Hey Joe,

I'm planning to make a quite similar setup myself.  Do you happen to know the current draw you get when that nichrome is engaged?   I'm trying to see if I can fire it with a FET and maybe run both the microcontroller I'll be using AND the nichrome from the same power source to save weight/volume on the cutdown device.  Knowing the current draw would help me understand whether I can ride out the "brown-out" when the voltage gets pulled down, or whether I might have to supplement with some caps/diodes or something to protect it.

Thanks for any info you might share,
Mike