What are coils and their function?

[Btuvi]

What are coils and their function? How does one tell a good coil from a bad? Are there symptoms or is it something that has to be inspected?

Thanks

 

[tashasdaddy]

Re: What are coils and their function?

a coils, creates and stores electric energy, and when trigger, by the points, sends this energy to the spark plug to fire. most of the time you have weak or no spark at the plug. also over a period of time they deteriorate, the housing starts to crack, and the spark get weak or non existent.

 

[Chris1956]

Re: What are coils and their function?

An ignition coil in a motor converts a low voltage to a high voltage, sufficient to jump a spark plug gap, or surface gap. Coils may be tested with an ordinary ohmmeter. The primary winding will usually have a small resistance of an ohm or two. The secondary winding (spark plug wire to ground side of coil) will have many ohms of resistance. Coils are really transformers, optimized for use in motors.

The coils change the voltage from the primary winding to the secondary winding depending on the ratio of the windings. In a conventional points/coil auto ignition, the coil has 8 volts on it's primary winding and 20,000 volts on the secondary winding.

BTW - coils only transform pulsating voltages like AC or rapidly collapsing DC voltages like in an ignition system of a motor.