What is the easiest and most reliable method for having an Arduino light a fuse on a firework and be reusable. I have seen people use 1 ohm resistors and short them to light a fuse but those are only good for 1 use.
Maybe using a spark gap ignitor?
Google turns up various single-use ones which makes me think there is no commonly accepted reusable system - probably because making the single use is cheaper/easier.
This chap seems to have made a DIY solution with the only consumable part being a short piece of fuse wire - wouldn't that be acceptable? I see you can get the commercial igniters for about 40p each so either way this doesn't seem to be an especially expensive approach.
If you must have a reusable solution you could try a piece of nicrome wire. This is wire made out of the same material as toaster heating elements. You can find it sold on Amazon and elsewhere for foam cutting. You would probably want to wrap each short piece of wire with a little cotton to give the wire something easy to ignite.
That said most of the disposable solutions are simpler, and when compared to the cost of the firework they only would add 1-2% cost to the display.
The instructable assumes a paper type of fuse ("quickmatch") that a firecracker/bottle rocket would have. If you're trying to light the thicker, woven type of fuse ("visco") you're going to need more oomph. For that you can coat it in a wet slurry of fine black powder mixed with ~10% dextrin. Dextrin would be corn starch cooked in an oven for an hour or so until it turns a dark yellow color.
Sparkfun has this:
and This:
Also, I used those Falcon 2 igniters before. They are...impressive. But all they are is a bit of nichrome wire secured to a plastic clip.
A little old but still on top of my search...So im going to post.
Try Kanthal wire (Vaping coils)
take apart an old video cable and strip out the stranded wire so you have a single strand.
short it on any battery.
you can dip it into a home made brew like they use for matches and you are set.
The fireworks industry uses vast numbers of single-use ignitors ("e-match")
reusable and reliable just don't seem to go together - aside from "the element burns up", most pyrotechnic compounds yield a quantity of rather corrosive chemicals when they combust. Hydrochoric acid, lye, water...
that said, some magicians props use a glow-plug of the sort normally used in model gas engines. I'm not sure I'd call them "easy" - right up there with muzzle-loading percussion cap pistols...
(and those "disposable" 1 ohm resistors - aren't they [something like $0.002 each?](http://something like $0.002 each?))
PS: IT'S NOT A "DETONATION" (or it better not be.)
This might well be a safety critical application and you need to think very carefully about what you are doing here and ensure you have the correct skills and knowledge in place
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