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).
Magneto performance issues, including cold start failures, noise, and endurance testing.
| Identifier | WestWitteringFiles\S\March1928-May1928\ Scan092 | |
| Date | 8th March 1928 guessed | |
| -2- Contd. Later magnetos seem to have been rather poor, and we have noticed on our own tests that they are just on the limit. In fact it has been the case that machines which would just pass our low speed specification (as it was) would not start the engine cold. We have therefore altered our specification accordingly, and have advised Messrs.Norths. That means that now quite a number of machines fail to pass either our General Specification or our Production Test, and have to be returned. Of a number of machines with which the Test Dept. have recently dealt, five would not start the engine cold, as the EG6. type and experimental Lucas machines will do. The earlier or experimental EWG. were better, though in this case also there was some trouble in starting the engine cold. It does not seem to be so much a question of voltage, because the machines are not too bad on the bench tests, but a question of the energy available to overcome the very slight leak. It will be remembered that as reported in our EFC1/T11.2.28, a number of experimental machines were bad for noise. Of these magnetos referred to in the above mentioned report as being reasonably acceptable at the time, one, (No.99802) has now been reported noisy, No.100094 now fails to start the engine, and the third (No.105302) we now have running an endurance test in our laboratory at a speed which has been doubled to 2900 r.p.m. as compared with the 1450 r.p.m. (See EFC8/T8.3.28), the test being largely one of the endurance of the all-bakelite gears. | ||