From the Rolls-Royce experimental archive: a quarter of a million communications from Rolls-Royce, 1906 to 1960's. Documents from the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Foundation (SHRMF).
Experiments on battery ignition wiring tubes to investigate electrostatic disturbances.
| Identifier | ExFiles\Box 61b\4\ scan0193 | |
| Date | 22th May 1919 | |
| X4119 To R.{Sir Henry Royce} from EFC1 COPY. EFC1/AT22.5.19. c. CJ. Bn.{W.O. Bentley / Mr Barrington} E.{Mr Elliott - Chief Engineer} c. Ey. Da.{Bernard Day - Chassis Design} EP.{G. Eric Platford - Chief Quality Engineer}EH. X.3129 - BATTERY IGNITION - WIRING TUBES. We have now made a number of experiments in connection with the bunching of wires together in a tube. These experiments have been made on the standard plain coil ignition which we have in running order on the bench. We have tried:- (1) All distributing wires arranged separately and fan-wise. (2) All wires bunched together, but not through a tube. (3) All wires bunched together through a bare steel tube. (4) All wires bunched together and passing through a mild-steel ignition tube specially covered with insulating material (as used in aero work). The first effect that came to light in these experiments was that the principal cause of disturbance is of an electrostatic nature rather than an electromagnetic, that is to say, any effect which may be produced on a neighbouring high tension wire to the one in action at the moment is primarily due to the electrostatic influence and not to electromagnetic induction. For the purpose of the experiments we connected the high tension wire from the coil to one only of the high tension distributing wires direct, so that the distributor was put out of action. We could then vary the principal sparking on one gap alone, and observe the effects on the other five gaps due to variations in the principal gap and in the other gaps themselves. We found that it is almost always possible to get very tiny sparks on the gaps not | ||