RE: Ignition Coil

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Pete Komen by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>" <pkomen-at-zianet-dot-com>

Hello Daniel,

While the Dimmer is driving at 60 Hz, the rising edge of the pulse is
limited by the rise time of the triac, the inductance of the coil, and the
voltage of the sine wave input when the triac fires.  At the limits of the
dimmer control movement the triac is turning on when the voltage is low and
the coil does not output a good spark.  At the peak voltage of the sine wave
input  (near the middle of the dimmer control), the coil should see a pulse
of about 170v with a very fast rise time.

My trigger driver (a near copy of Terry's published version), gives no
sparks near the limits of the dimmer control and the best sparks in the
middle of the range.

Still working on a capacitor discharge ignition coil driver.

Regards,

Pete Komen   not too far from White Sands

-----Original Message-----
From: Tesla list [mailto:tesla-at-pupman-dot-com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2001 7:42 PM
To: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: Ignition Coil

Original poster: "Daniel Barrett by way of Terry Fritz <twftesla-at-qwest-dot-net>"
<dbarrett-at-clearcube-dot-com>

    These coils are designed for use at higher frequencies, or at least edge
rates, than 60 Hz. With a larger cap you are just dumping more power into
the coil, so you get more power out. The efficiency is pretty bad though at
60 Hz- most of your energy is going to warming up the coil.
db


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