SteveR Rambin

Just a poll to see weather or not ignition failures are a common occurrence among you gas burners. Several of my friends now own or have owned gas engines from 20's to 100's by all of the popular manufacturers with most of them having had ignition failures at some time or another. This would tend to get expensive and may be a factor for me to stay with four stroke nitros.

waynebang

Ignition failure should not be a factor in determining whether or not to go gas. If you fly long enough you will probably have a failure. The ease of operation and the greater fuel economy of cheaper fuel is a real plus.

BadAzzMaxx

I guarantee you that you will spend more on glow plugs than what will be spent on ignitions.

Milton

a1pcfixer

My Feedback: (7)

Might I suggest you get different friends, some that have better knowledge of gassers.
Seriously, done correctly, it's rare to hear of ign failures.

Instead of a 'poll' why not do a 'Search' with GOOGLE on "RC Ignition failure"
Then figure say less than 3% and figure it out for yourself.

BadAzzMaxx

I have been selling ignitions for over three years and in that time I think I have had 4 at the most returned from failure, Not sure some of them were from over voltage.

Milton

STUKA BARRY

If your worried about ignition failures, then go magneto. Zenoah and Quadra are still some of the most reliable engines on the market today.

hobby_man

My Feedback: (8)

I have glow plugs that are 8 years old in the same engine

mpascual

My Feedback: (1)

Many times there is no problem with ignition box.
Spark plug cap and boot damaged by a crash is the main problem. Replace the spark plug cap and that's all ...

ahicks

My Feedback: (2)

That's what I was going to say. Drop one in on it's chin during a less than graceful re-entry and taking that cap out isn't to difficult at all! That's the only way I've managed to loose an ignition.

closetguy

My Feedback: (13)

i had one ignition go bad on my first gasser,they are not made to go past six volts.

Diablo-RCU

My Feedback: (1)

I have had failures with DA, 3W and Falkon ignitions. My CH and RCexcl ignitions haven't failed......yet.
Anyone who has been flying gassers for the last decade has seen plenty of ignition failures.

BarracudaHockey

My Feedback: (11)

I've had more servo or mechanical switch failures than ignition failures. On the list of things to worry about, anything on a vibrating airframe can go bad but its not something I'd loose sleep over.

exeter_acres

My Feedback: (2)

never for me...
but admittedly I only fly one brand..

MTK

Interesting.... Suspect that much of the ignition problems, however few, are related to engine vibration getting to the modules. Yet another reason to soft mount most any single cylinder for our models. Twin cylinders are also prone to vibes except quite a bit less.

Been soft mounting my 30cc, 40cc and 55cc engines and over the past 3 years and some 1000 flights, zero issues. And the benefits to airframes and radios are there too

mogman

I have 3W, RCEXL, CH..(both old throttle coupled and synchro spark), no issues..........(yet!)

SteveR Rambin

Good point on the soft mount. Shakey frames breakey wires.

Antique

My Feedback: (4)

Been mounting ignition circuits inside on a plate across the engine mount for 24 YEARS..Only failures were my fault, I didn't put enough electronic silicone over the circuit to keep the capacitors and parts from shaking...
Put some C&H circuits there too...Same result....

lasers200

The only ignition I had luck with was CH. Once they went out of business had bad luck with everything else. This is one reason I went back to glow.

Ed

3 engines with mags, and 3 engines with ignitions, .................. zero failures !

pe reivers

Having used magneto, CDI and all other kinds of ignitions: Yes, like all manmade contraptions they have failed on me. Sometimes because of my ignorance, sometimes they just failed. So did glow plugs. I threw away more glow plugs than ignitions though. The fact that I carried a dozen spare glow plugs in my glow engine days speaks for itself. Nowadays I do not carry spare ignitions, because gas is much more reliable. Thinking of it, I do carry a spare plug, just in case I need to help a friend out.

PS,
My diesel engines never needed to have a plug changed

a1pcfixer

My Feedback: (7)

I keep all my DLE/3 plugs, just in case somebody I DON'T like needs one.[X(]

Cheater!

Warbird Man

My Feedback: (95)

Never had a magneto system fail. Electronic ignitions are overated.

scaleman57

My Feedback: (23)

I haveto agree with Hobbyman,I have a12 year old Saito 180 in a giant scale Cub with over 200 flights on it and I am still using the original glow plug.If you avoid lean runs they should run for a long time. Ihave been flying gassers for a few years ( DLE ,DA,Fuji) never had an ignition failure,then again I do run them carefuly and only go with 4.8 volts.

Truckracer

My Feedback: (19)

I have had magneto systems fail on several occasions. Usually a bad coil and no visible reason for the failure. The spark would just get weaker and weaker over time then finally just go away. The one on my Stihl saw has got weaker over the last two seasons so even those have problems.

No failures on EI yet.

kerwin50

Of all the CH ing systems I have seen and been around I don't beleive I have ever seen a bad one not to say there hasn't been one.