The Coat Rack

The Coat Rack is a LPG flame effect with eight heads surrounding a central pilot. It is called the Coat Rack because that is what I have to do with it while it is not shooting fire.

Photo by Electrogenic

The main pipe from the accumulator is 3/4" and splits off to eight 3/4" solenoid valves. All of the plumbing is 3/4", pointed at a 45 degree angle over a barbeque regulator with a copper tube outlet and steel wool attached to the end. It sits on top of a 100lb. accumulator tank, placing the fire safetly over the heads of most people.

Having eight individual flame effect heads close together but at a vertical angle allows for some spectacular effects. When two opposite effect heads are activated at the same time, it produces a large V of flame. Rapidly activating each effect head makes a spinning wave of fire in an overhead circle.

I've used a number of different control systems with the Coat Rack, including:

• Pyrokinesis v2 - brainwave visualization by a wireless EEG headset
• CRC - the Coat Rack Control, a multi-touch Android tablet interface written by Kate Murphy
• Burn Burn Revolution (not my name; with apologies to Dance Dance Immolation) - a Dance Dance Revolution pad used as simple control buttons

Each of these interface methods uses a wifire16 board as the underlying control system. Pyrokinesis has a Bluetooth radio attached, CRC uses a WiFly RN-XV radio, BBR uses a DDR mat with a PS2 breakout adapter. Currently, the control system lives in side a padded briefcase, where I can store all the wires, deadman switch, battery clips, and other supporting hardware.

At some point, I intend on replacing the main pipe with a 1-1/2" supply line so that all eight effects can go at (more or less) full blast at the same time. As it is, the Coat Rack can freeze up a single unregulated fuel tank very quickly, even in the middle of summer.

Fortunately, the fire does really well in the winter (photo by Shawn Ferry):

The Coat Rack was supported by an art grant from the Firefly Arts Collective in 2012 - thank you!