Spark Plug! Desperately need help!

[Halash]

ok, according to some references i need 40,000 volts to make a spark plug jump the to electrodes!!!!!!!!! i have heard of some weird thing that converts 12 volts to 40,000 volts but i don't know how, where to find it. is their an alternate way to produce 40,000 volts??? i have heard that lasers need large voltages..... are their batteries that have high voltages.???????????????

[mmalluck]

You're not going to find a battery that supplies 40,000 volts.

 

Your best bet is to use the same or simular circuit your car uses to generate the spark. Google up ignition coil circuits. That should give you some idea of what you need to build.

[Trurl]

Is this a small engine? I have read about small engines using a circuit with a capacitor to store energy and let it build up then release it all at once.

 

Just something I read. I really haven't worked a lot with electrical things. But if you are building electricity across a circuit a capacitor does increase voltage once it is released. That is how they did it years ago.

[oppie]

The only thing that I can think of that generates 40,000+ volts is a stun gun. Somehow they use one or two nine volt batteries and convert that into 100,000+ volts.

[Phi for All]

i have heard of some weird thing that converts 12 volts to 40,000 volts but i don't know how, where to find it.

This might be a low-voltage transformer you're talking about. It normally takes 110 volts AC on the primary end and steps it down, or transforms it, to 24 volts on the secondary end. Your furnace has one to run the low-voltage thermostat.

 

But...

 

If you hook up some D cell batteries to the secondary end it will step up the voltage pretty outrageously. You could probably get up to 40,000 volts with just a few Ds. It's amost all voltage, very little amps so it's not lethal or anything.

 

We used to hook a wire to one of the secondary leads and the bottom of the batteries (3-4 taped together end to end), and have someone grab both the primary leads, one in each hand. No one believes a few D cell batteries are going to give much of a shock. Then you touch the top of the batteries to the other secondary lead. Nothing happens until you break that circuit again, but when you do it throws that voltage back through the transformer and give the person a pretty hefty jolt.

 

I never tried throwing a spark but I bet it would.

[Douglas]

In the old cars, their ignition system contained a set of points, a capacitor, a coil and a distributor.

 

When starting the engine, the 12V was fed to the rotating opening/closing points which delivered a square wave to the coil. The coil was an autotransformer (step up transformer) which generated say 5 KV (not 40 KV), this was distributed to the spark plugs.

[Externet]

¿ Why trying to find the complex way to do things ?

You want a spark plug to spark, use a spark plug transformer from a car, motorcycle, lawnmower, whatever. Apply 12 VAC to it and watch where you stick your fingers.

Miguel

[Pleiades]

You're not going to find a battery that supplies 40,000 volts.

26,666 AA batteries in series? j/k

 

If you hook up some D cell batteries to the secondary end it will step up the voltage pretty outrageously. You could probably get up to 40,000 volts with just a few Ds. It's amost all voltage, very little amps so it's not lethal or anything.

As far as I know, transformers only work with AC (alternating current), you need additional circuitry to put DC in, or to produce DC with, a transformer.