Yes, you read that right. We did the Fourth on the Third this year.
Here’s a link to the show:
And here’s a Vlog of the setup:
Several takeaways from this year:
We are getting much better at setup and deployment of the pyrotechnics. Our staging, labeling, and layout are working very well. We had a fairly significant issue during the first day of setup when we opened the initiators we had order well in advance and found they were the wrong style. We use a system that needs Quickplugs on the ends of the initiator wires and we received bare wires. Lesson learned: check everything you receive versus assuming they sent the right stuff.
We had a couple fuel mines not fire. The most likely culprit was the extension wiring. We are building a new extension system that will be reliable year over year. Using larger wire for the 50 ft run terminated in soldered contacts at each end and a printed circuit board with headers for plugging the intiators into. Lesson learned: technology is great, but you have to do your homework to understand the critical issues.
This year was much better, but post event cleanup is always a chore. We finished cleaning up and got home around 2a this year. We are exploring other ways to deal with the trash and cleanup next year to reduce that time frame. Lesson learned: be willing to rethink and recast how and when things are done.