History
Firing the gap of a spark plug, particularly in the combustion chamber of a high-compression engine, requires a greater voltage (or higher tension) than can be achieved by a simple magneto. The high-tension magneto combines an alternating current magneto generator and a transformer. A high current at low voltage is generated by the magneto, then transformed to a high voltage (even though this is now a far smaller current) by the transformer.
The first person to develop the idea of a high-tension magneto was Andre Boudeville, but his design omitted a condenser (capacitor); Frederick Richard Simms in partnership with Robert Bosch were the first to develop a practical high-tension magneto.
Magneto ignition was introduced on the 1899 Daimler Phönix. This was followed by Benz, Mors, Turcat-Mery, and Nesseldorf, and soon was used on most cars up until about 1918 in both low voltage (voltage for secondary coils to fire the spark plugs) and high voltage magnetos (to fire the spark plug directly, similar to coil ignitions, introduced by Bosch in 1903).
Read more about this topic: Ignition Magneto
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The greatest honor history can bestow is that of peacemaker.”
—Richard M. Nixon (1913–1995)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“False history gets made all day, any day,
the truth of the new is never on the news
False history gets written every day
...
the lesbian archaeologist watches herself
sifting her own life out from the shards she’s piecing,
asking the clay all questions but her own.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)