thanks for the visualization. no matter how many times i read about the ignition system, i always seemed to never put all the parts together. your animation has solidified my grasp. i can actually actually close my eyes and see your animation in my head. wish all my research information could be obtained this way.
learn more about the electricity. EngineeringMindset channel on YT has a wonderful course on electricity engineering consisting of 36 videos. Very much recommend dat, lol.
Awesome video! I am currently taking General Physics 2 and a lot of stuff mentioned in this video I wouldn't know what it is without my new knowledge in electricity and magnetism. So fascinating!
I am a studying electrical engineer and this video greatly helped illustrate how the induced emf is created and how its used to generate the enormous voltage. Great job.
WOW! This video explained how old ignition systems work very clearly. I had been hesitant to buy a 70s era truck because I didn't understand how the ignition worked but now I do, thanks :)
Thank you very much for your wonderful response, we are working hard to compile the information on automobile system and will share with our esteemed customers. stay tuned for more videos !!
That was BRILLIANT. So concise, clear and understandable. Not only is a picture worth a thousand words, but your choice of a 4 cylinder, showing the cam, etc. made it easy to follow. Wow, I wish kids in the inner city could get access to stuff like this. I bet their grades and interest would improve! Nice work whoever put this together!
Pretty well done video, my only real complaint is that it shows secondary voltage/current running all the time, not just when the breaker points are open. A lot of people are complaining that this is archaic stuff that no car has been equipped with in 30 years, but it's probably best to start out with that, much easier to understand. Once you've made sense of this, then move on to more modern systems, which work pretty similar except that the points are replaced by computer-controlled transistors, and instead of having a distributor rotor typically each cylinder or pair of cylinders (wasted spark) has it's own independently-controlled coil. I would suggest starting out understanding cars based on old ones and work your way up to modern stuff, that's how I did it, I started with a '73 Bug with this ignition setup and a carburetor. Over a few years got totally comfortable with them, and realized how much they suck, and felt ready for a new challenge, so I put fuel injection and electronic ignition on it, a great learning experience.
Quill Maurer I am currently enrolled in auto technology classes, my instructor is an old man(70+y/o acts like 20) who knows both old timey engines and modern shit very well. He's got the same concept as you in which he is teaching us with older engines first. Which is forcing us to have a hands-on experience vs just learning to use a computer/sensor that would do all the work for us, more modern as he said. Like for example, the tools we are working with, rather than just have us use a modern tool to measure with laser precision, he's having us use older tools, from when he learned, first since they require us using our hands and "mastering it." My group and I just got done tearing down and rebuilding a big truck engine from the 70's, and it's only been a month since I've started, I'm eager to learn so much and it's fun too which really helps us with learning. What still baffles me is how the collapse of the magnetic field amplifies the volts, it's truly awesome.
@@mapletree6308 Sounds like a great instructor! Yeah, I think every budding auto mechanic, whether hoping to be a pro or just hobbyist, should dirty their hands on an old jalopy of some sort, something that isn't all "black boxes." Learn to use a timing light and feeler gauges. See what everything does and why. Kids in the auto trade schools should be learning to tune up cars twice their age. Then once they've grasped that, maybe not mastered but at least gotten a foundational understanding, move on to the new stuff. Another thought, even simpler - an old motorcycle. First class is each student or group of students is given an old junker motorcycle the instructor found on Craigslist ("Ran when parked 5 years ago, wife wants it gone" sort) or are donated to the school, students get their motorcycles running, but have to rebuild everything (engine, brakes, transmission, etc). A class you don't pass, you ride away from.
Quill Maurer He's encouraged us to purchase cheap vehicle's like motorcycles or Hondas/Toyotas or anything really that is old from a junkyard or Craigslist and said bring it to the school and we can work on it there. He said any where between 200-600$ should do and will go with us to buy it to see if it's good enough to learn from, as a side project. I'll definitely look more into old motorcycles.
Thank you for posting this. I came here to understand the function of the condenser (capacitor) in this circuit. It seems a diode placed across the 12V terminals of the coil would serve the same purpose. Perhaps the charge retained in the condenser also reduces inrush current in the coil when the points connect. I vaguely remember a car from the '60s not running correctly when it has a faulty condenser.
@@Miata822 that condenser is very important in this circuit this a series resononce circuit in that the capistive reactance has to off set the inductive reluctance of the coil for max curent.which is the spark ohms law I=E/R r must = zero for max spark so a diode would not work in this case you can have wrong condencer it will make your points pit needs to be a certain mfd to offset coil as you can see the cond. is very important when points go open lifting gd off the voltage shoots into the condenser causing extra high voltage in the 2nd winding in the coil which is the spark( phew)
What a fantastic video. I am an English teacher, and today I was thinking about how I can motivate my students to develop better study habits if they want to achieve what they set out to do. I was thinking about the two words "should" and "must." "Should" is the voice of procrastination. We ought to take action but we don't. "Must" is the mechanism that triggers us to take action and I was thinking about the ignition key to the engine that sets everything in motion. I now have the visual image in my mind that will kick start my day, when need to get out of bed. 8 year and 4,181,532 visits and counting!!!!
Nobody uses points and condensers anymore. This video shows how ignition was created for engines quite a few years ago. The coil is presently still used.
@@rayford21 Cars don't but many airplanes still use something pretty similar to this. Most planes we see flying around are from the '60s and '70s, and even newer planes used such old tech long after electronics were implemented in cars. Being that the engine working is safety-critical, airplanes are reluctant to use something that isn't extremely reliable and time-proven, and certifying technology for airplane use is a huge hassle, thus most are flying around with literally '40s technology. More recently electronic ignition has become at least as reliable as these old systems, and a few planes are starting to use it. Most airplanes have twin ignition systems as well for full redundancy. What airplanes use is slightly different form what's seen here, as they use magnetos, which works pretty similar but has the primary current generated by a magnet passing a coil rather than from the vehicle's electric system, so it doesn't require an external source of electricity, which is seen as safer and allows for early planes to not even have any electrics whatsoever (again, all evolved from Piper Cubs and other stuff from the '30s). Works more akin to what a lawn mower or other small engine uses.
Excellent animation, I have a similar video but without the animation. Funny seeing the oil points, I remember gapping and cleaning the points in my old 1971 Fiat 124 special lol Keep the videos coming, great job! Thank you
thanx for the videos... i have a question can you please show a animation of how motorcycles starts with a roll or push,, m very confused about the working mechanism behind this scenario..
A motorcycle starts with a roll or push the same way it starts with a kick starter or electric starter, it's just that the rotation of the tire is used to start it turning rather than the normal starter. A motorcycle usually works by the turning of the engine turning the wheel, right? When push starting it, the turning of the wheel is used to turn the engine until the engine gets started.
mrgeorge Sorry wrong. The capacitor and the inductance of the coils primary winding resonate and hence produce the required current swing in the primary which is transformedby the coil producing the high voltage for the spark
It allows the inductive spike (back EMF) from the coil field collapsing to continue flowing to the condenser as the points open, which reduces arcing across the points when the gap is still very small before they open fully, this charge in the condenser is then reflected back to the primary coil and back again many times rapidly in an oscillation, that speeds up the collapse of the coil magnetic field to provide good spark energy at very low engine speed particularly starting, then the points close and field builds up in the coil primary windings again. As they reduce capacitance with age and heat cycles they will still work to arrest points arcing but will the coil will increasingly have less energy when starting and so the first sign of a bad one is poor starting before it gets bad enough to cause arcing on the points. I just did a video covering it and how to diagnose a faulty one.
Wow men you know how the ignition system works you have so much knowledge but why you put the current flow in positive side of the battery... positive side(+) of the battery is intake of used electron charges and current flow is coming from negative side(-)...... Hahaha I'm just asking.... Peace.✌✌✌
Complete convention. The actual flow of the electrons was discovered even after circuits were used, but there was no need to change the convention because everything worked anyways :)
You need to show a COLLAPSING FIELD in the coil. When points close, current flows in the coil which saturates the iron. When points (or Electronic Ignition) OPENS, that magnetism quickly collapses crossing hundreds of windings, and producing thousands of volts from the original 12 volts. SHOW THE COLLAPSING FIELD which produces SPARK. High voltage current returns as a ground through the block and back through the coil case. Low voltage current returns through the points, block, and back to the battery. Reply ·
Here lies the problem with modern society. These days, people don't need to understand WHY?, they simply learn the HOW? We are Old School my friend, we had to learn the theory too. That is why we diagnose and repair while the youngsters throw away and replace.
simplyconnected the surge capacitor should be connected in parallel across the positive and negative of the primary circuit. Not the negative and negative like it shows in this video. Or does that matter?
Electrons travel negative to positive, but current is considered to travel the opposite, from positive to negative. Current was defined before the electron was known.
This is bullshit that's y......its totally wrong...its getting power by the cams not the battery and people actually believe this bullshit......if I'm wrong then how the fuck does the motor still run when the battery is totally disconnected or removed there u go!!!
Really? My Bike doesn´t even have a battery, it produces its own electricity on the ALTERNATOR! If the Alternator is generating enough Power, the Car will keep running, even without a Battery. And the Camshaft doesnt Produce Power. Trust me, im an Electric Engineer. If the Battery is dead AND the Fan Belt is done, you won´t ever see the Engine Running without Power. Furthermore, a friend of mine drives an Mercedes Benz W124. It doesnt have Spark plugs, Distributer, Ignition Coil or else, its a DIESEL... Due to a broken Depressurizing System, you can pull the Keys out without switching the Engine of. It doesnt need anything to Run, exept Diesel, Coolant and Oil. No Electricity whatsoever
Excellent description. I understand electronics but could never understand how an ignition circuit worked. Now it makes sense. I always thought when the points closed was when the plugs got fire. Never made sense.
Could someone explain 1:46? Why does breaking the current induce an EMF in the winding with more turns and increase the volts from 12 to 22,000? I'd like to understand what's happening and why you have so many things going on, not just memorize steps
I has to do with electromagnetism and whats called induction. Due to the way EM works, you can change the voltage of an electrical signal by using coils of wire that are placed near each other in such a way that the electromagnetic fields they generate while current is going through them interact. If one coil has more turns than the other it will 'step up' the voltage of the current. I don't know where you live, but typically you'll see those big white (they can be any color but they're usually white or gray) garbage can/tank looking things on power poles in say..a residential neighborhood. Those are transformers and they work with the same principle. The voltage that the power company distributes across the power lines in the neighborhood is waaaaaay too high for say, your computer or any typical appliance in the house to use without setting itself on fire so, using induction (a lesser winded coil of wire) they 'step down' the voltage to 240 volt which is then clipped in half to two 120 volt transmission signals. In cars, it's the opposite. The voltage from the battery is 12 volts which is way to LOW to actually ignite the fuel air mixture in the cylinder that needs to be fired during the power stroke so you use induction between two coils of wire to greatly amplify the voltage that actually gets sent to the cylinder. That's a general overview. Look up 'transformer' on wikipedia for more information...same principle.
phuturephunk hey phuturepunk, I have an old twin Onan that uses a double coil. Two plug leads. The engine is a "lost spark" type; both plugs fire at once, there is no distributer. My coil has failed and they are not made anymore. Do you think that if I split the input to the primary and use two seperate coils the engine will run. Thanks.
This might be a long explanation but I'll try to be concise. Any changing/moving electric field creates a magnetic field around it. Hence, electricity flowing through a wire creates a magnetic field around the wire. Conversely, a changing/moving magnetic field creates an electric field. Hence, changing the magnetic field around a wire will force electricity to flow within the wire. Looking at this video, you can see that the flow of electricity is forced to stop and start again at regular intervals. This rapid changing of the electric field produces a rapid changing of magnetic field in the transformer (the coiled wire part). The secondary coil, which is inside of this changing magnetic field, then has an induced current forced to flow through it at the same frequency as the primary coil. In a transformer, you can step up voltage by adding more windings to the secondary coil, since the alternating magnetic field then has more wire available to induce a current in. Now the reason for the condenser (aka capacitor) is that the secondary coil applies a resistance to every change in magnetic field. When the primary stops electric flow, the secondary actually forces the primary to flow a little bit more. And when the primary starts to flow electricity, the secondary applies a resistance at first. That's where the condenser comes in. It is just a short-term battery that can absorb charge and then discharge it very quickly on the next interval. As the video states, it lengthens the life of contact points by preventing sparking. btw "emf" is just a fancy word for voltage.
yes it is ancient but very informative for people who drive classic cars like myself, maybe the title should be "how ignition system on classic cars work" (although that depends on what you call classic, I've got a few late 70s, early 80s beemers that I deem classic but don't have contact breaker points anymore.
Always thought about it as "the battery sends a charge into the spark plug, and things turn on". But man there's a whole back story to it. Thanks for this.
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