I love the fact that despite watching Jeff and the Taofledermaus crew for years and years now I can still stumble upon a great video like this that I never knew existed that is super interesting.
HhappyBirthday The pipe rust and oxideis as water is in it, So as a fire sprinkler guy like me, go out every couple years and flushes the pipes with fresh water and a lot of air behind it to flush all the rust and crap that is in it. why it stinks is for the fact water sits in there with the rust =stinky water
I knew it!!! My theory on how these work was spot on. Thanks for proving it with your video. Your 2 F1's are really proving useful. I may have to invest in a 2nd one like you. Also on my wish list is a FLIR E65 thermal imager, and if I ever decide to sell my stocks, possibly invest in a Phantom series high speed camera. I'm sure you've got a wish list for toys, as well.
The liquid in the tube is glycerine. It expands and shatters the glass at temperatures between 155 and 165 °F (68.333°C.) When the glass breaks it releases the copper plug, shooting water to the round piece on the end which spreads the water outward eliminating the fire.
Yeah, often the water for the sprinklers is stored in tanks on the top of the building so they can even work without power. But often the sprinklers remain unused for several years, so the water also stays there for that long.
Mike Vormann Yeah. Also at my school, we have two shower stalls but we never shower because well, we don’t need to in school. I was told it was probably sitting there for years. So one of these girls decided to turn it on and stick her hand in there and it smelled so bad.
- JustSimplyThinking - Yep, luckily we in Germany have other systems. Our Water system is directly connected to the boiler of the heater and there's a pump pumping the water from the basement to the different floors.
The liquid used in glass bulb sprinklers is a non-toxic proprietary glycerin solution that that expands when heated. If you closely examine the older full size bulbs you will see that the bubble size varies with the operation temperature. It is not so easy to see on the modern 2.5 and 3mm bulbs. Also the 'glass' is normally a quartz type of glass to ensure complete disintegration of the bulb on operation.
Worked for Chesapeake Sprinkler in D.C. back in the 80's as a service tech on dry systems (freezeups), restorations and base bldg/tenant work. Yea that iron bacteria smells like money! Only a sprinkler fitter knows that! Haha I've been in plumbing/pipe fitting trades ever since.
I was also unfortunate enough to find out they will go off when accidentally hit just right with a pipe...I had one hell of a mess to clean up afterwards.
thanks ! i did manage to salvage quite a few new units from that van ,but they never got hot where they were stored ,we used 16 of them in my friends bodyshop when he put in the oven booth and in the paint mixing room ,there was lots of good stuff in it and the company just left it all behind,guess they won't use it for liability purposes and the insurance paid them for everything
In response to the top comment... There was a device I had seen several years ago that I am now unable to find. No joke, but I think it was called "Dam it". You would get soaked trying to use it, but the plug was on some sort of extension rod and you would wedge the plug in between the diffuser and the orifice. If it meant saving valuables from water damage because of the accidental discharge of a head, getting soaked would be the price you pay instead of waiting on the FD.
the liquid is alcohol. there is a small bubble in the liquid that determines the temp that the head will activate. the small bubble allows for fluctuations in temp without activating. once the temp gets to the activation temp the fluid expands to a point that the bubble is absorbed and the fluid has nowhere else to expand and ruptures the glass ampule allowing the water to spray. larger bubble in the glass the higher temp of activation. the fluid is colored to indicate temp as well
The sprinkler contains quartzoid bulb.The red colour indicates the operating temperature of the bulb.It partially filled with gas and special fluid.When heat is applied ,this fluid increases in pressure causing the gas inside expands and burst the bulb.
you can see that it bursts before the "second" flame hits it, i imagine it is because the first flame had heated the metal which then takes a little while to distribute heat into the glass/liquid.
... this is something i've never thought to wonder about... neat video! i'm gonna have to tell the guys at ultraslow to do it as well.. see if their higher-speed cameras pick up even more.
remember finding a van full of them back in PA ,it was ironic that the van was burned and it belonged to a fire maintence company,it had the huge FIRE on the side,several cases of them were good that were in sealed boxes and in draws ,but there was hundreds of pounds of dead ones that i SCRAPPED FOR BRASS, they got mixed up with lots of spent cartridges on my brass &copper run to the scrappers
I read somewhere once that the color of the Ampule indicates what temp. they will burst at. Red: 155 Deg. F. Orange: 175 Deg. F. Green: 200 Deg. F. Blue: 286 Deg. F. Violet 360 Deg. F. Of course this book was written in 1983, so things might have changed since then, the ampuls in this vid look much thinner in the ones Pictured in the book
it was back in korea,but didn't care much , i just turned off the water feed to that line of sprinklers,it was fixed just a few hours later,not much damage except sprinkler head and 8 feet of copper piping,i scrapped that to back in korea
Retrofitting Sprinklers is difficult or costly. Think out of box or this case out of house. Aesthetic pvc conduit maybe appearing like trim or downspout on exterior walls connected to wall mounted sprinklers. Water released into exterior pipe once smoke or heat detector triggers.
en.wikipedia org/wiki/Fire_sprinkler shows you you color that the temps they break at, the red ones seems standard in most buildings unless you're in the kitchen then the Blue or Purple i would assume would be used to prevent them from going off when sudden heat hits them (opening an oven door can let a lot of heat out) as an fire is hotter than 200c any way so they set off and hose the place with water (i guess they work out where the higher rated ones need to be when been installed)
It's interesting, and quite unexpected (though I don't know how it works), that the copper thing with up, then down, then up again. I thought it would just blow out on one go.
It's probably the same fluid they put in those cheapie thermometers, especially since the sprinkler sounds just like one when it bursts. (Don't ask how I know.)
I wish that were the case but in many instances, fire occurs quicker than folks have time to wake up from the alarm and get outside. Sprinklers save lives every day.
whenever we change heads we always keep the old ones to scrap. one day we got bored and made some water bombs with these tied into a 12 inch nipped of 1" filled mostly with water and then pressurize them to like 40 pounds and break the link or bulb in a guys truck.
I have always been curious about that! That was quick, I am really surprised how quick that thing popped. I wonder if anyone in an office has accidentally set one off by hitting one with something?
Pol Ty It is possible it was damaged when it was accidentally dropped. Instead of taking a risk and installing it and have a leak or a premature release, it's prudent to not use it.
I'm curious - if you were to accidentally set one of these off, is it possible to plug it with your finger until someone's able to get it turned off so that the room doesn't flood?
I think the pressure is to high. At university we have these wedges on a stick, with a rubbery material, which can be jammed inside to stop most of the flow, but I think you need to force it quite hard.
***** I ask because it SEEMS like the glass ampule can only be resisting so much force, but I can see that it might be one of those situations where an object is stronger than one might expect.
+ReverendTed I think the glass is holding the copper/brass "plug", but I don't think the plug holds back the water itself, but is holding back a spring loaded valve inside. This is pure conjecture, though. Couldn't find anything about the mechanism in a quick googlesearch.
Xissorplane I Google'd "fire sprinkler mechanism" myself and it looks like the plug itself does indeed hold back the water. This video is already the first result.
I love the fact that despite watching Jeff and the Taofledermaus crew for years and years now I can still stumble upon a great video like this that I never knew existed that is super interesting.
Simple design. It has save so many lives.
The 'Fluid' is glycerin based and expands when it reaches a certain temperature! Very cool video! Thanks for posting!
that is F***ing clever engineering but so simple you would never think they would be as intricate as that !
Except in real life the water is black as oil for a few seconds! !
Rivarokband and smells really bad too.
Dear ***** , Why so?
Why is the water, black as oil and also, smelly ?
What causes each of those two factors, please.
.
Thanks.
HhappyBirthday The pipe rust and oxideis as water is in it, So as a fire sprinkler guy like me, go out every couple years and flushes the pipes with fresh water and a lot of air behind it to flush all the rust and crap that is in it. why it stinks is for the fact water sits in there with the rust =stinky water
***** I work for Western states fire in washington you ?
I used to like 3 years ago, now i work for my brother at One tree had cider
I knew it!!! My theory on how these work was spot on. Thanks for proving it with your video. Your 2 F1's are really proving useful. I may have to invest in a 2nd one like you.
Also on my wish list is a FLIR E65 thermal imager, and if I ever decide to sell my stocks, possibly invest in a Phantom series high speed camera. I'm sure you've got a wish list for toys, as well.
Great one! Very well demonstrated and beautiful high speed!
The liquid in the tube is glycerine. It expands and shatters the glass at temperatures between 155 and 165 °F (68.333°C.) When the glass breaks it releases the copper plug, shooting water to the round piece on the end which spreads the water outward eliminating the fire.
I remember in the college dorms, my resident assistant told us the water in the sprinklers was dirty and 20+ years old.
in most pipes it is at my work place one of my idiot coworkers hit a sprinkler with a fork lift stunk the place out for a week
Yeah, often the water for the sprinklers is stored in tanks on the top of the building so they can even work without power. But often the sprinklers remain unused for several years, so the water also stays there for that long.
Mike Vormann Yeah. Also at my school, we have two shower stalls but we never shower because well, we don’t need to in school. I was told it was probably sitting there for years. So one of these girls decided to turn it on and stick her hand in there and it smelled so bad.
- JustSimplyThinking - Yep, luckily we in Germany have other systems. Our Water system is directly connected to the boiler of the heater and there's a pump pumping the water from the basement to the different floors.
Mike Vormann sounds like it requires electricity
The liquid used in glass bulb sprinklers is a non-toxic proprietary glycerin solution that that expands when heated.
If you closely examine the older full size bulbs you will see that the bubble size varies with the operation temperature. It is not so easy to see on the modern 2.5 and 3mm bulbs.
Also the 'glass' is normally a quartz type of glass to ensure complete disintegration of the bulb on operation.
Okay.
Worked for Chesapeake Sprinkler in D.C. back in the 80's as a service tech on dry systems (freezeups), restorations and base bldg/tenant work. Yea that iron bacteria smells like money! Only a sprinkler fitter knows that! Haha I've been in plumbing/pipe fitting trades ever since.
I was also unfortunate enough to find out they will go off when accidentally hit just right with a pipe...I had one hell of a mess to clean up afterwards.
Very cool slow motion. You can see what happens with the retaining aparatus when it dislodges
I am very high and expected sprinklers to shoot fire.
Me too.
I'm not high, but I was kind of hoping that some mad man turned a sprinkler meant to put out fires into a flamethrower.
maybe if someone confused the black iron pipe that's used for natural gas with the black iron pipe that's used for sprinklers
At the very least sprinkle a little fire...
educational and entertaining. one of my top ten youtube channels for sure.
I work as a commercial fire sprinkler fitter. Never seen one pop off in slow motion. Pretty neat haha
Really enjoying the music he plays when it's slow motion haha
thanks ! i did manage to salvage quite a few new units from that van ,but they never got hot where they were stored ,we used 16 of them in my friends bodyshop when he put in the oven booth and in the paint mixing room ,there was lots of good stuff in it and the company just left it all behind,guess they won't use it for liability purposes and the insurance paid them for everything
In response to the top comment... There was a device I had seen several years ago that I am now unable to find. No joke, but I think it was called "Dam it". You would get soaked trying to use it, but the plug was on some sort of extension rod and you would wedge the plug in between the diffuser and the orifice. If it meant saving valuables from water damage because of the accidental discharge of a head, getting soaked would be the price you pay instead of waiting on the FD.
The stuff inside is a mixture of glycerin and dyed with food coloring to indicate temperature at which it breaks.
the liquid is alcohol. there is a small bubble in the liquid that determines the temp that the head will activate. the small bubble allows for fluctuations in temp without activating. once the temp gets to the activation temp the fluid expands to a point that the bubble is absorbed and the fluid has nowhere else to expand and ruptures the glass ampule allowing the water to spray. larger bubble in the glass the higher temp of activation. the fluid is colored to indicate temp as well
The sprinkler contains quartzoid bulb.The red colour indicates the operating temperature of the bulb.It partially filled with gas and special fluid.When heat is applied ,this fluid increases in pressure causing the gas inside expands and burst the bulb.
Very good demonstarion its realy clear to undertand.
The slow mo music was so dramatic : )
So that's why those sprinkler heads often have protective cages around them. If something or someone breaks the tube by hitting it, it goes off.
Very cool, btw the red liquid is a glycerin based liquid
Crazy how that little piece of glass holes back all that water pressure.
you can see that it bursts before the "second" flame hits it, i imagine it is because the first flame had heated the metal which then takes a little while to distribute heat into the glass/liquid.
... this is something i've never thought to wonder about... neat video! i'm gonna have to tell the guys at ultraslow to do it as well.. see if their higher-speed cameras pick up even more.
remember finding a van full of them back in PA ,it was ironic that the van was burned and it belonged to a fire maintence company,it had the huge FIRE on the side,several cases of them were good that were in sealed boxes and in draws ,but there was hundreds of pounds of dead ones that i SCRAPPED FOR BRASS, they got mixed up with lots of spent cartridges on my brass &copper run to the scrappers
its called a quartzoid bulb.. all it needs is a weee bit of expansion for it to break, depending on the color.
I read somewhere once that the color of the Ampule indicates what temp. they will burst at.
Red: 155 Deg. F.
Orange: 175 Deg. F.
Green: 200 Deg. F.
Blue: 286 Deg. F.
Violet 360 Deg. F.
Of course this book was written in 1983, so things might have changed since then,
the ampuls in this vid look much thinner in the ones Pictured in the book
Thanks for showing this! I had no idea that was how the sprinkler was activated.
it was back in korea,but didn't care much , i just turned off the water feed to that line of sprinklers,it was fixed just a few hours later,not much damage except sprinkler head and 8 feet of copper piping,i scrapped that to back in korea
Shoulda used an upright head if u we're gunna have it in that position
Ian Curran I was thinking the same thing.. it's kinda started to bother me when the slow Mo hit
Right, it´s a 1/2" Viking pendent sprinkler with quick response
Jürgen Bauer it clearly says TYCO right on it. Not a Viking head.
Very good demo. Thanks - Penmann
+penman penmann Is your real name penman penmann?
great video! its so cool to see things like this in slow motion.
Reading the title of your vid I thought for sure that you were gonna rig up a fire breathing gasoline sprinkler.
;*)
Interesting, always wondered how these work!
Retrofitting Sprinklers is difficult or costly. Think out of box or this case out of house. Aesthetic pvc conduit maybe appearing like trim or downspout on exterior walls connected to wall mounted sprinklers. Water released into exterior pipe once smoke or heat detector triggers.
The liquid is glycerin based to keep from freezing and expands under heat. The darker spot that you see is NOT mercury, it is an air bubble.
Thank you.
I learned something new today.
Clever idea. Nowadays the first thought would be a thermocouple connected to a microcontroller... :(
So the only thing holding the plug is that tiny vial? Wow! 😳
en.wikipedia org/wiki/Fire_sprinkler shows you you color that the temps they break at, the red ones seems standard in most buildings unless you're in the kitchen then the Blue or Purple i would assume would be used to prevent them from going off when sudden heat hits them (opening an oven door can let a lot of heat out) as an fire is hotter than 200c any way so they set off and hose the place with water (i guess they work out where the higher rated ones need to be when been installed)
You can get red green yellow and black glass beads for them and they go off at different temperatures
I'm all emotional from the music now
Great idea, impressive to see in slo-mo. As always, good job!
Gotta love the classics
Cool! I've always wondered how those things work.
It's interesting, and quite unexpected (though I don't know how it works), that the copper thing with up, then down, then up again. I thought it would just blow out on one go.
I miss these videos jeff, wish could do more
That's Glycerin bulbs that heat up and burst when it reaches 155 and also it triggers fire alarm and sprinkler.
How does it trigger the fire alarm? Do mean a separate fire alarm unit that works the same way?
Didn't realize the amount of water those things out out!
Oh, and the liquid inside is a glycerin of some type. The website I checked said it was proprietary to their company.
lol, my grandfather was a firefighter so he put them in his house. he hasnt had house insurance for over 30 years either
Did it get you in the face?
Woah I didn't expect you to be here!
Haha gotcha
Very good! Thank you!!
IN GENUINE POTATO DEFINITION!
+Ben Heatherman at least I have a potato
+TAOFLEDERMAUS Indeed. The red fluid in the capsule must have been under quite a bit of pressure to spew back out of that cup on the pip.
that is pretty cool and i like the music
It's probably the same fluid they put in those cheapie thermometers, especially since the sprinkler sounds just like one when it bursts. (Don't ask how I know.)
When a ceiling reach 155 F, the house occupants are already wake up by the smoke alarm and outside.
I wish that were the case but in many instances, fire occurs quicker than folks have time to wake up from the alarm and get outside.
Sprinklers save lives every day.
They are covered by that metal thing, so that is probably rare.
Today guys where using a unique kinda shell today a nice 12 gauge round with a sprinkler head built in....
Always wondered how they work, cool video too
Thanks for the video.
Very Cool
Nice information
oh man you should do this again with the chronos
the color of the bulb indicates the temp rating
I have always wondered this.
Thanks for the cool footage! :)
Very nice
for some reason i read the title and thought a sprinkler that throws fire
whenever we change heads we always keep the old ones to scrap. one day we got bored and made some water bombs with these tied into a 12 inch nipped of 1" filled mostly with water and then pressurize them to like 40 pounds and break the link or bulb in a guys truck.
I have always been curious about that! That was quick, I am really surprised how quick that thing popped. I wonder if anyone in an office has accidentally set one off by hitting one with something?
its really good video... demo is simple & nice.
thankfully! I was going to fly my electric r/c helicopter at work, but was paranoid about hitting a sprinkler head. That would be most embarrassing!
always thought it was mercury thanks dude now i know
It is. Its not alcohol. Its mercury.
Either this dude has Parkinson's or he drinks *way* too much coffee.
wonder is the old ones are the same. my grandfather has them in his house lol . prob been there for over 30 years
pretty cool
thanks have learned something today from yoour video.
thx for your demonstration
awe man, I thought you were going to make a flamethrower sprinkler :/
that is awesome man
I thought it was gonna be a lawn sprinkler with gasoline coming out of it but you should make that one anyway
that glass tube is awesome. how many psi can it handle? (correct me if im wrong with the unit psi of water inside the pipe)
have you tried holding an raw egg vertical in between the palm of your hands and try to smash it? . Try it and tell me how it went
that glass tube is awesome. how many psi can it handle? (correct me if im wrong with the unit psi of water inside the pipe)
Sprinkler heads have to withstand a 200psi test before final approval of the installation; they have a maximum "rated" working pressure of 175psi.
I believe is kerosene dye with red, same as thermometer,because I burn thermometers many times.
I've put in quite a few but never bothered to set one off.
thats thermometer fluid inside a glass vial (thin glass that'll break on expansion of the fluid)
Cool video! Thank you!
the fluid in the little glass thing is mercury
nice vid
what do you mean by this ?
This head was dropped so it was decided it should not be installed
Pol Ty It is possible it was damaged when it was accidentally dropped. Instead of taking a risk and installing it and have a leak or a premature release, it's prudent to not use it.
Correct. We're not allowed to install damaged or even suspected damaged heads.
wow.......it's just Amazing
Might get away with a revisit using the high speed camera
great video very helpfull to understand the system we are doing the work of inert gas fire suppression system
well, it did put the lighter out so I would say...well done
i curious if you've seen any of the videos from theslowmoguys and what your opinion is on them
I'm curious - if you were to accidentally set one of these off, is it possible to plug it with your finger until someone's able to get it turned off so that the room doesn't flood?
I think the pressure is to high. At university we have these wedges on a stick, with a rubbery material, which can be jammed inside to stop most of the flow, but I think you need to force it quite hard.
I doubt it
*****
I ask because it SEEMS like the glass ampule can only be resisting so much force, but I can see that it might be one of those situations where an object is stronger than one might expect.
+ReverendTed I think the glass is holding the copper/brass "plug", but I don't think the plug holds back the water itself, but is holding back a spring loaded valve inside.
This is pure conjecture, though. Couldn't find anything about the mechanism in a quick googlesearch.
Xissorplane
I Google'd "fire sprinkler mechanism" myself and it looks like the plug itself does indeed hold back the water. This video is already the first result.
@trefod
He could just be jittery from caffeine, hunger, or anxiety from the sprinkler head.