This was a project with the goal to wirelessly launch new year fireworks safely. Some people may want but are physically no longer able to launch fireworks by themselves, e.g. due to illness, age or other reasons. Nevertheless, it would give them happiness to do so. Introducing this wireless launching solution, fireworks placed by others in the garden can be launched from inside the house.
Video
Schematic diagram (in principle)
To keep costs down, I went with low-cost standard components sold by every model building shop.
A RC-Receiver is connected to an Arduino Nano which decodes the PPM signal (in this case pulse pause modulation, not pulse position modulation!) sent out by the receiver. In this kind of modulation, the information is stored in the time between pulses. Interrupts are utilized to measure this time. Usually a time of 1500 us between two pulses mean neutral position, 1000 us represent the leftmost position and 2000 us the rightmost position of the input knob on the sender unit.
Based on the information from two channels (the wheel and the pistol-like trigger of the RC sender), the desired launcher is chosen (wheel) and if the corresponding firework unit should be launched or not (gas). If the signal for launch is given, a small heating coil I bought from a vape-shop is switched on being then supplied with an excessive amount of current for its size, to ensure a quick heating up. It ignites the fuse placed inside the coil and initiates the launching process.
The black flexible holders can be replaced by wooden sticks or anything like that for more stability, or even mounted to a fixed launching device with pre-drilled holes to place the fireworks in. This is just a prototype, and I already owned those holders.
Impressions
