Fire In The Hole !!!!!!!!!!

[doug the slug]

ok if i may re-hijack the thread back to where it came from......

i dont think a smoke alarm in the cyclone system is the way to go as i doubt that i would hear it anyway, and as discussed previously, false alarms may be prevalent.

instead i am going to cut a perspex window into the collector drum. this will serve dual purposes. firstly, i will be able to see when the drum is full. secondly, and most importantly, if i smell burning anywhere i will be able to tell at a glance if its in the cyclone collector.

but if it is in the collector, what to do about it? best thought so far is a hole with a rubber grommet in it that i can pop out and stick the garden hose or fire extinguisher nozzle in. any other ideas???

[bsrlee]

How about a tap in the side of the drum with the delivery side INSIDE & a click fit hose connection screwed onto the supply side OUITSIDE the bin - then you can clip the hose on without opening the tap before water is available. This should avoid stirring up a smouldering fire with ectra draught.

[doug the slug]

thanks for that bsrlee, i had thought of the influx of air. However im looking at a 20mm or so hole being unplugged in one second and replugged in the next with a hose or fire extinguisher nozzle. hopefully just before i unplug the hole i will have just turned off the dusty, so the fire should actually be starving for oxygen anyway.

thinking a bit further into it, if a fire is going for a bit longer than i would like, the tap on the outside may get too hot to touch and prevent me from implementing the fire drill. whereas a rubber grommet blocking a hole will soften or burn out and be easier to push out with the implement hung on the wall beside the cyclone bucket for that purpose. Hope this makes sense.

Bsrlee, sorry if it looks like I'm giving your idea a caning. in principal it's good and may workin other peoples setups. its actually given me an idea for a future project too........

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

:eek: Don't just pump water in through an 'ole!!

That'll stir up the dust and chances are it go BOOM! As any firefighter will tell you, in a dust fire you SPRAY, not squirt. If I was going to add fire-suppression to my dusty, I'd settle for a cheap(ish) fine-mist sprinkler in the lid of my seperator, using a click-on hose fitting on the outside as already discussed. There should never be enough of anything getting through to the DC bag for me to worry about that side. Unless I've been ruly, ruly slack in emptying the seperator. OK, so mebbe I should think about doing something there as well...

Personally, I won't bother. My seperator's a 44 sitting next to the back door of the shed for easy emptying. In case of internal fire, I'd just yank both flexi's, tip 'er on 'er side and roll 'er into the back yard. Then it's the gardener's problem.

[doug the slug]

:eek: Don't just pump water in through an 'ole!!

That'll stir up the dust and chances are it go BOOM! As any firefighter will tell you, in a dust fire you SPRAY, not squirt.

thanks for the input Skew, will research this one a bit further. chances im wrong but I was thinking that in an enclosed space with a severe shortage of oxygen as soon as the dusty is switched off, that the potential for an explosion would have been very low. in any event im still looking at fire extinguisher options and their suitability. if its water from the hose that i go for it would be a spray in any case, with an option to spray the outside as well to cool the cyclone system and reduce potential for the fire breaking out and spreading.

[Skew ChiDAMN!!]

This thread has me reconsidering a few things. For a while, I had the shed on the same security monitoring system as the house (3rd-party monitored motion & smoke detectors) but we had the smoke detectors removed from the shed. Too many fal$e alarm$ triggered by dust. But I've been feeling more concerned about the chances of fire in the seperator since I recently caught a couple of blokes dropping smoke butts on the floor... from where they schloop straight into the floor-sweep. :eek: Admittedly I do the same but at least I make sure they're out before I drop 'em!

A suppression system inside the bin is a damned good idea but without some form of early warning, like before the flexi-ducts into/from the bin burst into flame it's as useful as a loaded gun in a locked cabinet. If smoke detectors aren't the answer, I wonder if a simple temp. sensor would work? Airflow'd cool it down, perhaps below detection temp, but I wonder... what if several are mounted in parallel (so any one of 'em can act as a trigger) on rod running up the middle of the bin? Say they're spaced every 6" or so... Surely the odds are pretty reliable that at least one of 'em would be in the "hot spot?"

Feel free to ignore me, I'm basically just thinking out loud. There's gotta be some cheap & effective way though.

[doug the slug]

I wonder if a simple temp. sensor would work? Airflow'd cool it down, perhaps below detection temp, but I wonder... what if several are mounted in parallel (so any one of 'em can act as a trigger) on rod running up the middle of the bin? Say they're spaced every 6" or so... Surely the odds are pretty reliable that at least one of 'em would be in the "hot spot?"

Feel free to ignore me, I'm basically just thinking out loud. There's gotta be some cheap & effective way though.

I wonder if a cheap adhesive thermometer like they use for home brewing stuck to the outside of the collector would do it? It wouldnt give an audible signal, but it would be a quick way to visually check if something suspicious happens, like a shower of sparks from the blade when you hit the old nails. but then the brewing thermometers only go up to 40 degrees, maybe something similaris available for other purposes. lets keep throwing the ideas around