm apart. You're done! You can leave it in this form as storage is easier. When you need an electric match, just cut a strip. (You can easily see where the wire is under the foil.)

Step 5: How to Use

Aluminum foil is easy to shape into whatever you need. If you need insulation, add some electric tape. You can add match powder or BP covered by a thin piece of clear tape. Ignition is via a single 9V battery

Here are two videos, one demonstrating the heating, and one with crushed BP substitute.