Off-car Practical: Ignition

  The Aim of this whole task is to simulate Different Types of Ignition system setup. But before that, we were introduced to analyze some popular devices which are responsible for Crank/ Cam Position/ RPM.

  The Distributor came first as it is inevitable in a Conventional Ignition System. Not just a cap, the whole device houses a Reluctor Magnetic Pickups, the first to pick up Engine Position and spark timing. The pickup coils and the reluctor tip are 2 main things to check: their distance and how fine the teeth on the reluctor rotor are crucial to how clear the G and NE signal will be. Without these signals being clear, ECU has a hell of a hard time to start the car since it doesn't know what stroke each cylinder is in.
  Because the Reluctor's signal is not as good as it is in high RPM, more advance signal sensors are available, ensuring these is NE and G signal whatever the engine speed, by giving only Digital Signal not Analog like the Reluctor Magnetic Pickup one.
  Hall-effect sensor, instead of getting close to the magnetic pickups coil, the rotor is now capped with a steel chopper plate, that squarely cuts through the magnetic field, which will bring in Digital signal. This gets more electronic because the signal generated is processed by the Hall integrated Circuit.
  Optical Distributor offers Digital signal with a different method, instead of magnetic, this is photo-sensitive. And Infra-red diode sending light beams to a photo electric cell, and there is also a steel chopper plate to interrupt the receiver squarely, giving digital waveform.

Testing Ignition coils
Important step in diagnosing Ignition system. But only in Conventional, the Primary coil is exposed. In more electronically integrated system, coil packs are likely to be combined with the Ignition Module housing. So checking Primary's resistance, waveforms etc... is almost virtually impossible. So only 2nd winding can be checked, since there are still high tension cords to the spark plugs.

Ballast resistor is a method to current-control the primary coil from overheating. In electronic system, that won't be necessary since we have advanced current control circuit integrated in Ignition Module.

First, simulating the Conventional Ignition System: This encountered difficulty because it requires Point Breaker mechanism which is manually primitive, must be on a timed engine to work fine. So we'd rather step on to Electronic Distributed Ignition: This consists of: 12V battery, a 2k2 resistor, a coil pack, an Igniter, a Distributor, High Voltage Cord, and a spark plug. This simulation emphasizes the idea that in Integrated Distribution Electronic Ignition, coil pack is integrated into distributor housing, and the Breaker/Points is now replaced by a grounding Igniter, which uses power transistor and on/off signal to ground the primary current:
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In this experiment, we had to manually turn the distributor rotor, which was normally turned by a timed cam gear.

Next, same setup, but we use a Function generator to create on/off signal, simulating the processed signals from the ECU, from the NE/G, rpm sensors. There is NO distributor from this point on, this we called Distributor-less Ignition (DIS)
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3rd, the Wasted Spark Ignition, the idea is that the Ignition Module houses 2 coil packs, which are responsible for 4 spark plugs, by a mean of 2 discharge circuits. In this test, at least 2 spark plugs are used. One must receive the spark and transfer that spark into its companion spark plug as a reversed spark.
(Image + Video) This only works for even numbers of cylinder.

Finally the most advanced we know so far, the coil on plug, we just need to hook it up with the function generator, which were currently simulating the on/off switch command from the ECU, after it's very intricate advance timing, current controlling processes from various sensors( Crank/ Cam/ RPM/ O2/ TPS etc...)
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The thing is coil on plug virtually eliminates every moving parts(Point/Breaker; Distributor Rotor) and distant components( high tension cords, less wiring overall), significantly improving coil saturation, timing, emission, fuel economy, and the Ignition system itself is more reliable overall.