glowplug voltage?
 

Hi,

I have a new AP .09 with an Enya no.3 plug, 1.3-1.5 volts, which is what is recommended in the engine instructions. But my battery that I used to use for an OS48 is 2 volts. Can anyone tell me if there would be any danger of breaking the glowplug, or worse, if I use it?

cheers,

George

glowplug voltage?
 

You could fry the element with too much "E". Fox makes 2 volt plugs but I would think you could just find a nicad (1.2E). These are usually enough for a good glow. However 1.5 (Alk) would be good as well but expensive to keep replaced.

ZB

glowplug voltage?
 

A lot of us used to use a govt. surplus 2 volt wet cell for starting with around 6 ft. of lamp cord for added resistance. Might be a good idea to use a volt meter for correct length with your battery. MAX H.

DON'T USE WIRE-use a GERMANIUM POWER TRANSISTOR instead!
 

Dear Big Max 1935:

The PIPE here yet AGAIN-and I've been using a Hawker Energy 2 volt 5 amp/hr lead acid cell for lighting my 1.5 VOLT glow plugs for a VERY long time, now, going way back to the later years of my "earlier" (1977-1986) involvement in RC flying...

...and the "GERMANium SECRET WEAPON" that allows me to do this ALL the time can be found at http://www.nteinc.com/Web_pgs/Germanium.html !!!

The particular part ON that page I use to do this with is the NTE27 germanium power transistor...just hook up the "emitter" lead to the plus terminal of the 2 volt lead acid glow plug battery, and the "base" terminal and the negative terminal of the battery get hooked up to whatever "favorite" glow plug hookup device you find best to use!

That combo will get just about ANY 1.5 volt glow plug glowing like a little orange-yellow LIGHTHOUSE...my "usual" variety, for anyone that knows me well, is the OS TYPE F plug above all others (unless an Enya No.3 is in the neighborhood)...and I have NEVER burned out a glow plug yet with that combo!

WHOOPS, now I REALLY have let one of my most closely guarded SECRETS out!

Yours Sincerely,

The PIPE! ;)

glowplug voltage?
 

My Dear MR. Pipe : I must be some what older than you ! The batteries we used were" WWII "surplus! 1940's & 50's . Back then the only thing we had was the wire. Geranium(Germanium) that was a flower my grandma had in her flower box back in Iowa. The old Arden, O & R, & Champion plugs were pretty tough! MAX H. P.S. I to am a single stick nut starting with a Orbit 6-12 in 1969.

Actually GERMANium was the very FIRST material TRANSISTORS were made from...
 

Dear Big Max 1935:

The PIPE Here again-and I could be wrong, but perhaps you're a fellow KNOBBY transmitter user from "further back" than yours truly, during the days, possibly, of Orbit's old REED radios??? Sounded like it from the "6-12" name of that rig...please forgive me for thinking that way if I got it wrong...!

In 1948 the very first "bipolar" transistor was made at Bell Labs from GERMANIUM...and it pre-dates SILICON by, I think, nearly a decade (perhaps less) as a material (actually a CHEMICAL ELEMENT you'd find on those "periodic tables", with the symbol "Ge") for solid state electronic devices.

The typical GERMANIUM transistor has a voltage drop behavior across one of its "emitter-base junctions" that's a bit LOWER in voltage value than a silicon transistor has-say, about 0.4 to 0.5 volts for germanium, rather than nearly 1.0 volt for silicon-which, by coinicidence, makes it PERFECT for the sort of duty we RCers could put it to, in dropping a 2 volt lead acid battery's output to JUST the right 1.5 VDC voltage figure to give a glowplug a good LIGHTHOUSE effect without burning it out!

My so-called "German-ium Secret Glowplug Weapon" is STILL lighting up my four stroke model engines some TWENTY YEARS after I first built it in the early 1980s! I keep the Hawker 2 volt lead acid battery in it charged up with one of my FMA SuperNova chargers, and there's even an analog METER movement in it to let me know of plug "flooding" or even a BLOWN one, if it should ever happen!

ONE of these days, if I can ever find the time, I'll get a website of mine up to show how to make one of these-or perhaps it MIGHT be a good RC/CL/FF "across-the-boundaries" construction article to do up for the AMA magazine...they MIGHT just like it a whole LOT...! http://smilies.crowd9.com/contrib/geno/wink.gif

Yours Sincerely,

The PIPE! ;)

[Just waitin' for the "MUGGIES" to leave New England-summer's hottest weather just plain HATES me!!!]

glowplug voltage?
 

My Orbit Says 6-12 on the ID plate but is a proportional 6 channel on 27.145 , center loaded antenna. Charger is built into xmtr. The fun part was the trim adjustments were knobs with no markings at all to show center . Broke the centering spring on main rudder knob so many times I put a range mark on it so I could still find center! Still have it along with about a dozen other old singles. Seems most on here don't know what a multi-meter is & only half of them know how to use it , that would be a good thing to give a thread on. MAX H.

glowplug voltage?
 

Thanks for the replies, I'll have a look in the electronics shop. Resistors etc can't be more than a few pence and then I can use the same battery for any engine. Cheers,
George