Pulstar Pulse Plug

[Aaron]

Pulse Plugs - 20,000X More Powerful Than Spark Plugs. Greater Horsepower, Fuel Efficiency, Torque.



How They Work

For 100 years, ignition technology has been dominated by spark plugs (see history of spark plugs). Pulse plugs are a radical departure from spark plugs. Their physical dimensions are the same as spark plugs because they have to interface with the engine and ignition system just like spark plugs. But this is where the similarity ends.

Pulse plugs incorporate a pulse circuit, which stores incoming electrical energy from the ignition system and releases the stored energy in a powerful pulse of power. Instead of 50 watts of peak power typical of all spark plugs, pulse plugs deliver up to 1 million watts

[adam ant]

did you see the price tag? $25 each. they used to say the slit fires where the best because of the split alternated electrode surface area. but they didnt say that after a 1,000 miles that gap would become filled with sludge and it performed worse than a regular plug.

with such small components, i wonder how they would stand against rough driving, bouncing, the occasional hard hit on a pot hole, cold/heat expansion and contraction, premature electrode wear? .

i didnt have time to read the article, maybe this is already addressed there.

[Aaron]

pulstar durability

I think they say the plugs are expected to last as long as normal plugs.

I don't get any carbon buildup in my engine and my oil stays clean for almost a year. Whatever plugs I use will last a very long time.

$25/plug for now. They did get quite an investment from some group so when moving more into the marketplace, I expect they could come to under $10 each in the next 1 year or so or more. Just need the volume.

[Jetijs]

Hi all.
I bought the pulstar sparkplugs for my toyota yaris. They arrived today and I decided to test them out on a waterjet engine so that I can compare the spark from pulstar plug to an ordinary spark plug. So far I have not seen any visible difference in the spark appearence. I mean, shouln't the pulstar spark be brighter and more powerfull? Here's some pictures:





That on the left is the pulstar spark plug and on the right is an ordinary spark plug. Do you see any difference? I tested this out on an ordinary waterjet ignition system and also on an MSD system. On the MSD system both sparks were brighter, but the brightness of both sparks seemed similar. I could not tell any difference. I already emailed the seller about this and if it should be so.
So far it does not seem to be a smart investment
I wont install these sparkplugs in my car till the end of this week, before my magnet fuel saver test is going on now and so far the ceramic magnets seem to work great
I will keep you updated.

Edit:
I looked closely on the pulstar plugs schematic. I know that they are not showing everything that is inside that plug, but for what I can see, it looks very much like a small Tesla coil. We have our primary coil (red one) around the secondary coil (the green one) that is wound on a ferrite core. Based of what I know about electric discharges in engine from various sources, their claims could be true.

[Jetijs]

I received an answer from the pulstar plug engineers:

At less than 5Kv (1 atm of pressure) both sparks are going to be similar to the
naked eye. But IC engines work under pressure and that is where you need to make the
comparison and is what you see on our brochures and website.

Power when you need it

I guess I will have to test it on my car to see any benefits

[Karl_Palsness]

[Redmeanie]

I dont see it....

I don't see what effect a high pressure environment could have on the spark .... Especially if its just ambient air.....
But it would be real easy to test their claims if you build a small vacuum/pressure chamber. And you definetly have the mechanical ability!

[Aaron]

pulstar price?

Karl and Jetijs,

How much did you both pay? Are they still in the $25 range each?

Have either of you tried to make a Firestorm Plug like Robert Krupas?
You definitely have the skills to do it.

[Jetijs]

Aaron, I paid about 100$ for 4 spark plugs + 37$ shipping. That is much! I wont build any pressure chambers or anything like that, instead I will test if and how much the torque and fuel economy I can get using those spark plugs in a small 1KW diesel generator. This will be much easier.
Aaron, who is Robert Krupas? Any links?
Karl, did you make any other tests than only a visual spark comparison?
Thanks,
Jetijs

[Aaron]

firestorm plug link

Hi Jetijs,

http://www.energeticforum.com/renewable-energy/1169-robert-kurpas-firestorm-plugs.html

Yes, even Smokey Yunick (spelling??) confirmed it when he was alive.

[Jetijs]

Ok, I guess I could make a pressure chamber form plexiglass. I do not have access to nitrogen gas, but I do have some argon gas tanks. I think that the main purpose for an inert gas in certain pressure in those pressure tanks, is because the gas allows the spark plugs to ionize the surrounding space better and thus make the spark brighter. I can test this with argon and see what the difference is. If there wont be any visual difference, I will make some tests with the diesel generator. If this also wont provide any positive results, then we can clearly say, that those pulstar plugs are worth nothing and there is no point in spending money on them.
Thanks.

[Karl_Palsness]

Autolite Aviation Spark Plug Cleaner and Tester from Aircraft Spruce

[Jetijs]

Karl,
that spark plug tester seems nice, it's a shame you do not have one anymore It would answer our questions. I always thought that the less pressure, the higher the resistance through the spark gap. And the more pressure, the less resistance. I assumed this because what is a spark? A spark is a plasma, that conducts electricity. But this plasma appears only when the atoms between the high voltage source and the ground (spark gap) are ionized so far, that they start to conduct electricity and a spark appears. So, if we have a vacuum in the spark gap, there are no atoms to ionize in order to get the electricity to flow. But if we have a high pressure gas between the electrodes, there is much more atoms there to ionize. I may be wrong, so please someone correct me
Thanks,
Jetijs

[Jetijs]

Today I got my hands on a 3kW generator. I made a custom fuel measuring glass with marks for every 50 grams of fuel. Then I connected this new fuel tank to the generator. I loaded the generator with a 600w load and measured what time does it take to consume 250ml of fuel. I did this several times to get an average result. Then I replaced the original spark plug with the pulstar pulse plug and made these tests again. Each test was about 15 minutes long and I three tests for each spark plug. Then I calculated the average seconds and the difference percentage. Pulstar spark plug could tahe the load about 2% longer than the original spark plug. This might be due to the fact that the original spark plug is a cheap one and has smaller spark gap spacing thus smaller spark, that may not ignite the gas mixture on some pulses. After all, 2% is about 15 seconds of time. I will make some more tests tomorrow with longer cycles and bigger load on the generator. Also I will try a high quality iridium spark plug from a water jet engine. Then we will see if those pulstar spark plugs really do what they claim, or are they just a scam.







On the last picture the right spark plug is the original generator spark plug. The other is the pulstar plug.
Thank you,
Jetijs.

[Jetijs]

Hi all.
I have done some long tests. The pulstar spark plug seems to do some good afterall. At first I tried to load the generator with a 600w load, this mada a difference in economy of 2% in favor to pulstar spark plug. Then I increased the load to 800w and the difference reached 2.8%. Then I loaded the generator with all I had - 1900W. This made a fuel economy of 3.85%.
Then I made a test with an iridium spark plug, this one has an /\ shaped electrode made of iridium. This material deals with heat and burning up better, also the /\ shape makes it difficult for some impurities to stick between the spark gap. This made only 1.3% more economy compared to the standard spark plug. I also tried the standard spark plug and a ceramic magnet array around the fuel line. The magnets gave 1.5% fuel economy. So I figured that magnets + pulstar plugs should give 3.85+1.5=5.35% economy. But this setup gave only a slight improvement compared to pulstar plugs alone - 4.25% economy.
I did some math, if I use these spark plugs on my car, I have to drive at least 15000 kilometers till these spark plugs pays themselves off. Who knows what their condition will be after that. That makes me believe, that this is not a smart investment at all.
I will make some more tests and keep you updated.
Here are some pictures of the iridium spark plug and my generator load:





Thanks,
Jetijs