What does the ballast resistor do?

[Dale Pearman]

EVERETT IS RIGHT!

Hey partner the middle finger thang was just onest time cause I burt the %#@& out of my fanger! You speak with straight tounge about this ignition stuff. You're a TRUE M.E. in the realm of the E.E. and you indeed make sense (almost). My Hat's off to ya!

!mooooooooraV

[Duke W.]

Nah! I'm just a...

ME/MBA, but anything newer than steam tables and present value of a dollar tables are out of my league, which includes EE, Chemistry, and big blocks. However, despite these deficiencies I invented the computer long before Algore invented the internet, but I'm still trying to figure out what they're good for.:)

Duke

[Dale Pearman]

DUKE IS RIGHT!

I thought the ignition switch was supposed to short-out the ballast when cranking!

Varooom!

[Duke W.]

Ignition switch?

Dale - if he's testing the engine in the frame I figure the ignition switch is not wired up. That's why I recommended shorting the ballast while he cranks it until if starts.

Duke

[Dale Pearman]

Boolean Algebra

Common Don, you're in one dimensional space with those hyperbolic cosines and tangents. Lets move into Fouier space and consider an infinite number of dimensions. Only when all dimensions are scanned from negative infinity to positive infinity can we be certain the &*#@ing resistor is 0.3 ohms!

Regards,

Ferdinand LaPlace Varooom!

[Dale Pearman]

DUKE IS RIGHT!

OH!

Rev Varooom!

[GaryC]

[Don O'Connell #33101]

To Infinity and Beyond...

Dale,

I would of thrown in some calculus, but these PC keyboards just don't have an intergral key!

We're we talking about resistors.....(nice Friday thread).

1/DON

[Ol'Geezer]

[Ol'Geezer]

[Dale Pearman]

RALPH IS RIGHT!

If the points are open there's no current. We are way beyond that point in our thinking. The voltage DROP across the resistor is of no importance whatsoever. Why couldn't an ignition system be designed around a straight 12 volt system depending on coil primary resistance for current limiting? IT COULD BE! TRUST ME! the ballast resistor is a current REGULATING device. It compensates for RPM and depends of heat radiation to control current. That's all there is to it!

VBarooom!

[Dale Pearman]

OL GEEZER IS RIGHT!

[Chuck S.]

I WUZ A Rocket Scientist Too!

Geez,

Hee, Hee! Yep, me too, I WUZ a rocket scientist (Aero.E.). Thought I was gonna starve to death in the late sixties. Made a career change to the "awl bidness"; price of crude collapsed in the eighties, and about a third of us got laid off. Better prepare for Social Insecurity to go belly up, 'cause I'm headed in that direction!

Re: This Thread We're On - Have you ever seen such a B. S. blizzard in your life? I think poor ole Gary S. is still trying to get a straight answer. I was unaware of the "deep holes" of Friday threads and stepped off in this one! Hee, Hee

Chuck Sangerhausen

[Duke W.]

Re: Does this mean a TI ignition doesn't...

Good point. GM has produced lots of elegant designs and Kettering's inductive ignition and self starter are certainly on that list along with the high compression quench combustion chamber, the Hydramatic transmission, and the Chevrolet small block V-8. Of course there are many others that I haven't mentioned. I'm not trying to start a new controversy here. But the basic mechanically switched inductive ignition was why past its prime by the time Zora developed the small block into a 6500 rev screamer. It took until the mid-sixties to come up with a suitable ignition (the TI), but it was expensive,complicated, and (relatively) unreliable. The HEI was an elegant design because it was highly functional, simple, reliable, and cheap to build!

Duke

[Duke W.]

Can you convert metric to English?

This is the true test to qualify as a Rocket Scientist. A couple or weeks ago I failed to convert properly in a post to the Board. JPL blew it a few months ago and lost a Mars mission. Twenty seven years ago I set up a Minuteman for a test launch at Vandenberg and it didn't go when the launch crew turned keys. My career as a Rocket Scientist was short. That's why I got a MBA. Oh,well. It's nice that I get weekend passes from the asylum so I can post messages to the Board.

Duke