Mythbusters: Exploding cigarette lighter part 2

give us a break don't try what you're about to see at home [Music] little disposable lighters come with a long list of warnings never puncture or put in fire never exposed to heat above a hundred and twenty degrees Fahrenheit or to prolonged sunlight so I believe that each one of these items is here because probably of a specific lawsuit but each one of them also is a test that we can do so I got one for you okay what is it a lighter is sitting on a dash of a hot car and it explodes we've done tons of hot car stuff and that is perfect the question would be how hot can they get and would that make a lighter potentially fatal explode yeah they got pretty hot in there let's do it all right this time instead of heating up an entire car Jamie has an O so convenient alternative okay I don't I got a toaster oven that's our car that's our car that's perfect this isn't exactly a dash of a car but it is a controllable thing that we can get to the correct temperature dashes of cars actually get surprisingly hot they get up around 180 degrees give or take so we should be able to set this at that temperature put a lighter in there and see what happens it goes the passenger now it's another stupefyingly boring Mythbusters weight fest you get to watch it all just happen you're gonna cut to the explosion inside of five minutes but I've got to wait for like three hours a stupefyingly boring hour later the heat hasn't affected the lighter at all it's been in 140 degrees for that entire hour and I'm not getting anything so I'm gonna ramp it up he dials up the temperature it's climbing the toaster oven is now at 190 degrees Adam at his little nemesis are having a standoff consistent waiting game and it's exhausting I've been working on this for three hours now and I still don't have what we're looking for here a catastrophic failure of a lighter in a hot car even at the highest temperature the dash of a car could ever get the lighter still hasn't lost its cool but Jamie is confident he could put Adam out of his misery I can get this thing up to about 500 I know my toaster oven 500 degrees that's hot now we're up to 350 on our way to 400 it shouldn't take long in fact I can already see the cracks forming oh well that was an explosion no fire but that was a bang actually there was fire Jamie got the lighter to blow in just five minutes this end piece shot out like a bullet and actually blew a hole in the tray how about another just for the heck of it it sure looks cool but in the real world cars don't get that hot the minimum temperature that we were able to get one of these lighters to melt to the point that it released its gas was about 350 degrees and I don't know of any cars that get into 350 degrees even in the desert in the summer so as far as I'm concerned it's not happening unless there's something else at play so to recap we get Butkus out of the dryer we got nice explosions out of the golf club hot car and the welder yeah but these myths are about whether or not this is a lethal situation and we don't know what kind of injuries you'd sustained we don't really know whether it's lethal or not right well I mean that leads to the next step here which is to get a human analog and try out the most common one the welding on that human analog and see if the explosion of the lighter next to it causes any any visible or significant damage pork yeah I suppose it's more pork I like a fork but Adam and Jamie attach a welder to a c-stand and put a steel plate in front of it next they dress a ham hock in working man's overalls and put a lighter in the pocket now that's one rugged boy what will be very telling about the level of damages if we get a life whoo and all of a sudden the whole area is bathed in flame right in three two one the hot slag drips onto the jeans at about 15 seconds later they catch fire that would seem like more than blue jeans just burning there I would imagine but even though the denim is flaming the lighter doesn't pop we got some burns in our day only from the welding yeah that's only from the welding slag they reposition it and try again you get a working lighter and the vertical pocket this time three two what hey that was quicker yeah now you're starting to hop around like oh me out once again your favorite jeans would never be the same but you would walk away to weld another day began I think it's a hot metal burn but not a lighter burn and he's just aren't exploding yeah they're slowly releasing their gas that ball of flame it just goes kind of poof and unless you're wearing plastic clothing like polyester or something like that it's not gonna go up in flame it's gonna deflect most of it looks like the guys have extinguished this myth meanwhile over at m5 Jamie and Adam have been testing disposable lighters are these tiny Tikes potential life threats I don't care what anybody says the explosion from one of these lighters is not lethal and that makes all of these myths at least in terms of deadliness busted well that was a single lighter we just need more we have this thing from a British newspaper that says a salesman's car burst into flames in Brussels when liquid gas in 500 cigarette lighters exploded in the hot Sun that's that's that you just read the whole article I mean there's not much to go on here it's right down our alley I guess we don't need any more information in this all right let's do it the plan is to get a car and put a heating element and 500 lighters inside as the lighters melt and release their gas the guys will trigger a remote ignition source and hopefully the vehicle will take a trip skyward so we're better to conduct this potentially highly flammable myth than at a water control plant good and who better to have on hand than the city of South San Francisco Fire Department funny guys Adam explains the setup to the guys as long as you don't blow up the city we're fine with it that's always our goal controlled explosions and this one should be well we're hoping it's major but even if it's major it's still pretty minor yep there's some major insight into the workings of the Mythbusters mind right there Adam positions the vehicle chosen for the sacrifice in a high wall concrete bunker then he fills up the interior with 500 disposable lighters stacking them in rows when all this is expanded this is over a thousand cubic centimeters of butane gas a series of holes are drilled into the top of the car and wire inserted through it then the heat source a vacuform machine is raised above the lighters a vacuform is normally used to make molded plastic packaging and gets up to a scorching 800 degrees and just in case the vacuform doesn't ignite the gas they have a back-up plan in trying to hedge our bets we're trying to create a flame bar ignition will occur at the start with a neon transformer that create a spark that spark will ignite a gasoline-soaked rope which will travel down inside the car this rope will continue to burn down to the point where it sets off the ignition everyone and everything is in position and ready to blow coming right up

Channel: Trustme77

Views: 657,787

Rating: 4.7993526 out of 5

Keywords: mythbusters, adam savage, jamie hyneman, cigarette lighter, hot car, toaster oven, fireball, explosion, pork, jeans, 500 lighters

Id: oqT7uwz79Zk

Length: 9min 11sec (551 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 28 2009