[Land-speed] Fire alarm lite

[neil at dbelltech.com]

Rick;

The flame sensors that I bought surplus were made by Kidde Aerospace. They
are supposed to be pretty good but we'll see.

Another type of fire sensor is the linear cable type such as:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/KIDDE-FENWALL-35680-2-400-SENSING-ELEMENT-FIR
E-OVERHEAT_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ26436QQihZ016QQitemZ260195050052QQrdZ1
QQsspagenameZWDVW

These have two or more wires running through them that are insulated from
each other by a material that drops its resistance at high temperature; by
measuring the resistance between the wires you can detect an overheat
condition. The cable can be routed around an engine compartment to cover a
large area.

Regards, Neil   Tucson, AZ



-----Original Message-----
From: land-speed-bounces+neil=dbelltech.com at autox.team.net
[mailto:land-speed-bounces+neil=dbelltech.com at autox.team.net] On Behalf Of
Rick Byrnes
Sent: Thursday, December 20, 2007 7:02 PM
To: Benn; land speed list
Subject: Re: [Land-speed] Fire alarm lite

I looked at Infra Red and Ultraviolet sensors and found a high frequency of 
false alarms until you get into the very pricy mil spec kind of system. 
Around $2000.  When we looked at the alternative smoke sensor in a fully 
enclosed car ( With a belly pan the Fusion was "fully buttoned-up.)
Since the rear end of my car is so long, my plan was for two smoke sensors 
one at each end, wired into the same control unit.  I do intentionally flow 
some air thru the engine bay, but with sensors mounted properly, I think we 
can cover most cases of an on board fire.
One mounted high in front of the engine and the second low and in the tail 
below the fuel tank. Range of the sensor is I think 15 meters.
There are not many places I have looked for the cheap way to do things on my

car or the Ford project, but this is one that just works.
More practical testing will follow on my car.

Rick