[jws]

"Funny" regulatory story on those. They are not legal in the US since the regulators decided they were fire extinguishers and then compared them to the rules for fire extinguishers. They noted the lack of a nozzle, gauge, and locking device and proclaimed them out of compliance. They also noted that there are fires the balls do not put out, which to be fair, is kind of true for everything except the heat death of the universe.

It's a shame. It would probably be a good thing to keep over a domestic laser cutter or 3d printer.

[samplatt]

"Funny" story along the same lines from an alumina refinery I worked at.

Part of alumina requires use of a lot of extremely corrosive sodium hydroxide liquid, which eats through aluminium like the acid blood from Aliens. A neutralizing agent was developed that could be quickly applied to burns from the liquid, delivered via a pressurised can that workers would keep on their person at all times.

The material the pressurised can was made of? Aluminium, of course.

The sight of the safety superintendent swaggering around a chemical refinery with essentially a grenade attached to his belt for a couple of weeks before they realised the danger, was my first real eye-opener to how people can be promoted FAR past their level of competence.

[ssl-3]

"Legal" or not, they're still readily available from the usual sources and I do keep one near the more-experimental of the 3D printers.

For those who aren't familiar, they're more-or-less a firework: Cardboard shell with redundant fuses wrapped around it to activate a charge inside, and with fire-putter-outer powder (IIRC sodium bicarb, but maybe something else) instead of stars. This whole thing is then wrapped in thin plastic.

Operation is simple: Fuse lights, because fire. It burns fast, by design. It explodes. The area is covered in powder.

It might even work. (Might make things worse, too, but things are already awful by this point.)

[petesergeant]

> For those who aren't familiar, they're more-or-less a firework

There's something beautifully, wonderfully Thai about creating fireworks to throw at fires. Also, this video: https://www.elidefire.com/performance-testing

[kragen]

that's brilliant! i'd assumed it was monoammonium phosphate. i'd much rather cover my electronics in sodium carbonate than in phosphoric acid

[a_gnostic]

Keep it there as a novelty ornament. –Certainly not as a fire extinguisher… that would be illegal!

[OJFord]

I'm neither a lawyer nor familiar with US law/regulatory stuff or US consumer - but I assume the point is that it's not legal to sell it as a fire extinguisher, nor to use it to satisfy fire extinguishing equipment requirements for your office building or whatever. Not that you're breaking the law if you have in your home, whatever you want to use it for (unless you're required to have a fire extinguisher, in which case you'd just have it in addition, if I'm correct).