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Laser Ignition May Replace the Spark Plug
dusty writes "Laser Focus World has a story on researchers from Ford, GSI, and The University of Liverpool and their success in using near-infrared lasers instead of spark plugs in automobile engines. The laser pulses are delivered to the combustion chamber one of two ways. One, the laser energy is transmitted through free space and into an optical plug. Two, the other more challenging method uses fiber optics. Attempts so far to put the second method into play have met some challenges. The researchers are confident that the fiber-optic laser cables' technical challenges (such as a 20% parasitic loss, and vibration issues) will soon be overcome. Both delivery schemes drastically reduce harmful emissions and increase performance over the use of spark plugs. So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear. The news release from The University of Liverpool has pictures of the freakin' internal combustion lasers."
If it makes cool red lights flash under the hood like KITT, I'm all for it.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
When the vehicle gets to be a few years old, and the rings start letting extra oil past. Soon the lenses are covered with soot. Sparks can still jump through a moderate layer of soot, can the laser?
This will probably arrive as a viable and reliable technology right about the same time the internal combustion engine is on it's way out.
Don't think fax machine, think FD Trinitron.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Am I the only one that after seeing "Laser", automatically read "shark" instead of "spark"?
Is it one shark per cylinder?
Yeah, they're gonna be pissed.
Of the freakin sharks in the freakin engine bay!
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
this is typical insane engineering- if this succeeds then a mechanic would need to be an expert in light theory and frickin laser beams to work on your car.
Only as much as they need to be an expert in fluid dynamics to change your oil.
this is not the way to make cars more efficient- spark plugs work great and im sure these lasers cant give any more power - the spark plug ignites the gas already, and it BURNS- how much more combustion could you get?
It is a good question as to how this would work any better but if you've ever spent any time under the hood you know it doesn't take much in the way of fouling or plug wire degradation to change fuel efficiency. If this system can avoid those kinds of issues it would make certain aspects of tune ups obsolete and would also increase fuel efficiency over a period when traditional plugs and wires would degrade but not to the point of seemingly needing replaced.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
the spark plug ignites the gas already, and it BURNS- how much more combustion could you get?
It's not so much getting more combustion, but making the combustion behave how we want it to. And there's a long way that can be gone.
But whether this has any real point compared to other fuels, such as diesel that have a big leg up on gasoline to start with, is up for debate.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
I'm assuming it's because gasoline is a helluva lot easier to light on fire. My experience from being an adolescent firebug was that gas burns easily, but very quickly, whereas diesel takes a lot more heat to get started, but burns more slowly, and probably releases more energy. I'm no chemist, but my understanding is that different hydrocarbons have different energy yields, and diesel is much more efficient, the tradeoff being a very different kind of engine.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Because mechanics now are such experts on electricity. Or cars, for that matter.
Not a typewriter
Oooooo, when can I buy replacement lasers from the auto shop!?!?!
Duh. The nozzles at the gas station are different sizes.
.sig withheld by request
Electric cars don't need no stinkin' spark plugs.
inefficient. Adding a laser is not going to do much.
Man, you can use them to light cigarettes too! Oh hell... the fuel injector fire at the same time!
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
Gasoline will auto-ignite just fine, it's just much trickier to control when it ignites than with spark ignition or diesel ignition.
Mercades has a engine in development called the diesotto that does this.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
Great, the laser pulses will probably be DRM encoded so that only authorized chips are used and vendors that insert the appropriate smart card can perform service on them...
The advent of CPU-enhanced cars is a great one, but this is one place where the govt really needs to step in an open things up. For standard engine codes, things aren't too bad; but Lord help you if you want to read an ABS or airbag code from a GM vehicle (for example). They're locked down. I have some decent PC-based code reader hardware and software, but in order to read the ABS error that my two vehicles are both showing (GM, learn to design ABS, will ya!), I need to spend hundreds or thousands on their own software/hardware to simply find out which of my four ABS sensors is faulty.
The more they get into specialized things like this, including laser ignition, the more I worry that I won't be able to be a backyard mechanic any more.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
is a car with frickin' laser beans on its cylinder head?
Nope, they use potpourri sented spark plugs, so much smugger.
Gasoline is a very 'dry' fluid. It provides almost no lubricity. Diesel engines need some lubricity in their fuel to lubricate the very high pressure injection system (might be less of an issue with modern common rail systems and piezo injectors though).
"Prefiero morir de pie que vivir siempre arrodillado!"
Diesel engines work without spark plugs -- they compress the air before injecting fuel; the compressed air is so hot that the fuel ignites by itself.
My truck has spark plugs, and every "consumer grade" diesel engine I have ever seen has them. So where did you hear of this non-sparking engine?
However, diesel engines require diesel fuel. They cannot use gasoline.
Actually several diesel engines can burn gas for short runs(like making in to a gas station). It is a good idea to go get a service check soon afterward because it can screw your system over, majorly.
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
"So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear."
:(
I always get my secretary to page me when I get a new fax. Then I head over to the closest payphone and give her a call to see what it says. Generally its just spam
I've spent entirely too much time under the hood of a car(21 year auto mechanic), and you are entirely incorrect.
Degrading plug wires either cause a misfire, which is blindingly obvious and kills mileage horribly, or doesn't. There is no middle ground. Plug wire misfires happen maybe once or twice in the 300,000 mile life of a (japanese...) car.
Modern electronic ignition systems are fairly immune to spark plug wear until extreme circumstances, such as missing three tuneups in a row with standard plugs. Then you will sometimes get drivibility issues and lose 1mpg, tops.
Back in the days of points it was different, plug wear and point wear (mostly point wear) had huge effects on mileage between tuneups. These days, the effects are minimal at most.
Those aren't spark plugs, they're glow plugs. different animal altogether. No spark, just a hot wire...
What kind of diesel engine truck do you have? Most consumer diesel engines (including mine) are direct injection, at least in the U.S. They intake air, compress it, and then inject the fuel directly into the combustion chamber (hence the term "direct injection"). It is the heat of the compressed air that lights the fuel. No spark plug required.
this is typical insane engineering- if this succeeds then a mechanic would need to be an expert in light theory and frickin laser beams to work on your car.
No, you do exactly what they do now:
When it is determined that there is no spark = replace the coil pack (laser sequencer), or replace the plug wires (fiber pipes), or replace the spark plugs (thingies that screw into the cylinders).
Now...this laser stuff may or may not be needed. But repairs nowadays = remove and replace the bogus part.
The coil pack on my almost 10 year old truck is a sealed unit. No fix, just replace.
Plug wires? Trivially replaced
Plugs? The only thing I might need to do is wirebrush. Or replace at $1.50 ea.
A laser ignition might be useful in adjusting the ignition rate and level, according to engine load, and balanced with fuel flow/mixture. Similar to a camera flash. Depending on need, you might want it to fire slower or later than under full load.
With a current spark plug, you get to time it, but not adjust the level of spark. You get spark or no spark.
There's another obvious application for this - detonating nuclear bombs.
Nuclear weapons require that all the charges be detonated simultaneously, within nanoseconds, so that the implosion squeeze is precisely symmetrical. (OK, A-bomb geeks, I'm ignoring asymmetrical designs and flying-plate systems here.) If the timing is even a few nanoseconds off, the core won't be compressed; it will just blow out on one side, and a "fizzle" yield will result.
The usual trick for this is to use an "exploding wire" detonator. Unlike regular detonators, which have an intermediate explosive to start the main explosive, exploding wire detonators do it in one step, by discharging a capacitor bank through a resistance buried in the explosive. This takes a very fast high-voltage high-current switch, and the traditional solution is a krytron, a gas-discharge vacuum tube from the thyatron family. There have been big flaps over the years about various countries trying to acquire krytrons, which aren't classified but are export-controlled.
Krytrons are 1940s technology. This laser ignition system could be its replacement. One big laser pulse pumped through fibers of equal length to each detonation point should do the job. And it's off the shelf dual-use technology.
Diesel engines work without spark plugs -- they compress the air before injecting fuel; the compressed air is so hot that the fuel ignites by itself.
My truck has spark plugs, and every "consumer grade" diesel engine I have ever seen has them. So where did you hear of this non-sparking engine?
Like others have mentioned, those are glow plugs, and they are really only necessary to start the engine when it's cold out. I've driven a Mitsubishi Pajero diesel that had no glow plugs. Works just fine, but starting at anything past -10degC is not fun. Takes about a solid minute of cranking and what looks like a volcanic eruption of black smoke before it'll decide to run. Luckily they're running on 24v so it can handle the extended cranking.
Can y'all throw in a car analogy? Help a inquisitive brother out.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
My truck has spark plugs, and every "consumer grade" diesel engine I have ever seen has them. So where did you hear of this non-sparking engine?
Your diesel engine has glow plugs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glowplug
Long story short: The glow plug's heat allows your diesel to start and then it maintains heat so that combustion can continue.
Really big diesels (commercial size) don't need a glow plug because air in the compression chamber stays hot enough to maintain the combustion temperature.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Sparkplugs cost like, uhm, a dollar.
> Soon the lenses are covered with soot.
I would think it would be self cleaning, wouldn't the laser keep all the crap burned off of the lens ?
We are Dead Stars looking back Up at the Sky
...they replace the fuel spray from injectors with heavy hydrogen pellets.
You want uniform burn. This is the problem with ALL ICEs (Diesel and gasoline). Gasoline starts burning around the spark plug and propagates out, diesels start around the injector and go out. Ever seen a diesel spew black smoke? Or how about sit near an old muscle car and have it smell a bit like gasoline?
In an ideal world you combine the two cycles and get Homogeneous charge compression ignition where everything in the cylinder goes BOOM with 0 fuel left over at exactly the same time.
The problem with putting lasers in your engine is that it gets hot in there, and laser lifetime plunges drastically when you run them at elevated temperatures. I'm sure the dealers will love us having to replace our laser-plugs every two months, but no one else will.
(And if you're thinking thermo-electric cooling is the answer, that's going to use a whole lot of juice; don't know how feasible it is.)
..and get low-end torque like a locomotive?
I just patented a device to control sharks through attached spark plugs. How am I suppose to use a laser? Sharks and fiber-optics don't mix well. Besides their lasers are busy with other matters... Sigh.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
... or has anyone bought a spark plug lately?
I hadn't really thought about it, but now that I think about it, I can't remember every buying a spark plug for any car I have owned, that was made after 1987...
Maybe I don't keep cars as long as I used to, or do they just last longer now?
I assume the robots that make cars now are more consistent than the dudes who made them before.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
We used a similar system starting back in the late 1990s for initiating ordnance systems. The primary explosive would be doped with a small amount of carbon black to enhance absorption. One advantage was that specific equipment was required for proper initiation, which (in theory) made it safer.
Dynamite and a laser beam indeed.
1) bigger spark (ex. MSD, HEI, and more recently coil packs)
2) multiple plugs per cylinder (ex. most prop driven aircraft)
3) cylinder head design (ex. hemi heads, no not the new ones, those are a penta design)
Nevertheless, my pool full of sharks anxiously await a time when I can buy high output lasers at my local autozone.
Really big diesels get plugged in at night (block heater) when it's cold outside. :)
And if some moron forgets to plug their truck in, they get to spend 15 minutes trying to start it with a can of Ether.
The improvement has to do with where the ignition takes place in the cylinders. On direct injection engines, mixture does not always end up where the spark is. With a laser the point where ignition occours can be carefully placed to maximize the benefits of a lean mixture.
diesel ignites under much lower pressure than gasoline and ignites far more routinely. It is far too chaotic to be used in that fashion.
gasoline ignites much better by spark, and the compression makes it more volatile to the ignition by spark. That is the very reason for octane, making it less volatile to random ignition due to highly heated surfaces and such while the compression stroke is happening. The 'ping' in engines is caused by either low octane fuel or more commonly a gummed cylinder head raising the compression due to space loss from it's existence.
-- This space for lease, low setup fee, inquire within!
Just think, if they could get the lasers well, a lot more powerful, you could have an internal fusion engine... launch some deuterium into the piston, light it off with a laser... why, we could have the internal "combustion" engine for billions of years to come.
This is my sig.
Yer funny...rocket with zero moving parts == dud.
Not at all. "Moving part" simply means an internal mechanical component that moves in relation to the rest of the machine. A gear, piston or valve is a moving part.
The machine as a whole does not constitute a single moving part, despite the fact that in the literal interpretation of the phrase it sounds like it could. The key word is "part", i.e. as separated from the whole.
A rocket can be as simple as a hollow tube, capped at one end, filled with solid propellant. You ignite the fuel (preferably via a fuse) and watch it fly. No part of the rocket moves in relation to any other part, unless you wish to interpret "part" so loosely as to include the exhaust.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
No diesel car I have had has used spark plugs. They all have plugs, which from the outside look a bit like spark plugs. But they dont spark - they 'glow'. If you look you will see they are all wired in parallel - and they receive a continuous voltage when the engine is cold. They are used during starting to provide a hot spot which will ignite the fuel in a cold engine.
My Ford F150 has no plug wires. A coil sits right on top of each plug.
Unless you are running rich (reprogrammed the computer) or rings are shot (low oil level for some time or bad air filter) you should not get fouling.
Modern platinum plugs are good for 100,000+ miles.
High-end plugs like the splitfire (not the one in the picture) are supposed to have a bigger spark for better performance/efficiency but I haven't seen an independent test showing significant improvement so I suspect that either they don't make a bigger spark or a spark bigger than that of a regular platinum plugs does not result in performance gains.
It sounds like a great experiment assuming the price is reasonable, but I think the odds are long in it replacing the spark plug.
"My truck has spark plugs"
No, it has glow plugs, these only operate when the fuel is cold (ie: at cold start), they stop running when the engine is up to temperature.
"Actually several diesel engines can burn gas for short runs"
No!. Old diesels can tolerate some fuel contaimination, newer common rail, or other high pressure systems can be destroyed by them, with repair values in the $10,000 range.
If you accidentally put petrol in your diesel, do not start it for any reason (This includes moving it away from the pump or onto a tow truck) until the tank and fuel lines have been flushed correctly.
It doesn't, but it might help get us to work a little more efficiently than today if the new techs don't take off.
Think of it as part of a multi-pronged attack on emissions. Try everything.
Forget that, I'm still waiting for a car analogy even after scrolling by 90% of the posts.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
wake me up when they are blue
God's gift to chicks
Hopefully they are dependable. With the heat of engines I'm not sure how long they would last. One good thing is that it'll flood the market with cheap high power lasers. Importing the parts my have to go by the FDA since they regulate lasers.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
I'm about 80% done rebuilding and restoring a 1964 Dodge Dart.
I love the push button automatic. I love the rock solid and reliable slant six. I love that when it came off the line in mid 1963, JFK was still alive, and America was still a democracy.
I've upgraded to electronic ignition. It is MILES better than the old distributor!! I can't wait to upgrade the plugs to laser ignition! Future generations of this technology will definitely supersede the old plugs!
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
Running your diesel engine on gasoline is inadvisable. The reason they suggest that you have a service check if you run your diesel engine on gasoline is because gasoline tends to wear out your injection pump and some kinds of injectors very quickly. The injection pump relies on the fuel for lubrication and injection pumps are fairly expensive. Even when biodiesel costs a lot more then petro diesel, using biodiesel as a diesel additive (2-5%) can be cost effective because the better lubricity of the fuel can make injection system components last longer.
The article points out that they aren't suggesting that this laser ignition system would be used in cars. Their development efforts so far have been aimed at large natural gas engines. I'm guessing that they aimed for natural gas engines with this technology because it will be expensive and a lot of the costs will be relatively fixed per engine, thereby making it a prohibitively large fraction of engine cost for a small (cheap) engine, but more reasonable for a large one.
The article also mentions that reflected light from within the cylinder could be used to measure the fuel constituents to match engine parameters to the fuel. (Natural gas engines are frequently used for things like burning waste gasses from landfills to generate electricity. Landfill gas contains all sorts of weird stuff in concentrations that vary over time; engine emissions are a serious concern when burning landfill gas, but emissions can be controlled to a large degree by varying things like timing and mixture. Being able to vary engine parameters on the fly in a more accurate way could be a big deal for the environment in places that generate a substantial amount of electricity this way.)
They are *NOT* spark plugs (ie: they don't produce sparks). They are called glow plugs (heating element). Diesel runs on compression alone.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
As I understand the article, the laser still ignites the mixture purely by heating it.
I wonder if using UV light would work even better, where you also get some ionization effect to start the combustion?
Captcha "underway". Huh. Does that mean that this is already being researched?
This is the exact sort of nonsense that SHOULD have killed all three of the "Big Three."
Automobiles have become a vehicle (pun intended) for delivering a bunch of packaged non-essentials to the consumers. Hell, even Microsoft has gotten into the game and started putting their software in cars.
The other day a friend asked me to look at the driver door window switch on her GM-built SUV. It wasn't a switch problem. It had a fucking processor running the WINDOWS of the vehicle and I couldn't access the damn thing without a scanner/interface. Simply more shit to drive up the price and TOTALLY unnecessary for the functioning of electric windows, all the while ensuring that it more then likely has to go back to the DEALER for repairs.
You sound like they're going to install lasers that can be aimed. Well call me the pessimist, but that doesn't sound likely. More likely, they'll install pre-focused plug-lenses that will work just the same as the old spark plugs, and still fail to optimize the jets for correct fuel distribution on ignition.
My big question is why don't they simply incorporate the laser into each plug, and run a data wire alongside the power wire.
Always going forward, 'cause we can't find reverse.
"Do not look at the spark plug with your remaining eye."
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Diesel engines work without spark plugs -- they compress the air before injecting fuel; the compressed air is so hot that the fuel ignites by itself.
My truck has spark plugs, and every "consumer grade" diesel engine I have ever seen has them. So where did you hear of this non-sparking engine?
These are pre-heating sparks used for warming air in cylinders before starting the engine
>> "So the spark plug could soon join the fax machine in the pantheon of antiquated technologies that will never completely disappear."
Aw, you were so close, but missed the mark. There are many other examples that you could have used and kept with the car theme. For instance,
Carol vs. Ghost
Because incremental improvement is a lot cheaper than replacing an entire infrastructure. One thing an awful lot of geeks don't seem to grasp is the sheer cost and timescale of e.g. migrating to fuel cells or EVs, compared to incremental improvements. In Europe, modern gasoline fueled cars are about as efficient as Diesels were 15 years ago, and Diesels are between 10-20% more efficient than they were then. The engines are also much lighter and more reliable, i.e. lower external costs. In that time the penetration of EV and fuel cell technology is effectively zero. If we'd stuck with the status quo and waited for the magic bullet, we would actually have achieved nothing - because battery and fuel cell technology is taking a lot longer than anyone expected, and in the meantime they have to achieve ever better performance just to keep up.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Another way to see the point, look at the difference between a Honda lawnmower engine and a Honda car engine. The lawnmower engine is probably as simple as a basic fuel cell, with very few moving parts.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=78116&page=1
FTL
For those of you not in the know, Smokey Yunick was a legendary race car mechanic and Popular Science correspondant. He died a couple of years ago. In March 1983 Popular Science carried a story about an engine he had developed that only had two cylinders and 78 cubic inches but developed 150 hp and got 60 mpg when installed in what looks like a Volkswagon Rabbit. He called it his "adiabatic engine." Supposedly all sorts of car companies were quite interested in the engine.
When I see this I will belive the oil companies have given up.
I bet the final version will be the same form factor as a regular plug, except that it contains a synthetic diamond or sapphire window and an IR laser diode capable of producing the required energy density when pulsed at < 33.3 Hz (8,000 RPM).
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
WTF ?
Ignition takes place a few degrees before TDC - always. You know exactly where the mixture is because the piston has just pushed it all up to the head. They design the inlet ports and the top of the piston to swirl and mix the fuel & air to the most efficient possible mixture. The spark plug is at the top because you want the mixture to burn from the top down, pushing the piston away. Direct injection only regulates the amount of fuel added to the cylinder. It does not "place" the mixture anywhere.
How stupid do you think the existing designs are ? Moving the point of ignition is a waste of time, when the whole device is currently designed to present an adequately mixed fuel to the point where it can be efficiently detonated. Every time. Mechanically enforced.
The laser system is going to present ignition at pretty much exactly the same place as the spark plug does now. Unless you redesign the whole mechanical concept of an ICE. (change the cylinder shape, crankshaft, pistons, air intakes, exhaust etc etc). This has been tried already and it's called the wankel rotary engine. The only problem with wankels is they are less efficient. They can develop more power just by adding more fuel, but not more efficiently. Changing the method of ignition will not help that problem.
All they are doing is replacing the spark plug electrodes which generate a high enough potential to create a high temperature spark to ignite the fuel mix, with a laser beam and assembly that creates enough heat to ignite the fuel mix.
It will be like having a CD/DVD laser in each spark plug, rather than that just two metal pins.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
There's probably a good reason, but why not use microwaves? Wouldn't that be better to ensure even burn?
I've spent entirely too much time under the hood of a car(21 year auto mechanic), and you are entirely incorrect.
Degrading plug wires either cause a misfire, which is blindingly obvious and kills mileage horribly, or doesn't. There is no middle ground.
You are 100% full of shit.
I have personally had intermittent shorts in spark plug wires which caused them to fire fine sometimes. I found the problem by flexing the wire in question while testing it and watching the resistance go from a few kOhms to infinite.
In addition, plug wires can go partly bad, to the point where the resistance will be increased, causing a weak spark on some wires. You can find this problem by laying out all the wires on a table and checking their resistance. Longer wires should have more resistance. If you find a discrepancy, you've got at least one bad wire. Furthermore, in a vehicle with a flaky electrical system (say, one out of three alt. coils is bad) your voltage can be highly RPM-dependent, so you can have good spark only at high RPM.
Modern electronic ignition systems are fairly immune to spark plug wear until extreme circumstances, such as missing three tuneups in a row with standard plugs. Then you will sometimes get drivibility issues and lose 1mpg, tops.
This has relatively little to do with the ignition system and everything to do with the rest of the engine. Since it's computer controlled, the computer tries to prevent you from doing things with your engine that your plugs can't cover (it learns what causes misfires.) The biggest difference there is really that most modern ignition systems have a higher voltage; in the 1960s you might have 20kV, now it's usually more like 80. But you could get a high-performance coil back then; you'd just burn out your points, which we don't have any more.
I would be ASE certified in automotive electronics if I could have afforded the exam back in the day. I am ASE certified in heating/cooling/air-cond. You have just told people things that aren't true, and no amount of experience excuses this.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Good point. What about having the laser occasionally re-aim it's target, or energy so that it hits the lens or covering, so that it ignites and cleans it. Or have two lasers that can be aimed at each other, and can clean each other.
..........FULL STOP.
Laser ignition is a lot like spark plugs.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
I would assume that once the laser bean gets into the ignition chamber, it gets reflected and concentrates in a multitude of points trough the ignition chamber thus causing a multi-point ignition that would much increase the speed of combustion while not increasing the speed of explosive wave front prorogation.
Yeah, it's just like waiting for a taxi.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
Surely the internal combustion engine is an "antiquated technology" ? Dont just replace the spark plug, replace the whole flippin engine with something from the 21st century not the 19th.
I have a questions, during the combustion process Carbon can build up on sparkplugs. What happenes when it builds up on the Optics, and how long do these things really last?
You're missing the point. Just getting the fuel to burn isn't the goal here. The goal is getting it to burn completely and consistently. We can certainly make improvements in that area, which will help both power and fuel efficiency. True, lasers may not work, but research is never a bad thing.
GP is correct that there is no reason why a mechanic would need to be any more of an expert in lasers than he is now. Aside from some cleaning, how much maintenance will a laser take? When it breaks, you replace it, just like most other parts of the car. This technology won't become mainstream until the cost comes down to the point where that's feasible.
You're getting worked up over nothing.
The confidence of ignorance will always overcome the indecision of knowledge.
My truck has spark plugs, and every "consumer grade" diesel engine I have ever seen has them. So where did you hear of this non-sparking engine?
Seriously I just facepalmed.
...and what advantages over the spark plug does this rather expensive sounding method have?
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
1) You're still going to need something solid to keep the hot gases and gunk from escaping.
;).
2) Even if you cover the whole top of the cylinder with the laser stuff, if some gunk ends up on the laser things are going to get nasty.
The other problem (not just free air).
When soot/gunk ends up on a spark plug the spark plug doesn't fail dramatically.
When soot/gunk ends up on the exit point of the optical fibre, or some "window pane", or the laser itself, your "laser ignition" engine will lose more than just a few HP
So you'd probably have to diverge the beam a lot, have a huge window (or multiple windows) and focus it some point in the cylinder, so that random junk stuck on the window won't heat up and blow up.
Of course you could make the window very strong so that soot blowing up next to it won't break or wear it out. But if stuff is just igniting right at the window and not inside, I doubt the ignition will be much better than a spark plug.
A misfire is still a misfire, and a misfire is what is caused by a plug wire with internal breaks. It can be part time, but it is still a misfire and is very obvious, like i said.
A weak speak causes a misfire under load at low RPM, that weak spark can be caused by a high resistance plug wire, or other factors. However, it still either causes combustion or doesn't cause combustion.
What you mention, checking plug wires with an ohm meter and/or flexing them is first year stuff, it's not exactly a secret. I was not talking about how you find the source of a misfire (random or not), the diagnostic process isn't relevant here. Nor is the very true fact that you can have a misfire in some RPM bands and not others. The point, is that plug wires that are not causing a misfire do not effect fuel mileage significantly, something you seem to have missed.
The ECU's #1 priority is the mixture, all other things are secondary, and it's the mixture that primarily controls fuel mileage, assuming there aren't failures elsewhere.
I'm glad you're certified in heating/cooling/AC, but i don't see where that gives you any special knowledge in ignition systems of internal combustion. It means that you're a passable automotive HVAC guy, which is great for HVAC stuff.
Single spark plug. And it sucks with the standard plugs installed, particularly round the 3,500 rpm mark where they test the emissions.
In order to get the thing to run smoothly it needs a projected tip iridium plug. Now, this is only an obvious problem because it is a single cylinder machine and it's a relatively large cylinder, but other engines are going to have exactly the same problem with stratification of the fuel/air mixture and combustion efficiency but hide it behind multiple cylinders. A LI plug will allow engine designers to put the spark where they need it, possibly even beyond TDC since there is nothing to get in the way.
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It seems car companies are highly resistant to giving up on gasoline engines. It probably explains why hybrid cars are all styled so ugly. Anyway even hybrid is really not much of an improvement unless you're a car salesman.
I guess they are all tooled up to make gasoline cars and don't want to pay for retooling or the effort required to change to another tech, regardless of the damage to the planet their business model causes.
I bet these guys are getting funding from the car companies to come up with any excuse to keep gasoline engines being sold instead of having to actually deal with change.
"BOOM" is right. That's (by definition) detonation, and the force you get as a result is quite an engineering challenge to harness.
Had an issue last year where local gas stations had diesel put in to the regular unleaded pumps. Didn't seem to hurt my Suzuki designed 4 banger (Chevy Tracker 2.0 L) but I guess some folks had problems. Got a $100 gift card (Cosco) out of it and guarantee of repairs if any problems.
I drank what? -- Socrates
The point about the placement of the ignition point is good thinking. You are using TDC to mean crank angle, but that's not what it means. It means when the piston is, literally, at top dead center. If the ignition point is determined by a laser, it can be set to a position on the upstroke which will actually be covered by the piston at TDC, though the crown is below it when ignition occurs. This means much more flexibility in the placement of the ignition point, possibly leading to new combustion chamber profiles which were previously impossible. Although at first sight it seems odd, once ignition has started the rising piston will push the ignited gas upwards. Perhaps this is where a ceramic or cermet insert in the crown could come into its own.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
If we've got the hydrogen storage problem licked, ... then why use an IC engine over a fuel cell? In a FC + electric motor configuration, ... and probably other advantages I've overlooked.
A big one is efficiency.
In an internal combustion engine you burn the fuel energy into heat, then use the heat to run a heat engine before dumping it outside. This means you pay the "carnot cycle tax" - which means you lose something like 2/3 of your energy when operating at the relatively low temperatures a mobile IC engine must to avoid massive generation of nitrogen oxides from the air.
A fuel cell, on the other hand, can in principle convert virtually ALL of the energy of the fuel into electricity, suitable for powering a motor which can, also in principal, convert virtually all of that into controllable torque and horsepower. Real motors can easily get well over 85% (and pretty much have to in an automotive application, where two wasted horsepower is about 1,500 watts of heat). I'm not sure where real fuel cells are these days. But build and sell a few million a year into a competitive market and you can bet they'll improve. B-)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
IMVHO, only two things will pitch ICE's off the top of the pile: 1) a radical, cheap, viable, ready-to-go, drop-in-now replacement, or 2) time, a long time.
A plug-in hybrid with enough energy storage to recycle the power of coming down 8,500 feet of mountain for going up the next hills or across the valley, the way a normal hybrid recycles stopping from 55 MPH to start back up and cruise a bit, with a smart enough controller to keep the engine off until needed, would do it.
You'd be able to commute on stored grid power (equiv. of well under a dollar per gallon at the moment). You'd still need some power plant for long trips - which might still be a small I.C. engine or might be something else, like a fuel cell sysstem.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
The ECU's #1 priority is the mixture,
Priority? Let me just take this sentence apart. First of all, we don't even call them ECUs any more; while the term is still accurate enough, all modern vehicles are OBD-II and have a PCM. It's actually mandated terminology. What's the difference between an ECU (OBD-I terminology) and a PCM (OBD-II terminology)? The PCM (Powertrain Control Module) cares more about emissions than anything else, period end of story. The ECU cared about efficiency. The PCM only cares about efficiency as a path to good emissions. The only "check engine" sort of light mandated by OBD-II is the MIL or Malfunction Indicator Light, which lights when the PCM detects a condition resulting in excessive emissions — resulting in a monitor being set due to a failed trip.
and it's the mixture that primarily controls fuel mileage,
Approaching a stoichiometric combustion ratio is key to efficiency, sure. But you get closest not only when the mixture is controlled, but when the engine is at optimum conditions, meaning at a certain percentage load and in a certain RPM range, at a certain temperature, with a certain throttle opening, and so on. Advanced control systems like that used in the Northstar powerplant (which uses throttle-by-wire, with the intake butterfly servo-controlled) can thus achieve significantly better efficiency by accelerating how they feel it should be done, on their time. So really, it's not just the mixture that's the key to mileage. All factors are important.
I'm glad you're certified in heating/cooling/AC, but i don't see where that gives you any special knowledge in ignition systems of internal combustion.
It's too bad you didn't read the part of my comment (see sig) where I explain that I would have the cert for auto electronics as well (what is that, A-6? A-8? I forget) if I'd had the money for the cert at the time. I've never used my A/C cert, which is why I've never bothered to go get my electronics cert. All the above is from memory, so there could be minor errors, but I doubt it. In fact, I do have special knowledge of ignition systems, at least as compared to the average mechanic. I can do more than replace parts when the PCM (or ECU) tells me to. I know how every sensor on the vehicle works, and how to diagnose them, et cetera, et cetera. I got an A on my final, and in the class, for what that's worth. In fact, the mid-point quiz is a full-length sample test for the ASE exam, which I passed (not a requirement to pass the quiz.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
lol
i don't think they will be THAT high powered.
we're not talking Cyclops...
if you rtfa and look at the videos, you'd see the power output is equivalent to a spark plug spark. i'm sure most of us have been zapped while checking for spark....
what i can't imagine is someone reading this post nearly a day after the article hit the front page.
You're understating the problem quite a bit. Gasoline is actually a degreaser. It doesn't just fail to lubricate, it also removes any existing lubrication.
Japanese import, right hand drive. Here in BC, Canada it is allowed to import foreign vehicles after they are 15 years old. The cars most commonly come from Japan where they are driven sparingly, so many of them have very few miles on them.