Talk:Avalanche Emergency Oxygen Delivery Device

From PDI

The products on this site is probably relevant: [1]. They are used to ignite fires even in horrible weather. You strike one piece of steel against another to get sparks. On that page there are some models that are one-handed, you just push a button and the "striking steel" hits the "rod" that the sparks come from. Modifying one of those models to work well here could be tricky, but useful. A "firesteel" generates sparks wherever you are and in all circumstances, even under snow.

A motor driven firesteel that keeps generating sparks could be useful, even though it would be worn out fast. You would have to make it easy to replace the rod and the striking steel. A gyro and/or boat-style compass on it could show you which way is up. If you have room to hold it in a string, you could do that to see which way is down. You would then just hold it right up and start it. Natanael L 22:33, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, sparking won't provide any substantial heat output, and lighting a fire in the entrapped environment is a sure way to quickly die of either carbon monoxide poisoning, or lack of oxygen :( -- Wesha 03:05, 27 May 2010 (UTC)

Ok, then scrap that part of the idea. Could it be used to "start up" some other heat source? (Anyway, the device would still be useful. Elsewhere.) Natanael L 07:35, 4 June 2010 (UTC)

Could, but in this particular case, the less complex is the device, the better (less chances to have something go wrong). The best heat source would be chemical (acid+acaline, for exapmple) -- no moving parts whatsoever. But, you certainly don't want such chemicals near your face. -- Wesha 17:26, 14 June 2010 (UTC)