The Old Standard Ignition System. Battery. Coil. Points. And Condenser....

[Magluvin]

Still sniffing around.   Here is a clip that backs you up 100%.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZU87fpNQ3d8

HOWEVER, the "Automotive Engineering" channel might be much more automotive than electronics and it's possible that the persons that made the clip were just "following the crowd."

Going back to the "current has to keep flowing" angle relative to this clip:  Okay, the capacitor charges up to say 300 volts which lets the current flow, and then you are at the limit of the EMF generation and the current flow stops.  Why does it stop?  It actually stops because the secondary has just "bridged the gap" and ignited the plasma.  So then the magnetic core of the ignition coil dumps all its energy into the plasma.

So, suppose we guesstimate the energy status when the trigger point comes and the plasma ignites and there is 300 volts in the capacitor.  My guess is this:  90% of the energy is in the ignition coil core, and 10% of the energy is in the capacitor.

So when the core dumps all of its magnetic energy, the clip claims then you have a resonant plasma-firing ring-down.  I don't see it, what I see is just the ring down with no plasma generation.  So I think the clip is wrong and just "following the crowd."  I looked at several other clips that just say the capacitor protects the points and there is no mention of the the big plasma ring down.  But I am not convinced that those clips are the real thing either.

Thanks for that vid..  Can you see that what was in the vid is very possible?  I still feel you denying it. But that is exactly how i see it. Like you said is an accurate description in comparison to mine..  But lets see what brad has to add to that, since what I explained doesnt seem to cover it all according to him.

Ill get to the other posts later.  Took a long lunch here at the shop while I wait for some paint to dry..  Little center console shift indicator module for a Maserati that all the paint around the lettering and lines flaked off.  I taped it up with packing tape so I could see the remnants of the lettering and exacto cut them, pealed of the rest of the tape and paint then remove the remaining tape over the letters.  $380 for a new one. I charged $100.  Do a lot of that cost saving stuff for people.

Mags

[Magluvin]

ok.  I posted this thread in response to MHs request to do so from pm. The argument from Mh was he said there is no resonance in the circuit with or without the cap, in response to my claim of gain in the output, the spark, we get by way of this resonance. So I gave us the thread to talk about that and for him to be able to put his views forward along with mine.  Well he took it all the way to say that I dont understand the circuit at all...


I could care less about using the circuit for anything. It is just a resonance gain example.

I am claiming that we get a gain in output with the use of resonance. This is just an example of that fact, and also the speaker in a ported tuned enclosure is an example of that. So we have 2 very good examples where we can apply resonance and obtain appreciably more output than the circuit, or speaker box without resonance and just working on their own.... What does this have to do with anything?  Well if we start with a device that is very eff in the first place and we can apply resonance to that eff system, it just may take us over 100% eff, thus a very possible path to OU.  The speaker and sub thread explains how we can obtain more eff just by adding more drivers with the same input for each case from 1 speaker to 2 speakers, then to 4, then to 8, then to 16.  Each time we do so we increase 3db output with the same level of power input for each.  Pulse motor with 1 coil with 1w in. add another coil and adjust the Pin to the same input Pin and the motor becomes more eff in output.  4 coils more out. 8 coils more out. All without changing the Pin for each

I dont want discussions on that here. Those can be had in the speaker thread.

If some dont get that, then you just dont for what ever reasons you guys wish to conjure up.  Cant help ya there.

mags

[MileHigh]

So I did more looking around, on Google and also specifically to do searches for pdfs on Google.  And I looked at YouTube clips and read several different forum board threads on this subject.

It's apparent that there is a lot of uncertainty and confusion about what the capacitor does beyond protecting the points from spark discharges and if there is a plasma-producing/sustaining resonant ring-down.  I would say only about 10% of the sources I looked at talked about a plasma-producing resonant ring-down and my confidence in the technical knowledge of those sources was fair to poor.

What I learned was the size of the capacitor will affect the ignition timing because the cap accepts the initial inrush of current when the points open and then reaches a voltage point where the current flow stops/the plasma ignites so obviously a larger capacitor will delay the onset of the ignition spark.

The ignition system we are talking about is a "Kettering ignition system" that dates from 1917 and was used in cars up until the mid-Seventies.  It was also branded as the "Delco ignition system."  It is Patent US1223180.  I was too tired to read the patent but string searches on "resonant," "resonance," "oscillation," and "ringing" show no results.

My original reference was the "Delco Remy electrical equipment" book and it looks like it originated in the 1950s and I view it as very credible.

The most credible new piece of information I found was a thesis from 1971 written for the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California.  It's about newer capacitor discharge ignition systems but it also reviews older generations of ignition systems.  The relevant information starts on page 25.  There is no mention of a resonant  plasma-producing or plasma sustaining ring-down when discussing the actual plasma spark generation.  He does mention that the capacitor rings with the primary, but not with respect to the generation of the plasma spark.

http://www.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fulltext/u2/742933.pdf

A disadvantage of the Kettering system is that at high engine RPMs there is less time to keep the contacts closed so you get a weaker spark.  That's where dwell angle advance systems come in to compensate whick TK also made reference to.

My conclusion from looking online is that there is no plasma producing or plasma sustaining resonant ring-down between the capacitor and the ignition coil primary.  And of course I mentioned several times that you could simply check for yourself with a sniffer pick-up coil (very carefully).

[MileHigh]

Quoting myself:

<<< Here is a thought that occurred to me:  Is it possible that without the capacitor a hell of a lot of energy is burnt off in the points sparking when they open?  And then when you add the capacitor the elimination of the point sparking means you have more magnetic energy in the core and that's the reason you get a bigger spark?  I view that as a long-shot but you never know. >>>

I also saw several references to this online and some of them were credible.

So is this the "so simple that you were too dumb to think of it" explanation for the much stronger spark when you add the capacitor?  In other words the reason was right in front of our noses but we were bind to what we saw and heard?

If this is true then my "manufactured solution" with the "direct battery-plasma reaction" was just a bunch of hogwash because I was looking for an explanation based on the battery providing the "extra energy" for the more robust spark.

So here is the question:  Is the spark energy being greatly reduced without the capacitor because the supplied battery energy is being drained away in the arcing across the points?  The way to answer this is to do a test on the bench.

So, can anybody suggest a bench test to check for this?

I am good at this type of stuff and it took me about 20 seconds to come up with an easy test.

[MileHigh]

I will review the idea that I had about the "direct battery-plasma reaction."

If you ignore the other dynamics taking place, then there is a lot of reason to believe it may be valid.  It's like you can imagine the engineering department in an ignition coil manufacturer where they joke about how nobody knows about the "big secret" about the how the more robust spark is actually generated when you add the capacitor.

Case in point:  In the old 386 (486?) processor days, you had to buy an add-on "numerical coprocessor" to give the 386 floating-point capabilities.  There was a socket on every motherboard for the "numerical coprocessor."  And the truth was the "numerical coprocessor" was a complete brand new 386 with an included floating-point multiplier and when you added the new chip the original 386 was simply turned off.

So, going back to the ignition coil, what do you think happens when you connect a 12-volt battery to the primary and there is a 500-ohm resistor on the secondary?  More specifically, people that play with circuit simulation programs may want to try something, and it would be easy if there is already an ignition coil model.  Or you make one with a primary, core, secondary with 100x the turns of the primary, and coupling coefficients and all that stuff.

If you did a simulation where for say three milliseconds you connected an ideal voltage source of 12 volts to the primary, and you had a 500-ohm resistor on the secondary what would you get?  Well, (1200/500) equals 2.4 amps into a 500 ohm resistor which is 1200 watts on the secondary.  So that means (1200/12) = 100 amps drawn on the primary.

Because three milliseconds is a relatively short time, I don't think the ignition coil core wold have any saturation issues.  But, all of that could be checked on the simulator.  This all has to do with how a transformer reacts to a "step function" of x seconds with a load on the secondary.  It can't pass the step function from the primary to the secondary indefinitely, because transformers don't work with DC.  But a three millisecond pulse is a different story.

So there might still be some life in the "direct battery-plasma reaction" and one more time I believe that this can be confirmed with a very simple bench test.  So any ideas for a test?