One of my first inventions. I worked for a company that made odd parts for cars. In them days there was a thing called points it was the switch that supplied the voltage to the spark plugs. Obviously it had to deal with high voltages. The problem was that these switches wore out easily. And many failed during the warranty period, so that was costing a lot of money. I had just spent 4 years in training for a future, and there was not a lot for me to do I had fixed most of a backlog of parts that had built and had failed during the testing of them, we made amplifiers and power supplies for what was known as the GPO at the time. So I was given a design project, was there something electronically can I do that would give points a longer life. I pondered what might be going on, first I watched points and the big spark. because the engine was idle the spark was good and true. But after 4 years of electronics I knew about loads, thats resistive. So thats back in the day when putting a camera in there was impossible so instead I used a voltmeter to monitor the battery voltage while they car was being driven and was stressed by all the electrical apertures in the car was being used. I notice a wild fluctuation in the voltage. I examined a typical cars circuit and cam to the understand that would vary the output of the coil. So I simulated this on my desk, a power supply a DC motor, a coil and a spark gap, which was the points as such. I played around with the supply to motor just by the amounts I had recorded. I noticed the spark seemed to dance around and I noticed the ware on them. So what if I regulated that voltage so I did and the circuit was so simple. The company offered a retrofit for warrant cars and for older ones a cost.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Jan 2014 03:51:57 +0000
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