The wonder of Aus (CDI kits etc)

[Wayne Blair]

>From: garfield at pilgrimhouse.com
>Date: Thu, 21 May 1998 17:42:15 -0700
>Subject: Re: CDI - Oz Kits

>Ahhh, horse puckie. Well, it pro'ly wouldna be hard to move to some 0.1"
>double gnd plane perfboard (like TWIN makes, for example) and do up
>manually then. Sheesh, single-sided for a circuit that has both HV and
>fast transients! Phooeey. Well, it's pro'ly still worth the money, just
>for the schematic and all the parts gotten for ya. But you really want
>ground planes and tight construction to keep noise and lead inductance
>down with some of the waveforms we're dealing with here.

So True (see below)

>I've seen/heard of all these pieces from previous posts, but I didn't
>realize they could all be used together. Is that correct? Nice if so.
>Base CDI module, and two additional ones to mimic both vacuum and
>centrifugal advance, is basically what you've described above. Is it so
>they are actually planned to be mated together?

Only 2 units CDI and programable unit, even better.

>These might be nice for quick throw-together lab rats. Do say more, WB.
I'll try and find articles and doc I dont have a scanner yet but it may be
a necessary evil if I'm to be of significant helpp to you guys.

>You aussies have all the fun.
You said it, I'm just grinning and agreeing.

>Lemme see if I understand how these outfits in Oz work. The projects are
>published in Silicon Chip or Electronics Australia, and then DSE, or
>Jaycar, or RCSRadio does these kits up and sells them, so that they're
>all pretty much the same function, if kit'ed up by more than one
>company? Is that right?

Close, kits are usually with a %5 percent of each other
The kits are mainly done some other company and the parts are packaged by 
Dick or whoever. Sometime one company or the other has a monoply on a kit
(for what ever reason).
Kits contain photocopy of artivcles also.
SC has sister mag called Zoom, which usually carries the auto related
stories from SC. and is worth the effort also.

I'll try and get the details for subscribing to EA , SC (and Zoom)  for
those that want them (Dr Pelican) .
It wont be till next week as i'm away from the desk for a while after today.
So if any others from down here post details before hand that would suit
everyone.

>Sources for cheap/quick eXperimental apparatus are important finds.
>Maybe you don't put that very thing in your system without mods, but
>having some bitsNpieces you can throw together for trials is very nice.

To add a bit more info the new CDI is a multi discharge strategy to get
longer spark ( I hope I'm remembering the right article).

While I was at Uni I modified/designed a multi inductive discharge (as
appossed to capacitive) ignition.
It would turn on the primary coil current at the first zero crossing of the
primary coil ring out.
Thus trapping most of the energy stored in the coil instead of wasting it. 
A short time later the coil current was stopped again and a new spark
initiated. 
This was easy as the coil was already saturated and an arc was already
flowing across plug. 
Of course the new spark had to be started before the arc stopped. 
The number of discharges was dependent on the speed of course. 
This may sound like MSD and others and in effect it is but the all seem to
use capactive discharge processes.

It did suffer from the layout problems described above.
But the old galaxie idled so much better.

Selective and intertive refinement  - standard hot rodding. 

wayne