[HN Gopher] How electronic ignition works and also how to make a...
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How electronic ignition works and also how to make a spark plug
play music
Author : pavel_lishin
Score : 39 points
Date : 2024-06-23 18:50 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theautopian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theautopian.com)
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Coil-on plug was not terribly common in the 90's. More likely you
| would have had a "distributorless" ignition system with a coil
| pack mounted somewhere in the engine compartment and plug wires
| from that to the engine. Earlier in the 90's you would have still
| had a distributor but with electronic fuel injection either by
| direct injection or by throttle-body injection. The only TBI
| engine I've had was an OBD1 system with a distributor attached to
| the oil pump. It was built in 1995. The only electronic ignition
| engine I drove from the 90's was from 1996 and it had an OBD2
| system with a coil pack. My first coil-on-plug engine was from
| 2006.
|
| Otherwise this is a great article.
| mhandley wrote:
| My son has a Seat Leon MK1 from 2002 and that uses coil-on-
| plug. The MK1 was released in 1999, so likely at least VW group
| were using coil-on-plug in the late 1990s.
| technothrasher wrote:
| > Earlier in the 90's you would have still had a distributor
| but with electronic fuel injection
|
| Even by the mid-80's, many European cars were already running
| this setup, or at least electronic ignition and CIS injection.
| mikestew wrote:
| I was still a professional mechanic in the 90s. Coil-on-plug
| was becoming common even amongst American brands, let alone
| European.
| roughly wrote:
| Between the Autopian, Defector, 404Media, and about a dozen other
| sites, it's fascinating how much good writing, interesting
| content, and genuinely great internet was apparently being held
| back by whatever combination of VC, private equity, and just
| general herb-ish "media executives" over the last decade. It
| didn't _have_ to be the decade of the listicle, we didn't _have_
| to lose the entire media ecosystem, there was still an audience
| for good content.
| indianSummer wrote:
| Let me add, (from experience) that any way the plug gets lit,
| whether it be old school distributor, coil pack, or coil on plug,
| it can shock a human very badly. It's easy to get lulled into a
| false sense of comfort working on 12v automotive electricals, but
| the power levels going to the spark plug are much higher.
| technothrasher wrote:
| I build and sell reproduction electronic ignition units for old
| 1980s sports cars, and I've gotten hit with the full secondary
| voltage on my bench setup a couple times. Even with current
| limiting and safety cut-outs in place on my bench top power
| supply, it is very, very unpleasant.
| xeromal wrote:
| Don't those coil packs distribute 10-20k volts?
| londons_explore wrote:
| I'm kinda sad that as far as I can see, no cars have
| protections against 'stupid DIY mechanic puts finger in spark
| plug while cranking engine'. I'm sure those sparks have killed
| many people by now.
|
| All they'd need to do is have the spark happen not to ground
| but to another return wire, and then check the impedance
| between both wires and ground is infinite before firing.
|
| Plenty of other benefits to such a design - eg. you can more
| accurately measure flame propogation within the cylinder
| (detect bad nozzles on injectors).
| MisterTea wrote:
| > I'm sure those sparks have killed many people by now.
|
| Probably not many. I have been shocked when I was twisting
| the distributor on my old '95 Tahoe to adjust timing after
| maintenance. It bit me good but I have felt and survived
| worse.
| londons_explore wrote:
| Those who don't survive don't post on HN
| MisterTea wrote:
| I never heard of them killing anyone. Though I am sure
| the resulting shock might be enough to trigger issues in
| those with weak hearts or injury resulting from pulling
| away rapidly where a fall or slip can cause a severe
| injury.
| UniverseHacker wrote:
| I've worked as a mechanic and been hit by it before... I
| don't think it's as dangerous as you'd expect from the
| voltage. I think both the duration of spark, and current are
| very low.
| northwest65 wrote:
| At one of my first jobs, the workshop foreman would sidle
| up beside another mechanic who was working under the
| bonnet, casually put his arm on their shoulder or whatever,
| then touch a plug. It would make the other mechanic jump,
| but he himself seemed impervious (well steeled more like)
| to the effect.
| AngryData wrote:
| Ive never heard of anybody ever dieing from it, although I
| could see it happening in freak cases. If I had a pace maker
| I might be a little more careful but the only real risk I
| consider from it is a lot of pain and a tiny arc burn where
| there was electrical contact. If you are dumb enough to
| purposefully stick your finger in a spark plug hole and crank
| the engine though I think that is on you. You shouldn't have
| your hands in the engine compartment at all when cranking a
| motor unless you are an expert already.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i have a vague memory of either my dad or grandfather working
| on a car and holding on to a sparkplug to see if it not firing
| was the cause of the problem. I remember them dropping it and
| shaking their hands like they touched something hot and saying
| "no, that's not it" hah.
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| > _...is any of this useful for anything? A musical ignition coil
| might not be..._
|
| Some Siemens engineers decided that if they couldn't get rid of
| locomotive startup leaking into the audio bands, they might as
| well make it sound like they _meant_ to be playing it:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpMxETSV4K8
| Rinzler89 wrote:
| We used to play music on the coils of BLDC drone motors when
| learning to control them in university 12+ years ago when that
| was hot shit.
| jfim wrote:
| The Montreal metro also had a pleasant three tone chime on the
| older MR-73 trains.
| mikestew wrote:
| Captain Pedantic asks, "isn't 'electronic ignition' an ignition
| system that uses an electronic module instead of physical
| points?" I've not heard a definition of "electronic ignition"
| that cares about how the electricity gets to the spark plug.
| Instead, we are concerned with how we trigger the magnetic field
| to collapse and makes spark: is it the mechanical opening of a
| switch, or is it transistors?
|
| And using that definition, we've had electronic ignition commonly
| put in cars since the 70s. Distributor, or lack thereof, has
| nothing to do with that definition.
| northwest65 wrote:
| Indeed, I too chuckled at that. Do you remember those hobbyist
| kits from the 80s for building your own electronic ignition
| unit? (i.e. points replacement)
| Animats wrote:
| That's called a "singing arc".[1] It's a plasma speaker. Those
| are good tweeters, but run in air, they generate too much ozone.
|
| In helium, though...[2]
|
| [1] https://teslascience.wordpress.com/making-a-music-playing-
| pl...
|
| [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aeMCBb_Fo78
| smusamashah wrote:
| Is the sound coming from arc itself or the metal that its
| touching?
| Animats wrote:
| The arc itself. The plasma generates the sound. This is a
| very low inertia speaker.
|
| Link [2] shows the commercial version of that speaker, with a
| large helium tank.
| trhway wrote:
| "listen the station in the arc between antenna and grass."
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9UO9tn4MpI
| londons_explore wrote:
| Whichever engineer designed that spark plug should have tested it
| better to ensure the spark didn't 'wander' around as it's doing!
|
| It's going to be next to impossible to tune an engine properly if
| the spark location wanders around a few mm for no reason.
| mnemotronic wrote:
| I'm thinking 16, as in Volkswagon W16, part harmony on the Queen
| song.
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