Sorry I have been out of the loop.. Kids, summer vacation, wife in school.. Just a little busy!
So about our lack of power.. This weekend I thought I might try using a regular ignition coil (OIC). One of the older type like the one I pulled from my Monte Carlo that I know works..
My thought was we need some more "juice" so why not use a standard OIC which has some "juice" for sure.. I proceeded to connect it to the circuit board we have put together, connecting it to the terminals on the board for the coil.
This is where I am going to have to do some tinkering..
Firstly.. Unlike a CAP, I believe I have to “ground” the body of the OIC or the “-“ terminal of the OIC to the chassis of our project, this is going to require me making a bracket..
Secondly.. The connections should be straight forward.. 12V out of the circuit board to the “+” terminal on the OIC and “-“ from the circuit board for the coil to the “-“ terminal on the OIC..
Thirdly.. OIC output to one side of the electromagnet coil (EMC).. After that I’m stumped! Does the other side of the EMC go to the “-“ side of the OIC or would that go to the same ground source as the OIC?
I’m thinking the one side of the EMC has to go to ground.. I say this because in a car, things run on a “grounded system” meaning the chassis is grounded to the body and the motor (ICE) is grounded to the chassis and spark plugs are grounded to the heads. When the OIC fires the resulting spark we see is at the gap between the spark plug electrode and the spark plug housing. I’m sure I misunderstanding something here but I thought the power supplied to the coil had to “pass through” the EMC coil in order to generate its power. Or maybe we need to throw something in between the negative side of the EMC and the ground that could collect some of that voltage, a CAP maybe.. I really don’t know here!!
Yes I’m using another coil I threw together and NOT the Chinese coil which is the only one that “semi-works” with the circuit board alone, it just isn’t strong enough to give us the results we want.
Kevin