| Ignition System |
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| Written by Turnmission Team |
| Sunday, 19 July 2009 23:17 |
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Definition: Remember the engine cycle phases? One of the phases is where the spark plug ignites and thus powering the car to move. So, the definition of the ignition system is a system to ignite a compression mixture. Looking at the above figure, the car's battery just carries 12V. You must be thinking are you kidding? Because a car was such a powerful machine, it shouldn't work by just relying on a 12V battery. No! You are wrong. Although the battery was just 12V, a device called the ignition coil (a kind of transformer) was used to boost up the voltage. This device boost up the 12V to a large sum of 10,000V! Why we do not fix the battery straight to 10,000V is because of many good reasons like durability, safety reason and others. In order to ignite the correct cylinder in a correct time where the mixture is being compressed, a device called the distributor is linked to the rotation of a camshaft. Then, few high-tension cords (depends on numbers of cylinder, if it has 4 cylinder means it have 4 high-tension cord) is linked to the engine spark plug from the distributor itself, to perform ignition. These high-tension cords have to have good insulation due to the high voltage used. This is basically how the ignition system looks like. It is simple isn't it? For your extra information, will a mechanic be killed by the strong 10,000V when he was touching the parts? The answer is again, No. Although the voltage is high, the current is quite small. |