Possible Ignition Source

A place for general potato gun questions and discussions.
spudzinger
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Thu Feb 02, 2006 6:34 pm

Hey, I just had a brain fart.LOL. Excuse me.Anyways I thought maybe you could use a standard small engine spark plug. Like one from a lawn mower. You could either use it with a capacitor,a piezo sparker, or with the original magneto setup from a lawn mower engine, which you could power with say a vacuum motor.Has anyone ever tried this before? Info would be appreciated greatly.
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evileye250
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Thu Feb 02, 2006 6:41 pm

i just just thinking the same thing as i was looking at a spark plug. just like 10 minutes ago. i would do it but i wouldnt know how to get it to spark.
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jrrdw
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Thu Feb 02, 2006 7:17 pm

to get a spark plug to spark you need a 12 volt coil and a 12 volt battery

you charge the coil with the 12 volt battery, then you collaps the field,(disconnect the power supply), this makes current flow to the primary side,)plug lead/wire and causes the plug to spark, but a spark plug is designed to work with the propertys of gasoline/air mix, not hair spray, butane, rightgaurd ect.....

the spark plug may not perform as well with the different fuel

if you try it and use a ford coil, or any other round coil so you can mount it to your cannon


TECH TIP---make your spark plug leed as short as possible, (less voltage drop)

SAFTY TIP----a dischargeing coil can cut your thumb in half, ask my friend billy, a poniac sunbyrd got half his thumb
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Atlantis
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Thu Feb 02, 2006 11:06 pm

Capacitors are safer than coils, they might make your hand numb, but they don't turn into a thumb arc cuttter.
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boilingleadbath
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Fri Feb 03, 2006 4:20 pm

"you need a coil to get a spark with a sparkplug"
No you don't. Many people use stunguns, and you could probably use a peizo-electric sparker.
spudzinger
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Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:17 am

Nice Ideas. But my original idea was just to use the hand pulled magneto setup, straight from the mower. You could just pull it or you could use something like a vacuum motor to spin it real fast, to get a nice rapid spark.
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The High Plainsman
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Sun Mar 05, 2006 1:40 am

if you pull a spark plug out of a mower and leave it attached to the magnetic stuff and the pull string, i see no reason it wouldnt spark.
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