Cell phone triggered fireworks

posted Feb 17th 2009 11:16am by Caleb Kraft
filed under: cellphones hacks, classic hacks

remote_trigger

[Mr. Hasselhoff] is using a disposable cell phone to trigger his fireworks. He has wired into the speaker leads for the speaker phone. When the phone rings, the current sets off a thyristor allowing for a battery pack to be discharged into a rocket fuse. These fuses heat up and ignite, so you can use them to light fireworks fuses pretty easily. This is pretty simple and cheap, considering the price of the cell phone was only $10. His next idea was to have it recognize dial tones and set individual fuses off, but that would require a microcontroller and a much more complex hack. At that point, you might as well just build a fully fledged wireless fireworks launching system and possibly add rocket launching abilities too.

[thanks Adam]

Comments [65]

tagged: cellphone, fireworks

Reader Comments

This is how they set off roadside bombs..

Posted at 11:22 am on Feb 17th, 2009 by Slurpy

i was just thinking “hey this is like the phone setup for IEDS”

Posted at 11:23 am on Feb 17th, 2009 by ant

That was my thought slurpy….

The other thing I’ve got to say is what about someone calling a wrong number?

Posted at 11:24 am on Feb 17th, 2009 by Quantum_Flux

Ummmm…. last time I checked setting off explosives or incendiaries via wireless was a major no no as far as the BATF was concerned

Posted at 11:26 am on Feb 17th, 2009 by DerAxeman

Time for another “good idea, bad idea”

Using a disposable phone to talk to your lover on the DL: Good idea

Using a disposable phone to set off explosives: bad idea!

Posted at 11:43 am on Feb 17th, 2009 by Eric

this sounds like a fantastic way to get a knock on your door from DHS.

Posted at 11:47 am on Feb 17th, 2009 by Man On Fire

Can we assume a mr. hasselhoff is currently being covertly monitored by government agencies?

Posted at 11:48 am on Feb 17th, 2009 by T.n

@DerAxeman

while that sounds about right, I couldn’t find anything on their page, I did find several fireworks companies selling wireless launching systems though.

Posted at 11:53 am on Feb 17th, 2009 by barry99705

He had better have a remote arming device, even as simple as 100ft of string and a switch.

Why?

Because every disposable phone I get has a number owned by somebody before me (“I am looking for Tim”, Mark, Tom, Joe, etc. )

I hope it is safe.

Posted at 12:04 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by nubie

Thought I would read the link, and the images are un-cropped.

I don’t know how many people browse on a 2560×1600 screen, but those photos are freaking ridiculous.

Get a mod in that forum.

Posted at 12:09 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by nubie

Oh, I wonder if you can set it to vibrate/ring only on a number you select?

Then you would only get the firecracker going off when the phone recognizes the correct number calling in.

Posted at 12:11 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by nubie

as others have mentioned this is the most common way to trigger IED’s, I always wondered if it’s possible to broadcast every possible combination of signals to trick a phone into ringing and setting off IED’s prematurely, A vehicle with the equipment could blast out the signal every mile or so, so they can set any of them off at a safe distance.

Posted at 12:15 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by schwillis

Rather than blast out a signal to ring all phones, just blast out a signal to block all phones ringing.

Posted at 12:28 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by tomas316

Please, RESIZE THAT DAMN IMAGES!!! How the hell is possible to publish such large images in a site?

The entire article is totally *UNREADABLE* on eeepc’s and similar computers!

O_o

Posted at 12:35 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by RESIZE_THEM

you know…this is a really a bad idea, it’s just a really poor design. http://spatulatzar.com/wireless_detonator/ that is way better, and is a more secure way to do something.

Posted at 12:46 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by LN

Bad fucking idea to host this. “Fireworks” Wireless is prohibited even for professionals. Everything has to be wired. Not even closed channel wireless.

Posted at 12:47 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by RG

@tomas316

That’d be much more efficient, and easier to implement. Scanning takes time, blocking a spectrum doesn’t.

Posted at 12:48 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by firetech

This is retarded and extremely dangerous. Head on over to the pyrouniverse forums if you want to learn how to build proper systems with safeties built in that live up to code.

Posted at 1:02 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Rob

It would have been easier, and more aesthetic if he had gone to the shack (expensive, but quick), and bought a 2.5 mm headphone male end, and just wired the speaker to the female end in the phone. That way he could just plug in the cord and be ready to go (it would also be more inconspicuous).

Posted at 1:07 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by M0535

Yeah, theses posts pretty much sum up all the thoughts that went through my head when reading this post — please take it down before some idiot kid gets the wrong idea here, hurting either themselves over the whole ‘wrong number’ thing or hurting someone else…this is something anyone who regulars this site could have figured out on their own, so it’s nothing anyone will lose any sleep over if you yank this….

Posted at 1:08 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by pRtkL xLr8r

Just what I want my kids building, cell phone triggered “fireworks”.

Posted at 1:09 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Raver

This was the main argument that my school county had used for the past couple of years as to why cellphones weren’t allowed at school. Fear of remote bomb set off from cellphone triggers.

Posted at 1:11 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Greg

ummm, this post seems like even more of a bad idea than posting on how to hack road signs. I’m pretty sure someone is going to get a call from the FBI about this one.

Posted at 1:17 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by nick

im not so sure it is a stupid idea. yes the implimentation is stupid. but the idea behind it isnt the fact that you could use the hack for different implementations. cheap remote lock? cheap remote lights? etc etc anything that could be triggered using the pulse.

Posted at 1:52 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by justifier

I agree with justifier this could be used for so many different things, granted as I and may of you said earlier using it for fireworks is stupid and in as some of you have also pointed out the US has legal restrictions, but what about other countries there may not be the same restrictions?

Anyway at the end of the day no point removing it, its a remote trigger, if someone wanted to use something like this for anything untoward they would just do it regardless of a post about it on this site its not the only place things like this exist.

Posted at 2:16 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Quantum_Flux

for a real wireless fireork system try http://www.fireone.com/wireless.htm

Posted at 2:35 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by henny

Take this down. Sure the information is available anywhere, but I thought you guys were smarter than this. Seriously, did you even think before you posted this???

Posted at 3:19 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by geoff

REMOVE THIS LAME HACK!!!

Posted at 3:39 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Sqnewton

having a brother that was lucky enough to come back from Iraq, and having been missed by ied’s, this is a really stupid post. As well as having been covered to ad nauseum and back for triggering just about everything under the sun. Just a waste of space.

Posted at 3:49 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Stephen

What is with all the people pmsing?

First of all, you will notice a on-off switch between the fuse and the trigger which prevents any accidental ignitions before the device is armed. Second, the proposed fireworks trigger (which is only glancingly mentioned, not actually part of the tutorial) involves igniting (not replacing) the fuse, i.e. you have just as much safety delay as you would setting the thing off with a match, while being much farther away.

Could you have a safer arrangment? Always. Is this particularly dangerous? Well, that obviously depends on *what* you are igniting, but for anything you can legally purchase I guarantee it’s safer than lighting a five inch fuse with a match.

Think before you whine.

Posted at 3:56 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Insipid Melon

‘i always wondered if it’s possible to broadcast every possible combination of signals to trick a phone into ringing and setting off ied’s prematurely’ – i’m pretty sure that the coalition military have equipment they can fit to vehicles that has this particular effect, or at least prevents the detonation of devices triggered in this way. i seem to remember reading/watching an interview where they said that vehicles being blown up by mobile phone triggered IEDs are rapidly becoming a thing of the past. obviously this doesn’t discourage the insurgency, who have a near endless supply of ‘human detonators’ to throw in the path of convoys, but it’s still pretty cool.

Posted at 4:09 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by dan

If hackaday posted one good hack each day, people would check it out and not come back until the next day.

That’s not good for generating money or prestige based on traffic.

In order to increase traffic, readers need to think that they need to check the site many times a day for new posts which may pop up at any time.

So hackaday becomes a bad front-end for instructables, advertisements masquerading as reviews, and reposts of old hackaday articles.

The real value right now is in the comments section but that will change too, I’m sure.

Posted at 4:16 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by jimmys

lol my neighbor blow his face doing this

Posted at 4:33 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by therian

To answer the silly people above:

1. It’s not dangerous. You can configure phones to only ring if called by certain numbers.
2. Yes this is used in bombs, but it’s trivial to do. The first thing police do when there is an unexploded bomb is to block mobile phones in the area.

Posted at 4:50 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Tim

Over 25 megabytes for 11 static images in a forum thread? epic fail.

Using cell phones the other way round, I saw an episode of Burn Notice where the guy used a pre-paid cellphone as an early warning system, hooking it up to a motion detector so when it was triggered it ‘pressed’ a button on the phone to speeddial a number – does anyone know any webpages detailing how to modify a mobile phone that way? now that’s the kind of hack I’d like to see.

Posted at 4:56 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Haku

haku: You might check this out:
http://cre.ations.net/creation/a-tiny-wireless-motion-sensor

Doesn’t use a phone, but same idea.

Posted at 5:04 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Insipid Melon

Wow…in Iraq they call fireworks IED’s!

Posted at 5:41 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by tua

the images in that thread are resized, but if you have noscript or javascript disabled it doesn’t convert them to thumbnails.

Posted at 6:23 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by natrix

Totally irresponsible article!
Next you’ll be posting tasty anti-freeze cocktails!
You jerks are completely devoid of morals.

Posted at 6:30 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by notatt

==> do not do this hack <== This is a terrible terrible idea. The least of your concerns is someone accidentally dialing your number. Those disposable cell phones randomly ring to tell you about an offer from the company. Anything explosive or ignitable on a wireless device is asking for danger and trouble from the law.

Posted at 6:30 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Tronic

not really all that impressive… people do this all the time

theres way cooler ways to set off explosives, like dripping faucets or trip lines. i found a very informative book titled “improvised explosives” at my public library

Posted at 6:31 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by blah

Let me second the recommendation for http://spatulatzar.com/wireless_detonator/ who put together a slightly safer wireless system. And being a scrap 900MHz phone, probably cost less.

And to ln directly, are you a fellow &t refugee?

Posted at 6:49 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Quin

It’s a trick to make insurgents reveal themselves by suing for copyright infringement! Devlish.

Posted at 6:52 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Wwhat

Here’s another thought on the “it’ll trigger if anyone at all phones it” problem; if the phone is sophisticated enough, setup a noisy ringtone for only one recognised phone number (the trigger phone) and silence (or vibration) for all other incoming calls.

Posted at 7:25 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Haku

Ummm… can you say IED?(Improvised explosive device)

Posted at 7:54 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by qui law

Did the same thing with an arduino, instead of a thyristor… didn’t really know they existed, but now I want some. I used mine to play the hampster dance in my girlfriend’s dorm room…. not set off a bomb… sorry to disappoint.

Posted at 8:18 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Tony

Please, DON’T use this simple setup.

There are much better and saver ways to remonte control things via mobile phone.

E.g. use the RS-232 interface on most Siemens phones to at least evaluate the incoming number.

Btw. there are similar devices/hacks available to remotely start the park heating system in your car. (Yes, there are countries/climates where tis is a topic)

Tom

Posted at 8:58 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by Tom

Just like subway bombing attack in Madrid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings
They show that – cellphone triggering explosives – on some program on the Discovery Channel.
Notting new. Just a f****** stupid idea.

@Haku i thought in the same solution.

Posted at 9:40 pm on Feb 17th, 2009 by khani3s

Really mature. Great example in “How to get your website blacklisted or closed down” and “How not to moderate your website”.

What next; how to build fertilizer & motor oil “fireworks”?

Nice. Clowns.

Posted at 1:46 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by anonymous

The madrid thing was of course set up largely by the spanish secret service as we know now, I bet that normally terrorist and such would never use a phone really spontaneously, a bit too high-brow for them I think.
As for ‘please remove it before someone hurts himself’, this is an american site, a country where people play with guns.. (and where there is some free speech), I think it’s more useful to make posts about the dangers, and the wrong number risk, and the risk you’ll get temporarily detained (don’t forget that they arrested people for having a LED smiley already) than to be so china-censorship minded.

Try hackaday.cn maybe.

Posted at 2:34 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by Wwhat

OOOOOOOK. So look, as this may look really really bad, there is a lot of truth in the matter. This particular project uses a VERY poor thyristor design.

When the switch is set to ‘on’, the battery immediately begins feeding current (a LOT of current) to the thyristor, whether or not the cell phone is called.

So, to get this to work, the cell phone must be called within about 2-5 minutes of switching it on or the battery is dead and it will not burn the fuse.

Not the best solution for someone who wants to use it for naughty things…

Posted at 8:37 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by Technical Perspective

OOOOOOOK. So look, as this may look really really bad, there is a lot of truth in the matter. This particular project uses a VERY poor thyristor design.

When the switch is set to ‘on’, the battery immediately begins feeding current (a LOT of current) to the thyristor, whether or not the cell phone is called.

So, to get this to work, the cell phone must be called within about 2-5 minutes of switching it on or the battery is dead and it will not burn the fuse.

Not the best solution for someone who wants to use it for naughty things….

Posted at 8:39 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by Technical Perspective

sry for duplicate post.

Posted at 8:39 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by Technical Perspective

hey everyone should freak out about this….oh wait.

so, if this was posted as “how to make a remote controlled switch with a mobile phone” it would be ok?

this information exists and posting it here is no more dangerous than google indexing a site that has information. if you type “how to make _______ into google one of the first entries on autofill is “bomb.” People are searching for this already and the information is readily available. Deal with it, free speech ftw.

Posted at 8:57 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by adam

adam- spare us the ‘information wants to be free’ crap. What’s your full name, address, ssn and dob?

Posted at 10:51 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by jimmys

What about using a relay and the power for the vibe motor?

@jimmys: actually the SSN would suffice for finding someone.

Posted at 11:12 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by takato

he forgot to include an extra $1 in the build cost for a “la bamba” ringtone

Posted at 11:37 am on Feb 18th, 2009 by peter

Sweet, now I can build my own roadside fireworks displays! If this had not been posted here I would never have known how to do it because my parents only let my have access to this one site!

Posted at 2:55 pm on Feb 18th, 2009 by Little Timmy

In regards to IEDs:

yes terrorists use cell phones to set of IEDs, this is common and trival to do, and nobody is getting any new ideas from this guy’s post.

Blocking radio signals also sets off IEDs. Some terrorists in Iraq figured out that coalition forces have blocked radio detonators and have set bombs to go off when a signal is lost rather than by sending a signal.

They also continue to use radio detonators.

tech really isn’t the way to solve this problem, other than armor anyway.

Posted at 10:10 pm on Feb 18th, 2009 by jesse

yah know, at first I was considering calling for a post removal. this is, as it exists, a bad idea, for a number of reasons, as mentioned by everyone here.

I see the potential for this project to be fine for a number of *other* uses, but fireworks is not one of them. anyone with pyro experience will tell you. several people have defended the project for other uses, and i can agree with them at least on those points.

a marked improvement, that would make it much more reliable and safe, would be to route the speaker jack to an answer and dtmf decoder circuit. this way, the phone would pick up, and listen for a sequence code (or a number of codes, if you wanted multiple triggers). such designs have been around since the 80s (if not before).

the answer/dtmf decoder setup would add a lot to the safety factor, as well as make it far more useful.

Posted at 10:50 pm on Feb 18th, 2009 by MRE

Id like to add: some things should not be done cheap.
remote ignition in this way adds no real margin of safety to preparing the site. while attaching the device, you run the risk of someone else remotely triggering the device. that is, anyone with access to the number, or any ‘accidental’ call.
The only way to add some remote form of disarm/arm is to add some intelligence somehow (such as the dtmf devices as mentioned above).

A far more interesting hack would have been to modify the firmware of the phone in such a way as to automatically answer a call from a specific number, then wait for the proper code to be entered by the caller, before finally vibrating the motor. with vibration set to off for all other functions, you have thus eliminated the dtmf circuit, while still safely adding n verification system before triggering.

Posted at 10:59 pm on Feb 18th, 2009 by MRE

mre-
I’m not sure that dtmf works properly over compressed digital audio.

Posted at 9:39 pm on Feb 19th, 2009 by jimmys

I think what would have been cooler is to see that some how used to trigger a PC to auto-Fdisk.

But thing again it would suck to have all your pr0n lost because of a wrong number :\

Posted at 2:06 pm on Mar 6th, 2009 by S

GET OVER IT TERRORISTS STILL USE WIRES TO TRIP THE DAMN BOMBS IF THEY HAVE TO< THIS ISN’T THAT BAD!!!!

Posted at 5:28 pm on May 17th, 2009 by spark

Look, I don’t know about the legality of this hack, but let me address a few points:

If you want to ensure that the phone does not trigger your explosives while you are setting up the device, use some longer wire to locate the phone a reasonable distance from the explosive, connecting the igniter end first, phone end second.

If you are concerned that someone else will dial a wrong number, set the phone to only ring when your specific number is recognized. This can be done a number of ways, depending on the model.

On cellphones it is *extremely* unlikely that any RF noise will cause the phone to ring. Even if that is the intent of the producer of said “noise.” The most likely result of broadcasts over a wide band is that your intended signal will be jammed and the phone will not ring when you call it.

All that said, I would not advise wireless detonation of any kind. It’s easy to forget any one simple precaution and kill yourself or someone else. You should never need to be far enough away that you can’t see your fireworks’ launch point anyway.

Posted at 6:41 am on Jul 2nd, 2009 by ZombieD

Cell phone triggered fireworks

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