LukeG

Was looking at traditional (halotron) extinguishers the other day and came across the Element extinguishers. Haven't seen much on them though. I went ahead and ordered the E50 and a mount. Seems very well designed, compact and very lightweight. Anyone using these?

https://elementfire.com/

alienmiata1

iTrader: (2)

I have one in my car

moocow

Got one too, mounted to a passenger seat mount type bracket. I hope to never have to use it. I wasn't a fan of the large, heavy fire extinguisher I had; the bracket was heavy and i was worried about the passenger kicking or dislodging the extinguisher.

IanIsInTheGarage

AH. I've bought and mounted several old school typical ones this years. WISH I would have seen sooner. Thanks for sharing. What grabs me is how long it lasts. I've been 15 years racing without a fire,

griff

If they can create a way to simultaneously actuate them in different zones and not have to be held, I'm all in! If I am ever in a SERIOUS fire situation I am not going to give a crap about the car and 100% focused on pulling a cable and getting the hell out of Dodge...no hanging out and playing fireman. Could you imagine a serious blaze kicking off behind you doing 120 on a straight and trying to find one of those, strike it off and aim it behind you while strapped in to give you enough time to stop and get out? Solid tech though and I could completely see the benefit from a weight POV as a backup option to trashing your car with a small fire or in an irreplaceable classic road car.

x_25

Looks like the down side is that once it's on, it's on. What does one do with it once everything is out?

LukeG

I'm assuming you could just set it on the ground.

Supe

That's what real fire suppression systems are for.

Biggest use for this one I can see is grass/under car fires. You have a mechanical failure and pull off on the track or roll into the paddock that requires you to park on track. Grass/weeds/whatever catches fire under the car. Your in-car suppression system won't do a thing, but you can sure roll one of these under there and possibly save your car.

Dalardan

I used mine three times to put out paddock fires in turbo cars when they spit oil on their red hot headers then pit because of the smoke. But for my car, I also think a portable device is not what will save it.

moocow

I had to stop on track and watch this happen to an S2000 stuck on some dry grass. That's when I bought a fire extinguisher. You just need to stall the fire until the track marshals get there.

cordycord

iTrader: (2)

Don’t think car, think kitchen. We had a grease fire my wife extinguished with a regular unit—TERRIBLE MESS. We still found crap weeks later. This is clean. Get one

themonkeyman

Well, any hand-held unit is not meant to replace a built in suppression system. It would be just as hard to ignite one of these at 120mph down the back straight as it would be to locate and remove a tradition bottle from its mount, pull the pin and use it. Apples to oranges comparison.

I would be curious if this can be adapted to an automated suppression system. No mess is certainly appealing, plus it claims to work on all types of fires.

griff

@themonkeyman I know Luke plans to track his exocet but your right, I should not have assumed that he was thinking this was a lightweight substitute for a built in fire suppression system. They are two different products and I think I will get one myself for situations just like the ones mentioned here. It crossed my mind a few times that my fire system would be pointless for the typical small fire (outside the cabin/under car) but I didn't really want to mount another big bottle in the already cramped space of my car. I built my car with the specific intent of road race so I can't just mount one in the navigator area. When you drop the seats to give more room between helmets and cages there is no room under the knees anymore in a miata for a conventional fire bottle. One of these could fit in any number of places to fill that gap in fire protection.

When I was a kid I used to hot glue rocket igniters into 2 liter bottle caps with oxy/acetylene in the 2 liter bottle and kick them off with a little battery....good times.

Be nice to do something similar with 5 or so of these rigid mounted in and under the car and use a 12v igniter system used to initiate them. If you could make the ignition process bulletproof, I bet they could REALLY take off in this sport for the weight savings alone coupled with the fact that they never expire and you would not ruin your car when you use it!

LukeG

My limited experience so far has been that the one fire I had (turbo blanket soaked in oil) could have been easily put out with the element stick. I definitely will be putting in a suppression system as well, but thought this would be a nice item to have if it is small enough to just simply pull over and put it out without having to deploy the whole system.

j_man

On Pelican Parts someone already tested it:
Testing Element fire extinguisher - Pelican Parts Forums
Better carry an additional extinguisher of a different type just in case
There is also this:
https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/consu...0632/06&lng=en
Sparco stopped selling their branded version of it
So … "There ain't no such thing as a free lunch"

wannafbody

iTrader: (1)

I will say this, if this is as good as they make it sound, one of the major extinguisher comglomarates would own them. It's probably good for certain situations and less ideal in others.

Savington

iTrader: (31)

My main issue with these is the form factor. Normal fire extinguishers can be used by any breathing human with functional arms without reading the instructions. Point, pull the pin, squeeze handle, stuff comes out. The Element OTOH is not intuitive. Even if you read the instructions and understand how to use it, the cornerworker who picks it up from your car to extinguish an engine bay or grass fire is not going to understand how to use it without reading those same instructions. While they read, the car burns. No thanks.

Extinguishers are for other people's cars, BTW. Suppression systems are for your own.

themonkeyman

Yeah, very good point. If they could streamline the "ignition" process, maybe even just having the act of uncapping it ignite the thing as well, it would be a huge improvement.

wannafbody

iTrader: (1)

There was something similar in design back in the 80's and it was marketed for wood burner and chimney fires. I'm not sure that it's exactly new technology.