USA made, UK owned, but what does it do?

[jimgreen]

As I've mentioned before, my dad worked on light aircraft in the 80's in Africa, trained in CA at Cessna. He gave me all his gear, but he can't remember how this worked or what it did! Anyone know what it is, what it does and how ?

 

[G_P]

It synchronizes a pair of magnetos.

How or why I do not know

 

[jimgreen]

Haha, I should have placed a bet on someone saying that.

I can read too what are they, why do they need synchronising?

 

[crewchief888]

magneto is the ignition system, sorta like a distributor..

i'd assume the engine was a horizontally opposed twin or 4 banger, and may have twin magnetos, one for each bank of cylinders.

maybe one of the A&P guys will chime in..

 

[Mohawk Dave]

Explained here....http://www.wimp.com/buildit/

 

[Steinmetz]

The engine has two magnetos. Each cylinder has two spark plugs, with one of the plugs being energized by one of the magnetos, and the second plug being energized by the other other magneto. Since the plugs in each cylinder must fire simultaneously, the two magnetos need to be synchronized.

 

[Airframer]

^Yup. Got one I built into an old speaker crossover from the 50's. Probably never need it again.

 

[oldldh]

Magnetos generate their own electrical current internally...no battery required...

The two magnetos are for redundancy, theoretically there will always be a spark...

No sparks = no power = no fly

Bad stuff, that no sparks, most bad...

The magnetos MUST fire at the same time...hence the need for a synchronizer...the "chron" part of the name comes from Khronos, the Greek god, "Father Time"...

 

[Charles (in GA)]

The mag timing box is used because you need to see the opening and closing of the points, but the condensers in the mag make this an issue, the box is wired so it is simply hooked to the "P" lead terminal on the outside of each mag, ground wire clipped on a good ground, and of course the spark leads removed from the plugs, and I prefer to have one of the plugs removed from each cylinder., and the mag switch turned on to both and then you can determine via the neon lights, and the buzzer in the box, when the points open. There are tricks to doing this, and finesse, and the impulse couplings will mess you up if you hook one of them, turning the prop or the mag, you will get erroneous indications.

Basically, you cannot do this properly unless you have someone show you all the tricks of the trade, but it is not difficult.

Charles

 

[kams1973]

It's a reverse continuity tester. If that makes any sense. I used to check mag timing with a multimeter.

 

[jimgreen]

Magnetos generate their own electrical current internally...no battery required...

The two magnetos are for redundancy, theoretically there will always be a spark...

No sparks = no power = no fly

Bad stuff, that no sparks, most bad...

The magnetos MUST fire at the same time...hence the need for a synchronizer...the "chron" part of the name comes from Khronos, the Greek god, "Father Time"...

See, did not know the cylinders had x2 plugs!

Awesome responses, thanks guys.