It’s possible to do that, sure, but would it be a good design? Seems like a lot of ‘moving parts’ in an application that really needs to be as simple as possible - not only to avoid failure, but to avoid malfunction (that is, something not just going wrong, but going wrong in a way that is unintentionally functional in an undesirable way)
As I said, I think the RF-triggered version is a bad idea due to the greater possibility of them failing to trigger.
For the hard-wired, coded version–sure, why not? This kind of stuff can be made very reliable in large quantities. If it were up to me, I’d put a barcode on each one that gets scanned as it’s being placed. They’d have two-way comms with the source and would each be able to check in. You’d have a high degree of certainty that every one was accounted for and in a working state. I’m no explosives expert, but that sounds like a pretty useful feature.
Maybe it’s not actually that common, but it seems pretty dumb that at the moment, a stray high-power RF transmitter can set off charges that are in the middle of being placed. Also, I think complexity is ok when it can be used to self-check, even if it has a higher baseline failure rate. I’d rather have 1% of units fail in a detectable and safe fashion than 0.1% fail undetectably.
I asked the same question some years ago:
Hence the magnetic induction plunger, and nothing but wire to the blast site. KISS - Keep It Simple…
Note too that blasts typically are set off in sequence. The first two or three create a cavity by blasting the rock outward, the rest now blow in sequence seconds to hundredths of a second apart to break the rock into the hole that was created. (Otherwise, you’d have to load all the explosive far down underneath, and blow upward.) This also conveniently blasts the rock into a loose pile, rather than having a big rock cliff or pit that just jumped up and down a few inches but is fractured but still in its original place. Think of a blast as a super strong sledge hammer.
it pushes at the rock. The rock will fracture. But it won’t go anywhere unless it has somewhere to go. A drilled hole will mostly push outward from the central axis of the hole - if the cap is at the bottom of the hole (it should be) the shock wave also travels upward - think of it like an expanding cone starting from the bottom.
So basically, you want one “trigger” and it is connected to all the blasting caps, which are sequenced to go off in turn. (Because some caps can delay a few milliseconds longer than others, and they are arranged by delay into each blast hole.) You sure as heck don’t want multiple radio receivers, as the first one may knock out the rest. The blaster’s worst case is when they have to go check if one or more holes did not go off completely … or worse, there’s a live blasting cap buried in there along with a hole full of explosive. After the blast, wait a specified number of minutes then go in, inspect, and wash out any missed holes.
One engineer described a test to remove large boulders. The made a shaped charge, filling a small funnel with explosive and putting the blasting cap in through the spout. This results in a basically spherical shock wave that grows as it travels through the explosive, effectively creating a (mostly) directional hammer on the rock it was placed against. (But you don’t want to be within 100 feet or more) The test boulder was intact after the blast. They tapped it with a backhoe and it crumbled into tiny chunks along the fracture lines from the blast. (AIUI, The special forces use miniature versions of this sort of thing to blow doors off hinges, etc.)
You can imagine if that was flat ground instead, it would be a struggle to dig out the rock. You want the explosive to do the digging for you and throw the rock into a pile. Arranging the blast waves to do that is part of the art of being a blaster.
As I said, my educated guess from the demo is if you hold one in your hand, you will need a new hook. It shredded an aluminum can into pieces. Plus the cap is a metal container (at least, the ones I saw) so if you are within 10 or 20 feet, better hope shrapnel bits miss you. You could shoot your eye out.