Originally posted by theplummer
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Another engine starting right up with the diode connected:
I don't think the difference between the Street Fire and 6AL is quality of parts. The main difference is that it has a more robust charger to charge a cap that has about 35% more joules of potential energy than the one in the in the Street Fire. 6AL is 135mj and Street Fire is about 89mj. 6AL just a much stronger unit.
If you have the 6AL connected and the orange wire is connected to the + of the primary of the ignition coil, there obviously is power there because you say so yourself that it starts and runs the engine. If there was no cap charging and discharging (positive of cap connecting to + of primary with orange wire), it would not start and run the engine.
How are you scavenging too much power from the cap? There is a sequence to the events and it is impossible to take too much from the cap that would prevent it from starting or running the engine. Why? Because the cap discharges to the primary of the ignition coil FIRST. SECOND, the cap will only discharge through the diode and over the gap IF and ONLY IF it gets a spark. If there is no spark, the potential in the cap just sits there because there is no place for it to go. The gap is just an open circuit to the cap until there is a spark. The ignition coil will only take the bare minimum needed to make spark strong enough to conduct the cap over it so in that sense, it is self regulated so that you always get most of the cap to go over the gap automatically.
Please elaborate on this: "Also, apparently I was scavenging too much power from the cap, to charge the coil when it did trigger to the coil, that the coil would not charge enough to get any spark to the plugs, as it would not start, nor would the timing light pick up any spark to #1 plug." if that happened when you connected the diodes and it wouldn't start, etc. my guess is you have the diodes pointing in the wrong direction. Look at the picture below. The diode in that direction only works if the HV output from the ignition coil is POSITIVE. If it is negative, you have to reverse that diode.
The experiments showing a diode from primary + to the top of the HV output of the coil is just for a bench test demo or for a single spark plug engine such as my Champion Generator video above. I was the first ever to do that proving you can use the cap for both the primary power source and the LV source to jump the gap.
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