Lighter igniting in slow motion

[Nowhere]

http://www.thatvideosite.com/video/3357

[Brian Ellis]

Quite interesting. The flame starts when the sparks are almost dead and well away from the nozzle, presumably because all oxygen has been purged from the vicinity of the nozzle. This could call for a redesign with a mechanism that opens the valve a little bit before the wheel turns on the flint and to have the nozzle a few mm under the flint.

[Nowhere]

Or perhaps sparks aren't as effective in igniting like very hot air? (I presume the region in which there were sparks is locally quite hot...)

[Jon P. Inghram]

Here's a little (116 kB MPEG) video of a disposable Bic lighter I took with a Canon A620 at 60 FPS. The blue "sparks" in the second frame that extend down from the top are a CCD artifact (same effect that causes the vertical blue streak from the flame, an example showing how it effects a pulsed LED here.)