psgugrad

My Feedback: (2)

I posted this question a week ago in the battery forum and no one answered...surely I can't be the only guy who wants to do this. Would I use a diode? a regulator? resistor? Any advice appreciated.

PS: I experimented by simply placing a 2nd glow plug in the line and a 1000mah 3.3v cell ran them for 15 minutes...REALLY hot...engine ran like a sewing machine. If I had something to cut the output voltage in half, would the cell run 1 plug for 30 mintues?

Thanks

tipstall 131

You can use a regulator curcuit. I intend to that for on board glow as well. I bought a DIY regulator kit from an electronics store here. You should be able to get the same thing from radio shack where you are. It is realy simple to build. A few components to solder and you,re ready.

bjr_93tz

A linear regulator type will act as a variable resistor to keep the output at 1.5V (or whatever it's set to) and disipate the rest of the volts x current as watts (heat) for no real efficiancy gain.

A switching type regulator will turn the full voltage on and off really quickly with the ratio of on-off determining the average voltage. For something as dumb as a glow plug a 555 timer circuit set to switch at a coupled of hundred hertz with a duty cycle about 40% would do just fine..

tipstall 131

BJR, could you please elaborate on this curcuit? Do you perhaps have a schematic drawing? I went to the elctronics store and they gave me a linear regulator kit but made no mention of the swicthing mode regulator. This sounds like a better solution.

jaka

Hi!
Why do you want on-board glow?? It's not needed on any two or four-stroke glow engine if you set the carb right, mount the tank according to the tank mounting rule and use the correct fuel andf glow plug.!

flyingagin

How about this On-Board Glow Igniter 1.5V 3A
http://www.hobbyking.com/hobbyking/s..._1_5V_3A_.html

On-Board Glow Igniter 1.5V 3A
Specs:
Input: 6v~23v
Output: 1.5v 3A
Dimensions: 22.9x20.3x7.6
Weight: 8g

Ken

earlwb

I would just simply use a on board glow ignitor and two LiFe cells in series. I have a couple of planes using that setup already.

psgugrad

My Feedback: (2)

Ok but how do you get the voltage down?

JPMacG

My Feedback: (2)

You could rip the innards out of a power panel.

psgugrad

My Feedback: (2)

That crossed my mind!

earlwb

Well the onboard glow ignitor has its own electronics built in that reduces the voltage down to a safe level for the glow plug. They usually include a circuit for measuring the current flow and adjust it as well, plus they include a circuit that allows you to set the turn on based on the throttle position too.

You can also perform a GOOGLE search for "glow plug igniter schematic" and see if any of those methods that show up will work for you too. Unfortunately some are from another forum though.