Show Cool-down
Michael Sellner
NFPA 1123 mandates a 15 minutes cooldown after the last shell prior to approaching the shoot site for safety.
Currently, I manually script this into my shows so my leads don't "forget to set a clock" or anything else. I have a scripted solution I use that turns the 18R2 into a digital clock for this countdown.
I pulled the example script Zach posted and added a cool-down timer. See attached.
In summary, I select an unused channel and start counting down. The 18R2 "Fires" cues from 15 to 1, exactly 1 minute apart. The "time until next cue" readout on the 18R2 is then the seconds left, the blinking red LEDs is the minutes.
Once the 15 minute timer has elapsed, it returns to channel 00. That's when it's safe to disarm, shut down, and approach the field.
I think this could easily be configured into a 18R2 firmware, and probably even better on the screen for an 18R3. Cobra is all about safety, so I believe this fits in your culture as well.
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Gerry Ferrara
I agree that it would be nice to have a timer.
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Daryl Marmon
I would desire it not to be hard-coded into the firmware. Sounds like Michael has a good workaround that works well for him. Thanks for sharing. But I would agree, I would not want a 15-minute timer running on Cobra.
NFPA 8.2.10.1.1 and 8.2.12.1 does require a minimum of 15 minutes and one of TWO additional steps after that. (1) wait an additional 5 minutes and dosed with water OR (2) wait an additional 30 minutes and recovered (Non-watered) and place in a plastic bucket or fiberboard box.
I believe a consistent, standard policy for the crew is better, since things are very fluid on a display site. I do not want our crew members go in until the crew chief makes that call.
Plus, when the display is over, I want the controller turned off.
Michael Sellner
Daryl Marmon Very fair - and to be clear I wasn't referencing any sort of dud/round tripper/etc practices. This would simply be the timer from end of show to when the lead, or as you call it crew chief, can go to inspect racks and identify any of those issues before the rest of the crew approaches.
I 100% understand the display off, controller off sentiment as well.
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Jim Acker
Cool idea, but I would never want this hard-coded into firmware. We do far to many multi-script shows where I need to know when the last shot fired. The last thing I want is a 15 minute timer running at the end of each script.
Michael Sellner
Jim Acker You and Daryl make good points! Thank you!
To be fair, I didn't quite say it but I think this should be an optional switch that one could turn on, so it would probably live in the header row of the script to turn it on or off
Michael Sellner
I wanted to clarify.
My solution works, but I think a code implementation would be better. If done in the firmware, that gives me, as the operator, the ability to put my show into TEST mode once the show is complete and a timer still go. I think that's the ultimate panacea for this in the Cobra world. With my implementation the cobra remote has to sit in ARM and the script still run.
Please let me know if you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or concerns.
Thank you!