Practical No.

Date:

Title: Study of Ignition System

Introduction:

In spark ignition engine or petrol engine the compression ratios are lower (6 to 10). The
pressure and temperature of the charge are too low at the end of compression stroke. The
mixture admitted inside the cylinder cannot self ignite. To ignite this combustible mixture, a
spark ignition system is provided in SI engines.

A spark in the form of electrical discharge between two electrodes of the spark plug is
produced for every cycle at the appropriate moment depending upon the ignition timing of the
cycle.

Requirements of Ignition System:

1. The spark should be adequate strength to ignite even leaner mixtures.

2. The spark should be delivered at exact time during every cycle.
3. All components of the system should be reliable, should have long life and should be
easily accessible.
4. The system should be easy to install and easy to maintain.
5. The high voltage source should be properly shielded to avoid its interference with the
functioning of electrical or electronic gadgets like radio, CD player or a TV installed
in car.

Types of Conventional Ignition System:

1. Battery or Coil Ignition System

2. Magneto Ignition System

Battery Ignition System:

This is the ignition system used in passenger cars, light trucks. Fig. 1 illustrates a simple
circuit showing essential components of battery ignition system used in 4 cylinder petrol
engine. The components of Battery ignition system are:

A battery, an ammeter, an ignition switch, an ignition oil, a condenser, a cam, contact breaker
points, a distributor, a spark plug and necessary wiring.

a) Battery: It is acting as source of electrical energy. The battery is of mostly 12 V capacity.

They are either lead acid batteries which are used for commercial vehicles or alkaline
batteries used for heavy duty vehicles.
b) Ignition Switch: The battery is connected to primary winding of ignition coil through the
ignition switch which is used to turn ignition system either on or off as required.
c) Ballast resistor: This is used to prevent overheating of primary winding of the induction
coil. At low speed, contact breaker points remain closed for a longer period of time and
the overheating problem occurs. At starting, when high current is required the ballast
resistance is bypassed.
d) Ignition Coil: It is also called as induction coil. A 12 V battery is not able to produce high
intense spark across the electrodes of the spark plug. The voltage required is about 1000
times more than this value. This high voltage is obtained by induction coil.
The coil has primary and secondary windings as shown in Fig. 2. The primary windings
consists of 200 – 300 turns of 20 gauge Cu wire while the secondary winding is made up
of about 15000 – 20000 turns of 40 gauge Cu wire. The wires are varnish coated in order
to insulate from each other. The primary and secondary windings are insulated from each
other by oil paper. One end of primary is connected to the battery via ballast resistor,
ignition switch and ammeter while the other end is connected to the contact breaker points.
The central terminal of the coil which is one end of the secondary winding is connected to
the distributor.
e) Contact Breaker Points: This is a mechanical device for making and breaking the primary
circuit of the induction coil as shown in Fig. 3. It consists of two tungsten metal points of
circular face with diameter of 3 mm. The fixed point is connected to earth while the
movable point is mounted on lever, which is electrically insulated by an insulating bush.
The pivoted lever or arm is having a projection called heel which is contact with the cam
driven by the engine. Whenever the lobe of the cam passes under the heel, the arm is lifted
and the points are separated thereby breaks the primary circuit. The pivoted arms are
spring loaded so that when points are separated by the cam, they are held together by force
of spring. The cam has no. of faces equal to no. of cylinders. The contact breaker and cam
are installed in the distributor. The cam is driven by the camshaft and rotates at half the
speed of crankshaft.
f) Condenser or Capacitor: It acts like reservoir of a current when contact breaker points are
open. This avoids sparking between contact breaker points and helps to reduce collapse of
magnetic field and giving a strong spark across spark plug. As soon as contact breaker
points are separated, the excess energy is stored in condenser and immediately reversed
back in the primary circuit.
g) Distributor: It distributes the high tension current to all spark plugs of the engine one by
one as per firing order of the engine. This is achieved by distributor rotor and metal
electrodes which are embedded in moulded Bakelite cap of the distributor. A carbon
electrode is placed in the center of the cap is connected on one end to the induction coil
and other end connected to rotor. The metal electrodes are connected to the spark plugs.
Thus high tension current from the induction coil passes through the central electrode of
the distributor to the rotating rotor which carries the current to the metal electrodes in
sequence and ultimately to the corresponding spark plugs where the spark is struck. The
distributor rotor is driven by the engine crankshaft and rotates at half the engine speed.
Distributor unit also houses contact breaker points, centrifugal and vacuum spark advance
mechanisms.
h) Spark Plug: The spark plug provides necessary electrode gap across which spark occurs.
Fig. 4 shows the design. It has three principle components, an insulator, electrodes and
shell. The insulator is made up of alumina. The electrodes are made up of high nickel
alloys to withstand high temperature and corrosive gases. The central electrode is
connected to high tension wire coming from the distributor. The other electrode is earthed
through threaded part of the metal shell, which is fitted into the cylinder head.
Operation of a Battery Ignition System

When the ignition switch is made ON the breaker points are closed and current flows
from the battery, through the ballast resistor, primary winding of the ignition coil, breaker
contacts and back to the battery through earth or ground. This current sets up a magnetic field
within the iron core of the coil. When ignition is required the breaker points are opened by the
action of distributor cam, interrupting the primary current flow. This makes the magnetic field
collapse and changes the magnetic flux in coil. This induces voltage both in the primary and
secondary. Due to high turns ratio, very high voltage of the order of 12 kV to 15 kV is
induced in the secondary windings. The high voltage induced in the secondary windings is
routed by the distributor to the correct spark plug to produce the ignition spark.

The capacitor in the circuit stores the electrical current when the contact is broken and
sends it immediately in the reverse direction through the primary coil. This accelerates the
collapse of the flux faster and increases the induced voltage.

A Magneto Ignition System

In magneto ignition system,there is no need of battery. The ‘magneto’ generates own

voltage and thus replaces the battery.The other components like primary and secondary
windings, contact breaker, cam distributor (for multi-cylinder engines), spark plug etc. remain
as they are, but the arrangement, ratings and configuration are different.

The magneto is a combination of permanent magnets and windings. Current is

genrally because of the relative movement between the two. Thus there are two type of
mageto rearrangements:

(1) Rotating magnet type.

(2) Rotating armature (or winding) type.

Rotating Magnet Type

Fig. 5 shows a schematics diagram of a rotating magnet type magneto system for
4 cylinder engine.

The magnets rotate along with the flywheel, while the armature pole pieces (or
windings) are stationary.The primary and secondary coils, the contact breaker points, the
condenser, cam, the distributor, the rotor arm, the spark plugs are shown in figure. The cam,
the magnets and the rotor arm rotate while other components are fixed. When the fly wheel
rotates the current is genrated in the primary coil because of the rotation of magnets. The
rotating cam breaks the circuit and high tension current is induced in the secondary coil. The
high tension current is routed through the distributor rotor arm to the correct spark plug to
produce the spark. The condenser prevents arcing at breaker points during their separation.

Rotating Armature Type

Here a permanent magnet is stationary while the armature with primary and secondary
windings rotate between the poles of the magnet. The breaker and condenser connected in
primary windings rotate with the armature. The secondary windings rotate with the armature.
Advantages of Conventional Ignition System

The conventional ignition system with mechanical breaker points has following
advantages:

1. The system is relatively inexpensive.

2. It is simple to maintain.
3. It gives entirely adequate performance at low and medium speeds (especially for four
and six cylinder engines).

Limitations of Conventional Ignition System

The conventional ignition system with mechanical contact breaker has

following limitations. They become more apparent with high compression engine or
with high speed (racing) operation.
1. It has poor performance at high speeds (over 4000 rpm) because of current limitations
and ‘point bounce’ caused by the inertia of mechanical breaker points.
2. It is unable to fire partially-fouled spark plugs because of slow rise time.
3. The mechanical breaker points have short life because of high energy discharge at low
speeds.
4. The spark plugs also have short life because of high energy discharge at low speeds.
5. It has poor starting performance due to slow opening of breaker points at crank speed.

Comparison of Battery Ignition and Magneto Ignition System

NO. Battery Ignition System Magneto Ignition System

A battery is necessary. The Battery is replaced by a magneto.
1.
primary current supplied by the Primary current is supplied by the
battery. magneto.
2. Battery maintenance is required. No battery maintenance problems.

A good spark is available even at The quality of spark is poor at low

3.
low speeds. speed.
Primary voltage decreases as
The spark intensity and system
speed increases. This decreases
4. efficiency increases at high speeds due
spark intensity and efficiency of
to high rate of change of flux.
system.
System is compact and requires less
5. Occupies more space.
space.

Commonly employed in cars and Mainly used in two wheelers, racing

6.
light commercial vehicles. cars and light air craft.
Electronic Ignition Systems

To eliminate or reduce the effect of basic limitations of the conventional coil ignition
system, the coil ignition systems with electronic triggering are used. These are called
transistorized coil ignition systems (TCI) or high energy electronic ignition systems. They
require higher output voltages of the order of 35 kV; as the spark plug are set to wider gaps
(e.g. about 1 mm) so as to ignite lean mixture also.

Objectives of Electronic Ignition System

(1) To increase the life of spark plug and contact breaker points.
(2) To reduce the maintenance of ignition system.
(3) To improve the ignition of lean and dilute mixtures.
(4) To increase the reliability of ignition system.
(5) To reduce the rise time of the current. In conventional circuits, the rise time is between
80 – 200 µs. This is reduced to about 20 µs in electronic system. This gives very fast
switching capabilities.
(6) To overcome the effect of ‘bounce’ in contact breaker operation because of inertia
especially at high speeds.

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