Re: Placement of Ballast Resistor

Posted by JOHN t on January 15, 2006 at 16:30:33 from (216.176.105.52):

In Reply to: Re: Placement of Ballast Resistor posted by Thomas Donahy on January 15, 2006 at 11:40:26:

Thomas, The coil is an AUTOTRANSFORMER. The Low Voltage Primary and the High Voltage Secondary windings are connected together inside the coil at the coils lil + terminal. The High Voltage Secondary completes its circuit by exiting out the coils top high voltage terminal,,,,,,,thru the coil wire,,,,,,,,to and through the distributor cap and rotor,,,,,,,,to the plug wire,,,,,,,, and eventually the plug gap to frame ground. Thats the high voltage secondary circuit. The plug current is through the coils secondary to frame ground via the plug gap, its NOT through the points/condensor primary circuit..............

The low voltage primary circuit is from the battery,,,,,,to and through an ammeter,,,,,,,,to the switches BAT input terminal,,,,,,,,out the switches IGN terminal,,,,,,,,to and through the ballast resistor,,,,,,,,to and through the coils primary between its lil + and - terminals,,,,,,,to and through the closed points which has the condensor in paralell with them.

Once the points break open the condensor is sitting there empty and discharged and is initially a conductive device and it conducts curent until its plates are charged up then afterwards, its an open circuit to further DC. Immediately after the points open, theres some ringing oscillations in that LC circuit with energy transfer taking place between the condensor and the coils primary. An oscilloscope trace shows that and it eventually dampens out.

NOWWWWWWWW if theres no condensor theres still a spark (but weaker) but the points would burn up quickly. If the condensor were to large, there would be NO SPARK cuz theres no sudden interruption of the current flow and at DC theres no transformer action. THEREFORE if the ballast which is inductive (wirewound resistor) is between the coil and condensor, the sparks weaker cuz some of the energy which properly passes between the coil and condensor gets used up as heat due the the impedance of the extra inductance or pure resistance, and if there, the normal ringing taking place between the condensor and coil would be changed. Its the proper size (NOT too large or small) that yields the strongest spark and if you place additional inductance or resistance in that ringing LC circuit the parameters get all changed. PLACE THE BALLAST AHEAD OF THE COIL !!!!!!!!!

On every make n model n brand of the Kettering coil ignition Ive ever seen, therefore, the ballast is ahead of the coil NOT between the coil and condensor.

I gave that Ignition Seminar at GOG every year plus at the Two Cylinder Expo and the New York Expo, IM GLAD TO GET SOME HELP WELCOME ABOARD They have me giving four other electrical seminars this year whewwwwwwwwww

Hope to meet your there

Good Luck n God Bless

John T Nordhoff in Indiana

Replies:

• Re: Placement of Ballast Resistor mjj 13:33:47 03/26/06 (0)

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