SpudFiles

Needing a compact ignition source for my current project, I decided to put my electric bbq ignitor under the knife.

It looked like the one pictured in this how-to.

It was pretty difficult to remove the case without damaging the important parts because it is all epoxied in place. But after slowly taking off bit by bit, I managed to remove all the plastic and epoxy, and only cut the two wires to the coil thing in the process. It still works fine, just have to re-solder those.

Despite the effort, I'm happy with it as I now have three small components which can be hidden out of sight in the stock or grip.

Uhh, sorry but what's your point?

Just thought it might be helpful, since some people in that how to were saying they would do it if it wasn't for not wanting to render it useless. And the picture helps to know where you can safely cut through to do it faster.

Didn't realize a thesis was required to post .

Fair enough then

How often will it throw a spark?

Approximately 3-4 times per second. And the spark is stronger than the piezos I've tried, with two outputs.

Now that I have everything exposed, is there a way to easily add a part that will increase the strength of the spark?

daccel wrote:Now that I have everything exposed, is there a way to easily add a part that will increase the strength of the spark?

"Easy"? No.

Another coil will boost the voltage (and drop the curent) but you probably don't have the juice to carry a coil on the output of the coil you already have. Besides, since you've removed the potting, the circuitry probably won't like adding any load to the output. You'll start to get spark jumping across various parts on the circuit board or coil. The potting was there for a reason. Now that you've removed it, you have almost certainly dropped the voltage capability of the circuit.

If there is a capacitor in the circuit you might be able to replace it with a somewhat larger valued one. That'll probably drop the cycle rate but boost the power.