I didn’t have a working buzz coil for this hit and Miss engine I recently got so I built this buzz coil out of things I had laying around the garage! Heck of a good spark now!
Back about 30-something years ago I did a similar system using a flyback transformer from an old CRT TV. I think it ran somewhere around 40 Khz. If ran for more than a few seconds continuously it would start melting the ground tab off the spark plugs.
For the context of the experiment. I was in first-year tech trades college and got to be friends with some of the guys in the auto tech classes and at some point, a discussion about how to keep a spark plug lit through the whole power stroke could be done. I came up with a circuit that used the points as the timing reference to turn the high-frequency oscillator circuit on and off as needed. By adjusting the dwell (open time of the points) the duration of degrees of crankshaft rotation during the power stroke it stayed on could be controlled. It was sort of crude but we found that it did improve how engines ran, especially two strokes that tend to have a naturally rough sputtery idle. I eventually made a more permanent prototype that I put in my 1952 International L110 pickup (the first vehicle I bought and paid for myself) and the box is still in it today!
