Shooting off a little prematurely

San Diego's fireworks display had a software glitch- shot all 7000 fireworks at once!

San Diego gets a little too excited

A show designed to last about 20 minutes gave no more satisfaction after only 15 seconds.

But it was a great 15 seconds!

I saw a short clip of that. It looked awesome!

It happens to everyone once in a while, I've heard anyway.

Duke wrote: I saw a short clip of that. It looked awesome!

I see what you did there.

Right over my house we were out looking but just one big bang. It was amazingly loud, and well short.

Wire up a qr mil of pyro to a computer fired circuit board - check Check continuity of all firing circuits - check USE CONTINUITY GROUND SIGNAL NOT POSITIVE VOLTAGE SIGNAL-- wait, what? Oopsie! 200 grand worth of fireworks up in smoke in 15 seconds, heads will roll...

Jay_W wrote: Wire up a qr mil of pyro to a computer fired circuit board - check Check continuity of all firing circuits - check USE CONTINUITY GROUND SIGNAL NOT POSITIVE VOLTAGE SIGNAL-- wait, what? Oopsie! 200 grand worth of fireworks up in smoke in 15 seconds, heads will roll...

Do you know something that isn't being reported? I keep hearing it was a computer programming glitch, one that they cannot explain.

foxtrapper wrote: Do you know something that isn't being reported? I keep hearing it was a computer programming glitch, one that they cannot explain.

Yeah, but computers are programmed by people...

Plus, the fireworks company is based in NJ.

If heads don't roll, there will certainly be a new set of concrete shoes in the Hudson River!

I found that quite satisfying

Wally wrote: It happens to everyone once in a while, I've heard anyway.

Hate when that happens...

it worked for me...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLnWf1sQkjY

Too subtle?

[Richard Pryor] 'What you mean, too quick? I got mine. You get yours!' [/Richard Pryor]

A fireworks display in California set up by people from Jersey. What could possibly go wrong?

This just in: Investigators have placed the blame on a combination of a really hot sky and a long period of inactivity for the fireworks.

Old stock pyrotechnics? I can hear the lawyer's phones ringing from here.

Wow. I know a lot of Chinese goods are pretty poor quality, but you'd think by now they'd have gunpowder figured out..

In reply to GameboyRMH:

spit on keyboard, thanks.

I'm betting that a Windows system will be found to be the culprit!

Do you know something that isn't being reported? I keep hearing it was a computer programming glitch, one that they cannot explain.

Unless their software is able to override the safety interlocks in the firing board, it should not be able to "fire all" during the continuity check. Even if their computer interfaces with the firing circuits direct, which I'm pretty sure is not kosher ( I do hand fired shows mostly), there should be no way to light em off during continuity check. If the crew there did their job properly, the only thing that could possibly have turned a test into a fire all would have been some manner of fairly high energy RF source going active juuust when they happened to open the firing circuits. This was a Big Show spread over a Large Area with many many Long Wires...Tehy may have had their day ruined by an inductedcurrnet. The (very) low voltage continuity signal cannot possibly set off the igniters. I don't think the software would be capable of firing all during a test. Outside RF is at least plausible. What I wanna know is WTF were they doing a test 9 minutes or whatever it was to showtime? If you find a bad firing circuit out there somehwhere on any of 3 barges, what are you gonna do, go out there and fix it? yah sure ya betcha. The time to do that test is early enough in the day to be able to DO something about it...the computer fired shows I've been involved with we usually did that check about 3 hours out. Heck with it. Gimme a fireman jacket and a highway flare.