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).
The development of battery ignition, discussing contacts, distributors, coil design, and alternative systems.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\R\October1927-December1927\ Scan138 | |
| Date | 12th September 1927 | |
| EFC. FROM R.{Sir Henry Royce} C. to BJ. BT.{Capt. J. S. Burt - Engineer} HS.{Lord Ernest Hives - Chair} ORIGINAL BATTERY IGNITION. x8692 x8690 x8710 x46324 Although the minor improvements after the scrubbing contacts are not of very great importance, they would appear to be of the order of increasing the life of the contacts, because the break is rather quicker than the make. We do not know of any other reason. We think it is wrong for Derby to have made the arrangement shewn on their scheme D.{John DeLooze - Company Secretary} Sch. We do not know who was the author of this, but it appears to have been spending money and delaying the authorised experiments without much hope of being a useful device. You will see that it should have been sent to WW. for approval before putting in hand because it was clashing with other experiments, and therefore wasteful. I would not write this if there was no limit to our resources of money and capacity, and we must avoid several people designing and experimenting so that their work overlaps. However we are now in a fair way to getting this ignition to a satisfactory degree of perfection, and after getting the scrubbing contacts standardised, the next point that is worrying me is the tracking of the distributor. We must stop this even if we are obliged to make some of the parts in stabalite instead of the more convenient and less expensive bakelite. I shall be glad if EFC. will turn his attention to this part, and find out whether the mushroom rotor is better than the old rotor, and any other modifications to design or material, for instance, we should do better to have the spark gap in an entirely new position, such as on or near the coil. Regarding the construction of the coil I shall be glad to know whether any great advantage is shewn on test of the reversed order of building the coil, namely with the fine wire inside, which naturally is more economical for expense and lower in resistance, as more of the less expensive primary winding is used, and the extra resistance is rather a benefit than otherwise, because we are at present fitting ballast resistance. One other point in connection with the coil is whether it is desirable to adopt a more nearly closed magnetic circuit. x4284 The Delco-Remy ignition on the Stutz shews the coils with the inside secondary, high resistance primary, and no ballast resistance. X8720 I should be keen to get rid of the ballast resistance if possible. R.{Sir Henry Royce} | ||