Delco Ignition System
The Delco ignition system, also known as the Kettering ignition system, points and condenser ignition or breaker point ignition, is a type of inductive discharge ignition system invented by Charles F. Kettering. It was first sold commercially on the 1912 Cadillac and was manufactured by Delco. Over time, it was used extensively by all automobile and truck manufacturers on spark ignition, i.e., gasoline engines. Today it is still widely used in coil-on-plug, coil-near-plug and in coil packs in distributorless ignitions. An alternative system used in automobiles is capacitor discharge ignition, primarily found now as aftermarket upgrade systems. Electronic ignition was a common term for Kettering inductive ignition with the points (mechanical switch) replaced with an electronic switch such as a transistor. Operation Power source On initial starting, a storage battery is connected through the ignition switch (called "Contactor" in the figure above). Once the engine is runni ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Inductive Discharge Ignition
Inductive discharge ignition systems were developed in the 19th century as a means to ignite the air–fuel mixture in the combustion chamber of internal combustion engines. The first versions were low tension coils, then low-tension and in turn high-tension magnetos, which were offered as a more effective alternative to the older-design hot-tube ignitors that had been utilized earlier on hot tube engines. With the advent of small stationary engines; and with the development of the automobile, engine-driven tractors, and engine-driven trucks; first the magneto and later the distributor-type systems were utilized as part of an efficient and reliable engine ignition system on commercially available motorized equipment. These systems were in widespread use on all cars and trucks through the 1960s. Manufacturers such as Ford, General Motors, Chrysler, Citroen, Mercedes, John Deere, International Harvester, and many others incorporated them into their products. The inductive dis ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Spark Plug
A spark plug (sometimes, in British English, a sparking plug, and, colloquially, a plug) is a device for delivering electric current from an ignition system to the combustion chamber of a spark-ignition engine to ignite the compressed fuel/air mixture by an electric spark, while containing combustion pressure within the engine. A spark plug has a metal threaded shell, electrically isolated from a central electrode by a ceramic insulator. The central electrode, which may contain a resistor, is connected by a heavily insulated wire to the output terminal of an ignition coil or magneto. The spark plug's metal shell is screwed into the engine's cylinder head and thus electrically grounded. The central electrode protrudes through the porcelain insulator into the combustion chamber, forming one or more spark gaps between the inner end of the central electrode and usually one or more protuberances or structures attached to the inner end of the threaded shell and designated the ''si ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Optoelectronics
Optoelectronics (or optronics) is the study and application of electronic devices and systems that find, detect and control light, usually considered a sub-field of photonics. In this context, ''light'' often includes invisible forms of radiation such as gamma rays, X-rays, ultraviolet and infrared, in addition to visible light. Optoelectronic devices are electrical-to-optical or optical-to-electrical transducers, or instruments that use such devices in their operation. '' Electro-optics'' is often erroneously used as a synonym, but is a wider branch of physics that concerns all interactions between light and electric fields, regardless of whether they form part of an electronic device. Optoelectronics is based on the quantum mechanical effects of light on electronic materials, especially semiconductors, sometimes in the presence of electric fields. * Photoelectric or photovoltaic effect, used in: ** photodiodes (including solar cells) ** phototransistors ** photomult ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Solid-state (electronics)
Solid-state electronics are semiconductor electronics: electronic equipment that use semiconductor devices such as transistors, diodes and integrated circuits (ICs). The term is also used as an adjective for devices in which semiconductor electronics that have no moving parts replace devices with moving parts, such as the solid-state relay, in which transistor switches are used in place of a moving-arm electromechanical relay, or the solid-state drive (SSD), a type of semiconductor memory used in computers to replace hard disk drives, which store data on a rotating disk. History The term ''solid-state'' became popular at the beginning of the semiconductor era in the 1960s to distinguish this new technology. A semiconductor device works by controlling an electric current consisting of electrons or holes moving within a solid crystalline piece of semiconducting material such as silicon, while the thermionic vacuum tubes it replaced worked by controlling a current of el ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Tune-up
A motor vehicle service or tune-up is a series of maintenance procedures carried out at a set time interval or after the vehicle has traveled a certain distance. The service intervals are specified by the vehicle manufacturer in a service schedule and some modern cars display the due date for the next service electronically on the instrument panel. A tune-up should not be confused with engine tuning, which is the modifying of an engine to perform ''better'' than the original specification, rather than using maintenance to keep the engine running as it should. Common tasks involved in maintaining a vehicle * Inspection - vehicle components are visually inspected for wear or any leaks. A diagnostic is performed to identify any electrical components reporting a failure or a part operating outside of normal conditions. * Replacement - Given certain lubricants break down over time due to heat and wear, manufacturers recommend replacement. Any parts that are close to their expected fail ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ignition Timing
In a spark ignition internal combustion engine, ignition timing is the timing, relative to the current piston position and crankshaft angle, of the release of a spark in the combustion chamber near the end of the compression stroke. The need for advancing (or retarding) the timing of the spark is because fuel does not completely burn the instant the spark fires. The combustion gases take a period of time to expand and the angular or rotational speed of the engine can lengthen or shorten the time frame in which the burning and expansion should occur. In a vast majority of cases, the angle will be described as a certain angle advanced ''before top dead center'' (BTDC). Advancing the spark BTDC means that the spark is energized prior to the point where the combustion chamber reaches its minimum size, since the purpose of the power stroke in the engine is to force the combustion chamber to expand. Sparks occurring after top dead center (ATDC) are usually counter-productive (pro ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Cam (mechanism)
A cam is a rotating or sliding piece in a linkage (mechanical), mechanical linkage used especially in transforming rotary motion into linear motion. It is often a part of a rotating wheel (e.g. an eccentric wheel) or shaft (e.g. a cylinder with an irregular shape) that strikes a lever at one or more points on its circular path. The cam can be a simple tooth, as is used to deliver pulses of power to a steam hammer, for example, or an Eccentric (mechanism), eccentric disc or other shape that produces a smooth reciprocating (back and forth) motion in the ''Cam follower, follower'', which is a lever making contact with the cam. A cam timer is similar, and these were widely used for electric machine control (an electromechanical timer in a washing machine being a common example) before the advent of inexpensive electronics, microcontrollers, integrated circuits, programmable logic controllers and digital control. Camshaft The cam can be seen as a device that converts rotational mot ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Electrical Resistance And Conductance
The electrical resistance of an object is a measure of its opposition to the flow of electric current. Its Multiplicative inverse, reciprocal quantity is , measuring the ease with which an electric current passes. Electrical resistance shares some conceptual parallels with mechanical friction. The International System of Units, SI unit of electrical resistance is the ohm (), while electrical conductance is measured in siemens (unit), siemens (S) (formerly called the 'mho' and then represented by ). The resistance of an object depends in large part on the material it is made of. Objects made of electrical insulators like rubber tend to have very high resistance and low conductance, while objects made of electrical conductors like metals tend to have very low resistance and high conductance. This relationship is quantified by electrical resistivity and conductivity, resistivity or conductivity. The nature of a material is not the only factor in resistance and conductance, howev ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Contact Breaker
A contact breaker (or "points") is a type of electrical switch, found in the ignition systems of spark-ignition internal combustion engines. The switch is automatically operated by a cam driven by the engine. The timing of operation of the switch is set so that a spark is produced at the right time to ignite the compressed air/fuel mixture in the cylinder of the engine. A mechanism may be provided to slightly adjust timing to allow for varying load on the engine. Since these contacts operate frequently, they are subject to wear, causing erratic ignition of the engine. More recent engines use electronic means to trigger the spark, which eliminated contact wear and allows computer control of ignition timing. Purpose The purpose of the contact breaker is to interrupt the current flowing in the primary winding of the ignition coil. When the current stops flowing, the resulting collapse of the magnetic field in the primary winding induces a high voltage in the secondary winding. Thi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Ballast Resistor
An electrical ballast is a device placed in series with a load to limit the amount of current in an electrical circuit. A familiar and widely used example is the inductive ballast used in fluorescent lamps to limit the current through the tube, which would otherwise rise to a destructive level due to the negative differential resistance of the tube's voltage-current characteristic. Ballasts vary greatly in complexity. They may be as simple as a resistor, inductor, or capacitor (or a combination of these) wired in series with the lamp; or as complex as the electronic ballasts used in compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs). Current limiting An electrical ballast is a device that limits the current through an electrical load. These are most often used when a load (such as an arc discharge) has its terminal voltage decline when current through the load increases. If such a device were connected to a constant-voltage power supply, it would draw an increasing amount of current u ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Distributor Cap
A distributor is an electric and mechanical device used in the ignition system of older spark-ignition engines. The distributor's main function is to route electricity from the ignition coil to each spark plug at the correct time. Design A distributor consists of a rotating arm ('rotor') that is attached to the top of a rotating 'distributor shaft'. The rotor constantly receives high-voltage electricity from an ignition coil via brushes at the centre of the rotor. As the rotor spins, its tip passes close to (but does not touch) the output contacts for each cylinder. As the electrified tip passes each output contact, the high-voltage electricity is able to 'jump' across the small gap. This burst of electricity then travels to the spark plug (via high tension leads), where it ignites the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. On most overhead valve engines, the distributor shaft is driven by a gear on the camshaft, often shared with the oil pump; on most overhead camsha ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Distributor
A distributor is an electric and mechanical device used in the ignition system of older spark-ignition engines. The distributor's main function is to route electricity from the ignition coil to each spark plug at the correct time. Design A distributor consists of a rotating arm ('rotor') that is attached to the top of a rotating 'distributor shaft'. The rotor constantly receives high-voltage electricity from an ignition coil via brushes at the centre of the rotor. As the rotor spins, its tip passes close to (but does not touch) the output contacts for each cylinder. As the electrified tip passes each output contact, the high-voltage electricity is able to 'jump' across the small gap. This burst of electricity then travels to the spark plug (via high tension leads), where it ignites the air-fuel mixture in the combustion chamber. On most overhead valve engines, the distributor shaft is driven by a gear on the camshaft, often shared with the oil pump; on most overh ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |