Ion Sense

[JohnP]

Please note, my intent is to provide knock control, and the detection of misfire and pre-ignition, for engines that are too noisy to use acoustic knock sensors.

Primarily, I think these would be racing engines with high clearance forged pistons. Drag racing, probably, as they don't want the engine to come to full operating temperature, where the pistons expand to stock like clearances.

I think another application could be offshore power boats, where they are under sustained load for long periods, where pre-ignition could melt them down in a few seconds. At present, there are no pre-ignition detection systems available, outside of automotive labs.

[JohnP]

I have been reading and gathering patents on ion systems since 2000, when Garfield Willis was active on the old DIY Fuel Injection forum, which later became mega squirt.

Willis was a retired engineer who read and could understand patents by Bosch on wide band O2 sensors, and the Mecel ion patents. He stirred up a lot of interest on the forum in his projects, which he called "EGOR" for the wide band O2, and "Ion Eyes" for the ion sensor.

The forum was supposed to be open source, but he went private with his findings and started marketing the first wide band O2 meter. Then he died.

I understand your longing for PPP control where everything is nirvana, and it's free because it's on the internet, just SOMEone, ANYone, program the damn thing. Here are the waveforms, just DO IT.

But real life gets in the way. I should have been farther along by now, but I had to stop work on it for three years as my wife Shirley lost her battle with cancer, then I lost another year when I was hit by a car while walking and was out of commission for a year.

But as you see, I'm back at it. I'm 78, may not reach my goal, but for now it keeps me out of the pool rooms. Oh, I still go.

[JohnP]

I think this is the original run where I was recording the waveforms on my SONY DAT machine, seen in an earlier post.

I was recording my scope with my phone. It's a lovely little scope, a Leader LBO-315, I paid almost $2k in 1989. A few days after this, I decided to spring for a bigger, brighter scope.

[JohnP]

Mike, forgive me for going off, I didn't mean you in particular. I was on a riff and just went for it.

But you see the difference between a crude system and the lab. There is no way I could develop a control signal from "the second peak" or the "third peak". I don't see them. The signals are not stable enough. I'd say it's doing good just to detect knock.