We’ll say it just once, and right up front: wrist-mounted flamethrowers are a bad idea. An itchy nose and a brief moment of forgetfulness while sporting one of these would make for a Really Bad Day. That said, this flaming gauntlet of doom looks like a lot of fun.
We’ve got to hand it to [Steve Hernandez] – he put a lot of work into the Flame-O-Tron 9000. Building on his prior art in the field, [Steve] went a bit further with this design. The principle is the same – butane plus spark equals fun – but the guts of this flamethrower are entirely new. A pipe bomb custom fuel tank is used rather than the stock butane can, and a solenoid valve controls fuel flow. Everything lives in a snazzy acrylic case that rides on a handmade leather bracer, and controls in the hand grip plus an Arduino allow the user to fire short bursts of flame or charge up for a real fireball. See what you think of the final product in the short video after the break; it sounds as though even if the fuel runs out, the high-voltage would make a dandy stun gun.
Maybe we should lay off the safety nagging on these wrist rockets. After all, we’ve seen many, many, many of them, with nary a report of injury.
“After all, we’ve seen many, many, many of them, with nary a report of injury.”
Survivor bias?
+1 LMAO!!
“Dead men tell no tales”
Well, I’m not dead yet. I’ll let you know if that changes…
Something that helps to spark and maintain and control a flame. In a plastic housing. Well, I guess lighters don’t melt and explode, right?
Maybe a hot ignitor from a furnace / gas clothes dryer / water heater (~20USD) or a simple torch pilot light should work.
He’s dangerooouuuuuus!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lN4TxOd9I8Q
:o)
I’m not sure I’d use plastic around flames. One fuel leak and you’ve got burning molten plastic dripping on you. Fabrics (leather too) have a nasty habit of holding gas so a leak could end in severe burns if you’re not careful.
Were I going to make a body mounted fireball shooter (no liquid fuel, no throwing) I’d probably build a Davy lamp style mesh cage around the fuel supply and lines to decrease the chances of catastrophe.
Ah yes, then this very serious and useful tool would be rendered completely safe.
Great… another dangerous contraption!
Why does hackaday keep on posting these potentially dangerous contraptions when there are so many other kinds of informative projects that don’t have the potential to hurt people (or innocent bystanders).
But no worries.. you can get away with anything, as long as you say… “don’t try this at home” or “be careful it’s dangerous” or “only let this stunt be performed by professionals”.
And then the article end with: “Maybe we should lay off the safety nagging on these wrist rockets. After all, we’ve seen many, many, many of them, with nary a report of injury.” Now let’s be serious here, if you are stupid enough to make this but not smart enough to make it work, then would you post a video of yourself going up in flames? Of course not! And even in the event you’d survive (the beating from your friends or parents) you would realize that you did something terribly stupid and try to hide it from the world as best as you can!
Maybe an IMU to prevent firing unless horizontal to avoid accidental self injury.