On Thursday, 17 November 2016 19:59:45 UTC, NY wrote:
"Roger Hayter" wrote in message
...
charles wrote:

to go further, the car electrics rely on a battery - this inherantly a DC
device.

They need not rely on a battery. If, for example, you have a starting
handle and carbide lamps.

On cars that used a magneto and which therefore generated alternating
current at HT voltage, was the phase of the magneto "hard-wired" to that of
the crankshaft (eg by gear/chain/toothed belt drive), so each pulse of the
magneto corresponded to the instant when a spark was required in one of the
cylinders, or was it totally asynchronous, with it being a matter of luck
whether the magneto was outputting maximum voltage at the instant when a
spark was required? Or did they rectify the magneto output and smooth it
slightly with a capacitor to keep the HT at a high voltage irrespective of
the phase of the magneto?

Magnetos have the magnet in the edge of the engine flywheel, producing one timed spark per rev.

Trembler coil ignition ran all the time, resulting in very ropey spark timing & rough running. Hence it was just used for starting.


NT