building a smoke generator for aero testing.

[Xist]

Originally Posted by aerohead

Neighbors will NOT understand and will likely be on their smart phone to the Sheriff's Department.

If you drive fast enough to not get caught, will your data still be useful?

[smilingcat]

ESTES rocket ignitor (aka squibs) have regular steel wire on both ends. The two steel wire are electrically connected together by about 1/2" nichrome wire and the nichrome is coated in some highly combustible material. simply all you get is about 1/2" of nichrome.

I already went through this exercise with 4 or 5 leftover squibs. I was disappointed.

[justme1969]

Use the Nichrome wire to ignite smoke generators with one of my current mixtures while at speed with flick of switch.. Brilliant!

[aerohead]

Originally Posted by Xist

If you drive fast enough to not get caught, will your data still be useful?

If the photos come out,they'll 'say' a lot about separation and the beginning of the wake.Before,and after mod comparisons point to success or failure.
The patina of dust will give you a general perimeter for attached,and separated flow.
Compare these with tufts and you'll have a pretty good 'look' at your flow.
After rain storms,sometimes grimy water will dry on a car,revealing a histogram of the airflow at the time the water dried.You've probably already noticed this in parking lots.The dust will do likewise.
Right now,I have hundreds of semi-elliptical patterns of dried dirt water behind every pop-rivet and screw head on my truck.

[Goldenstate]

There are some Youtube postings that describe how to make smoke generators for model ships. They even include how they built the device and show the results which in one case might even alert the local fire department.

Anyone ever use a powerful leaf blower to aero test small areas of a car after modification?

Goldenstate

[aerohead]

If the jet of air was quite larger than the area under study you might gain some insight as to the new flow,but without all the surrounding air moving at the same velocity,it would not represent 'driving' conditions.The calm,still air would be attracted to the fast,low pressure air of the blower jet,flowing towards it.