Internal combustion engines frequently employ the battery ignition system as a form of ignition system to start the combustion process. It is powered by an electrical source, often a lead-acid battery, which produces the high-voltage sparks required to ignite the engine cylinders’ fuel-air combination.
This technology has been essential to many different types of vehicles, including cars, motorbikes, tiny engines, and even some stationary uses. In an automobile (IC engine), a battery ignition system creates a spark in the spark plug to facilitate fuel combustion.
In this article, we will explore what a battery ignition system is, it’s application, diagram, types, and how it works. We also discussed its advantages, and disadvantages.
What is Battery Ignition System?
In a battery ignition system, a 6- or 12-volt battery is charged by an engine-powered generator to provide power, an ignition coil raises the voltage, a distributor directs current to the appropriate cylinder, a spark plug protrudes into each cylinder, and a device interrupts the coil’s current.
From the battery, current flows via the coil’s primary winding, the interrupting device, and then back to the battery.
In earlier cars, breaker contacts—a switch with tungsten contacts to slow erosion—were responsible for interrupting the primary current. A breaker cam, a spinning device with a lobed surface (one lobe for each cylinder), opened and closed the points when it was driven at half engine speed.
Current passed through the ignition coil’s primary winding when the breaker contacts closed. The reluctor, a magnetic pulse distributor that generates timed electrical impulses that are amplified to regulate the current to the ignition coil’s primary winding, is the interrupting device in electronic ignition systems that were first introduced in the early 1960s. In general, these technologies improve engine efficiency and lower ignition maintenance.
An iron core is twisted around a wire to form the main winding. A secondary winding with several more turns of finer wire connected to the distributor is located above this. A magnetic field is produced when current passes through the main winding.
The circuit is broken and the current is stopped when the breaker cam opens the breaker points or the reluctor sends its signal. The secondary winding, which is supplied to the distributor, experiences a significantly greater voltage as a result of the magnetic field collapsing.
A movable finger within the distributor spins at half engine speed. It comes into contact with contacts that each go to a separate cylinder as it revolves.
The rotation is timed such that the piston is nearly at the top of the compression stroke and a high voltage has just been created in the secondary winding of the ignition coil when the finger hits the contact for a certain cylinder. As a result, the spark plug gap is impressed with a high voltage.
The central electrode of the spark plug is set within an insulating ceramic. A threaded metal shell around the outside screws into a hole at the cylinder’s top.
Over the end of the center electrode, a ground electrode protrudes from the cup. The two electrodes are separated by a little space of 0.015–0.040 inches (0.038–0.102 cm).
A spark ignites the air-fuel combination when it crosses the gap at around 8,000 volts. The spark can ignite faster at high engine speeds because to a centrifugal feed, and it can ignite earlier at tiny throttle openings above idle thanks to a vacuum advance.
Applications of battery ignition system
Vehicles such as cars, buses, trucks, and even bicycles employ battery ignition systems to generate sparks that allow combustion fuel to burn.
Diagram
Parts of Battery Ignition System
Below are the various part of battery ignition system:
Spark Plug:
Another crucial component of the battery ignition system is the spark plug. Here, fuel or charge is burned to produce the real spark. If there are many spark plugs, they are each linked to the distributor independently and provide the spark in the proper order.
Capacitor:
A capacitor is a device that stores electrical energy. It is connected in parallel to the contact breaker, and as the current dips, it supplies more current to create a spark. It is composed of two metal plates that are spaced apart by air or another insulator.
Distributor:
Its function in a multi-cylinder engine is to control the spark in each spark plug in the proper order. Two categories of distributors exist.
- Carbon Brush types: It consists of a carbon brush that glides over the distributor cap’s embedded metallic part.
- Gap type: In this kind, the rotor arm passes through the distributor cap’s metallic portion without making contact with the cap’s surface. It is known as a gap type distributor for this reason.
Contact Breaker:
When the contact breaker is open, electricity passes through the condenser and charges it. The breaker is an electrical switch that is controlled by the cam.
Ballast resistor:
This is typically made of iron and is used to limit the current in the ignition circuit. It is connected in series with the ignition coil and switch. Nonetheless, it is utilized in vintage automobiles.
Ignition coil:
It’s the primary intersection, or perhaps the primary component of the battery ignition system. Its primary function is to increase battery voltage to a level that is adequate for producing the spark.
The device functions as a step-up transformer and has two winds: a primary wind with fewer turns and a secondary wind with more turns.
Battery:
The purpose of the battery is to give the ignition system—more especially, the ignition coil—with its initial current. The battery’s voltage is often 6V, 12V, or 24V. Lead-acid and alkaline batteries are the two types of batteries that are often seen in automobiles. Despite the fact that current cars employ lithium-ion and zinc-acid batteries.
Ignition Switch:
It is employed to turn the engine on or off. Through a ballast resistor, one end of the switch is linked to the ignition coil’s primary winding, and the other end is connected to the battery.
In essence, the circuit is completed (closed circuit) when the key is inserted and the switch is in the ON position; when it is moved to the OFF position, it functions as an open circuit. These days, the push button takes the role of this switch, and the technology is referred to be keyless.
How Does Battery Ignition System Works
In a battery ignition system, electricity will flow to the primary circuit via the contact breaker, primary winding, and ballast register when the ignition switch is activated.
A magnetic field was created around the primary winding by the flowing current; the more current we provide, the stronger the magnetic field will be. The current flows through the primary winding and decreases as the contact breaker opens.
In the primary winding section, this abrupt drop in current creates a very high voltage of about 300 V. The capacitor enters the charging state as a result of this enormous voltage, and once it is fully charged, it begins to deliver current to the battery.
Because of the reverse flow of the current and the magnetic field that has already been created in the primary winding, a very high voltage of 15,000 to 30,000 volts is produced in the secondary winding.
The distributor, which already has a rotor rotating within the distributor cap with metallic segments imbedded on it, receives this high voltage current via a high tension wire.
Thus, as it begins to rotate, it eventually opens the contact breaker point, allowing the high voltage current to pass through the metallic segments and into the spark plugs.
Therefore, a high-intensity spark is created within the engine cylinder when the high voltage current hits the spark plug, allowing the combustion fuel to burn.
Advantages of Battery Ignition System:
- High spark intensity.
- Provides high spark concentration even at low engine speed.
- Less maintenance compared to other ignition systems.
Disadvantages of Battery Ignition System
- Battery Efficiency Decrease
- Efficiency decreases with reduced spark intensity.
- Battery occupies more space.
- Periodic maintenance required for Battery only.
FAQs
What is a battery ignition system?
In a battery ignition system, a 6- or 12-volt battery is charged by an engine-powered generator to provide power, an ignition coil raises the voltage, a distributor directs current to the appropriate cylinder, a spark plug protrudes into each cylinder, and a device interrupts the coil’s current.
What are the advantages of battery ignition?
The battery ignition system has a very cheap startup cost. When the engine is starting and running at low speed, battery ignition produces a nice spark. Compared to a magneto system, a high-speed engine is easier to drive. With the exception of the battery, very little routine maintenance is needed.
What are the main components of a battery ignition system?
A storage battery, an induction coil, a distributor, a mechanism that causes the induction coil to release high voltage discharges at specific times, and a set of spark plugs are the fundamental parts of the ignition system.
What is the difference between a magnet and a battery ignition system?
An electric spark is powered by a magneto ignition system’s own electric generator rather than a battery. With the exception of the spark plug, every component of the battery ignition system is changed in a magneto ignition system.