Wikidata facts
- Subclass of
- induction coil
- Part of
- ignition system
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- Commons category
- Ignition coils
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Encyclopedic overview
An ignition coil is used in the ignition system of a spark-ignition engine to transform the battery voltage to the much higher voltages required to operate the spark plug(s). The spark plugs then use this burst of high-voltage electricity to ignite the air-fuel mixture.
The ignition coil is constructed of two sets of coils wound around an iron core. Older engines often use a single ignition coil which has its output directed to each cylinder by a distributor, a design which is still used by various small engines (such as lawnmower engines). Modern car engines often use a distributor-less system (such as coil-on-plug), whereby every cylinder has its own ignition coil.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “ignition coil” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.