Found treasure, could use some advice

[Neight]

Hello all!
when I moved into my new place, down in the basement, I found a ton of very old electronics equipment. Lots of old paper wrapped caps, great big resistors. tube sockets, and lots of small odd coils. whoever had lived here used to service old tube radios and televisions. Lots of neat stuff to play around with (sadly, no tubes were left besides only a single vibration tube )
out of all of this, there was a set of 6 wooden boxes that I had to do some research to identify.
It turns out, they are old Ford Model T ignition coils. there are 5 coil boxes, and one larger box that I am guessing is the control for them all.
I gave one of the coil boxes to my wife's grandpa, he wanted one, and he has helped me out a lot (gave me my oscilloscope and some other equipment) so he was more than welcome to have one
I have taken the side off of another one, and it's filled with some kind of black hard substance that must be in there to keep the components inside secure.

the control box has screws on the bottom, but they are rusted, and falling apart when I try to take them out.
this all seems really interesting, and I was wondering if any of you out there would know what I might be able to do with this set?
I have no idea what they look like inside beyond the black hard substance, and they are so old, I am kind of afraid to dig deeper, I really don't want to ruin them.

It really seems like I could use them for something though, I would likely have to replace the switches on the top of the boxes, as they are very hard to make contact with.
If anyone knows what exactly is inside, or if they could be of any use to me as coils, please let me know! Being ignition coils, I am sure that, if they still work, I could use them in something interesting.

Thanks in advance to anyone who can point me to some useful information

N8

here is a link to a photo of one being sold on ebay. mine are identical to this one, minus the Ford logo on the side...

Ford Model T Ingnition Coil Dovetail Wood Case | eBay

I don't have a photo of the control box, but if I find one, I will post it as well

[dR-Green]

Hi N8, very nice find I know ignition coils are used in HV experiments, maybe used to power a Tesla coil etc. I'll let someone else come up with suggestions for that, but as for the black stuff inside, I'm guessing it's tar or something like that. From what I've learned manufacturers fill their HV transformers with tar or some other similar substance to stop it all from melting and arcing inside if the insulation does fail etc. I suppose it also helps to stop the user from getting electrocuted Unless it's a load of dirt I wouldn't start digging into it to find out what's underneath

[Neight]

Hi N8, very nice find I know ignition coils are used in HV experiments, maybe used to power a Tesla coil etc. I'll let someone else come up with suggestions for that, but as for the black stuff inside, I'm guessing it's tar or something like that. From what I've learned manufacturers fill their HV transformers with tar or some other similar substance to stop it all from melting and arcing inside if the insulation does fail etc. I suppose it also helps to stop the user from getting electrocuted Unless it's a load of dirt I wouldn't start digging into it to find out what's underneath

Hey dR-Green
I was thinking exactly the same thing
I am very carefully digging into the one I have open to see what's inside.
the black stuff is very likely tar, as you said, and it's cracking up and coming out in chunks if I am careful with it.
I am nearly out of time today to explore, but so far it looks like it might be two coils inside, connected in series. there are a few other contacts in there, that I have not uncovered enough yet, though I am finding a bit of the wiring already.
I really hate to take this apart like this without knowing what I should do with it first, but my curiosity is just too much. I still have three others in tact, so hopefully if I ruin one, I will not be out too much

either way, it's pretty exciting to find some coils this old, and still in tact!
should be something to mess around with, and maybe learn something if I get nothing else out of them, that would be worth it to me
thanks
N8

[Savvypro]

If I remember correctly, Tesla patented an ignition coil, then sold it to Ford for use in the Model T. The coil later became illegal to use (especially in high voltage radio setups) because they supposedly produced some weird effects and could be used to generate free electricity.

If those ignition coil are Tesla ignition coil then you may have struck gold.

[Neight]

If I remember correctly, Tesla patented an ignition coil, then sold it to Ford for use in the Model T. The coil later became illegal to use (especially in high voltage radio setups) because they supposedly produced some weird effects and could be used to generate free electricity.

If those ignition coil are Tesla ignition coil then you may have struck gold.

Hello Savvypro
Thanks a ton for the reply! Now my interest is really high!
unfortunately, I have to go for the night, but as soon as I can, I am going to look up more info on these coils and try to figure out how to use them!
If these are the same Tesla style coils you mentioned, I am more excited than ever to see what can be done with them.

there are more of these things for sale on ebay, and some of them are only $10. if this is the case, and these are made after Tesla's designs, it might not be a bad idea to scoop some of them up before some collector gets them and lets them set in a display case or something

thanks for the lead on the what they might be, and if I can figure out how to use them and find anything interesting, I will post it up here!
thanks again!

N8

[Neight]

one more quick post before I go...
I have found a history of the ford ignition coils, and while I haven't read the whole thing yet, I did find a schematic style drawing of what I have.

here is the link, the drawing of the wiring is at the top of page 17 (it's actually on the third page, but the page is marked 17 on the document )

http://www.funprojects.com/pdf/The%20Model%20T%20Ignition%20Coil%20-%20Part%201.pdf

no mention of Tesla, but either way, it looks like these could be useful for some experimenting!

N8

[Slider2732]

While the PDF describes traits we may fully expect of a piece of Tesla engineering, it looks like they originated from Joseph Williams, of the K-W Ignition Company ?
If yours are earlier, they would be by Ed Huff ? there are also Jocobson and Brandow coils mentioned...heck,what've ya got ? lol
A swarm of bees eh, resonant quad coils...worthy of exploration in itself.
If just 2 coils, then it sounds like the Ed Huff approach. A standard enough primary on one side of the core, but a very very fine wound secondary to ramp the voltage and allow the spark to jump in the cylinder. The bees being electrical contacts constantly switching for each cylinder firing.
And that line about a 'free start' when a piston is at TDC....so, the coils appear to have worked wonders on starting the car, unless all wind up cars could perform that trick.

The description shows us that the BEMF was utilised for the spark...wow, years ago

Pics of this stuff would be great, if you can.
Also, a quick inventory of the other gear, such that we might ascertain whether the previous owner had been working with HV style experiments.

Brilliant discovery N8 !

[mbrownn]

Is this significant?

I have been looking at the drawing of the ignition coil and I notice a loop in the middle of the secondary winding, I think it must be significant or why would they bother to include it in the drawing?

There seems to be effectively two secondaries in series, this may be what you are talking about but not knowing about these coils I didn't understand.

[Slider2732]

Ah well, y'see, that loop is where 2 ferrite rods would go into, then you say 'Now we have power' and drive away with no fuel needed. Things become more bizarre when we find the output power of the magneto system was 1.21 Gigawatts.
Model T's had a top speed of 45mph...what if it had been 88mph ! Did Henry Ford actually create his manufacturing plant off a Japanese design from 1985 ?

Being serious now, all of this does seem exotic though doesn't it...car battery not needed (so it says in the advert lower down the PDF), crank handle not needed if the engine comes to rest at the right spot and that it did 30mpg, a figure that was seemingly steadily eroded by manufacturers in later years. All things that I bet others had completely no idea about too with these old cars.
In fact though, couldn't there have been a line on the outside of the car where the handle rotated and you set the handle there after switching the engine off ? then the car might just start up without the handle the next time. Wish I had a Model T to play with !

[Neight]

this is getting much more interesting all the time
I am half way through the article I posted, and after reading a bit, I have tried a few experiments, gotten some very interesting results!

Haven't used any meters or scope yet, to get some numbers to share with you guys, but with just a bit of simple wiring, I have good results.
I hooked up the primary to a nearly dead 12V 7Ah battery (only reading 7.14V when no load is on it ) and I put a reed switch in series with the primary, and I put the reed switch by my SSG rotor. basically taking the place of the commutator and magneto in the circuit drawings in the article
I hooked the secondary directly to a N2 neon. I have to connect the terminals on top in a way that closes the gap on the switch on top to get it all to work right, but here is what I wound up with on the neon.

with only one contact of the secondary hooked to the neon, I get some very dim lighting on one leg of the neon. you almost have to turn off the lights to see the glow.
with the other neon contact connected nearly anywhere on the top terminal, I get decently visible light coming from one leg of the neon, at a very steady glow.
with both parts of the terminal switch on top of the box connected to each other with alligator clips, and both ends of the neon contacts connected to the box, I get very steady lighting of both neon legs very brightly.
no purple or white flashes, but very consistent orange glow from the neon
I have also noted that I get a steady stream of plasma between the alligator clip and the secondary terminal if I hold them close to each other, but not touching! while this plasma is visible, I only get one leg of the neon to light, but as soon as I make full contact with the terminal and the clip, the other leg kicks in and has great brightness. also, while the plasma is visible, and only one leg lights, the entire leg lights, and when both legs are lit, only half of each leg lights.

I am going to make a video of all this in just a little bit, and I will post it up and link it here. I know my descriptions are a bit tough to follow, so I will add a visual so it's all easier

@slider - nice back to the future reference there
funny stuff!
It would be nice to get ahold of one of the magnetos that was designed to work with these coils and put it to a motor and see what kind of results can be obtained... according to the adds in the article, you don't need batteries if you have some kind of magneto or dynamo hooked in place of the battery terminals. this is still a bit over my head, but I am going to work with these coils a bit and see what I can learn, and if I can get any useful results.

no drag on the motor, because all that is near it is the reed switch, so at least it's taking 7V and turning it into something big enough to light both sides of a neon

I also heard a bit of that buzzing talked about in the article. can you imagine car manufacturers putting something on the dash of a car that makes a constant buzzing noise
I guess we substitute comfort for efficiency in our society
I am still reading the article but I think I have gotten most of the info out of it that I can use.
I will post a video asap

N8

[Neight]

I have been looking at the drawing of the ignition coil and I notice a loop in the middle of the secondary winding, I think it must be significant or why would they bother to include it in the drawing?

There seems to be effectively two secondaries in series, this may be what you are talking about but not knowing about these coils I didn't understand.

after studying that drawing and the box I opened up, that loop is the connection between the two secondary coils in the box.
I think there is one primary winding on the core, and two secondaries connected in series around the primary.

[Neight]

one last update before I pack it in for the night...
with the same setup as before, ignition coil, reed switch and neon light, I have run a few tests to check power input and output.
I have been watching the input current, and when I started checking it, it was drawing a bit over 150mA. the battery's standing voltage was around 7.5V.
I decided to let this battery just run down and see what happened at lower voltages and currents.
with the circuit running, the battery has drained all the way down to 1.5V running and 3V standing charge. the current input stayed around 120-130mA until the battery got below 1.5V At that point, the current dropped below 100mA and for the first time, I saw the neon start to dim. at about 95mA one leg of the neon quit lighting.

right now I am working with .71V running voltage and 78mA input. I am still getting decent constant light from one leg of the neon, and the scope is showing about 45V P2P output to the neon. it is also putting out around .106mA DC and .210mA AC right now....
at higher voltage and amperage, and both legs lit, the output voltage was showing between 60-70V which sounds low for both neon legs lit, but that was what the scope said, unless I read it wrong, which is possible, because I only checked it once, and then moved onto some other measurements.

one other interesting thing I noticed, I can light one leg of the neon with just one wire coming from the secondary. decent brightness, visible at least.
It's all very interesting to me, though as far as I know, there is nothing odd going on here....
another tool to learn with, and maybe find something interesting

Not exactly sure what to do with this thing right now, though it does make an excellent coil to step up the input and use it effectively.
I will probably charge up my batteries tonight and make another video tomorrow or the next day when I have better power to work with.
it is very stable, and still works great, given it's age and how long it's been sitting unused in a damp basement
if anyone has any ideas they would like me to try, or anything they think could be interesting, shoot me some ideas!! I am willing to try anything within my means to do.
looking forward to seeing what I can do with this beast, and if I can use several of them wired together to get some real power out of
thanks
N8

[ZeropointEnergy]

Great find

this is getting much more interesting all the time
I am half way through the article I posted, and after reading a bit, I have tried a few experiments, gotten some very interesting results!

Haven't used any meters or scope yet, to get some numbers to share with you guys, but with just a bit of simple wiring, I have good results.
I hooked up the primary to a nearly dead 12V 7Ah battery (only reading 7.14V when no load is on it ) and I put a reed switch in series with the primary, and I put the reed switch by my SSG rotor. basically taking the place of the commutator and magneto in the circuit drawings in the article
I hooked the secondary directly to a N2 neon. I have to connect the terminals on top in a way that closes the gap on the switch on top to get it all to work right, but here is what I wound up with on the neon.

with only one contact of the secondary hooked to the neon, I get some very dim lighting on one leg of the neon. you almost have to turn off the lights to see the glow.
with the other neon contact connected nearly anywhere on the top terminal, I get decently visible light coming from one leg of the neon, at a very steady glow.
with both parts of the terminal switch on top of the box connected to each other with alligator clips, and both ends of the neon contacts connected to the box, I get very steady lighting of both neon legs very brightly.
no purple or white flashes, but very consistent orange glow from the neon
I have also noted that I get a steady stream of plasma between the alligator clip and the secondary terminal if I hold them close to each other, but not touching! while this plasma is visible, I only get one leg of the neon to light, but as soon as I make full contact with the terminal and the clip, the other leg kicks in and has great brightness. also, while the plasma is visible, and only one leg lights, the entire leg lights, and when both legs are lit, only half of each leg lights.

I am going to make a video of all this in just a little bit, and I will post it up and link it here. I know my descriptions are a bit tough to follow, so I will add a visual so it's all easier

@slider - nice back to the future reference there
funny stuff!
It would be nice to get ahold of one of the magnetos that was designed to work with these coils and put it to a motor and see what kind of results can be obtained... according to the adds in the article, you don't need batteries if you have some kind of magneto or dynamo hooked in place of the battery terminals. this is still a bit over my head, but I am going to work with these coils a bit and see what I can learn, and if I can get any useful results.

no drag on the motor, because all that is near it is the reed switch, so at least it's taking 7V and turning it into something big enough to light both sides of a neon

I also heard a bit of that buzzing talked about in the article. can you imagine car manufacturers putting something on the dash of a car that makes a constant buzzing noise
I guess we substitute comfort for efficiency in our society
I am still reading the article but I think I have gotten most of the info out of it that I can use.
I will post a video asap

N8

Hey N8,

I few people are spot on and from what my Dad has told me about the
"T Model Ford Coil" you have struck gold as they were a efficient HV
tranformer capable of great arcs.
I read up to this post as I'm falling asleep bro but sounds like you made a
crude "Jaccobs Ladder" with the clip, as you create an air gap and
thereby allow the ionization of the medium between the potiential.

I would try to hook an AC main lead to it on the terminals you spoke of and
thus can test the HV with the rule of thumb, 10mm = 25kV and with a
5KV 30mA (150W) NST I can generate 50mm and more if I quelch the
plasma with a magnet.
(Conductors start at 1mm with the fork of metal increasing to 100mm)

Hope this helps you and I will read the rest tomorrow and post more

Regards
Zero

[Rl2003]

Spot on

one last update before I pack it in for the night...

Not exactly sure what to do with this thing right now, though it does make an excellent coil to step up the input and use it effectively.
I will probably charge up my batteries tonight and make another video tomorrow or the next day when I have better power to work with.
it is very stable, and still works great, given it's age and how long it's been sitting unused in a damp basement
if anyone has any ideas they would like me to try, or anything they think could be interesting, shoot me some ideas!! I am willing to try anything within my means to do.
looking forward to seeing what I can do with this beast, and if I can use several of them wired together to get some real power out of
thanks
N8

Hey Guy's,
I was just looking to see what the latest talk was about on the forum and
I came across this thread.

I found this several months ago, while going thru some old electronics.
This is as good as it gets. It looks almost brand new, even the wire is in perfect condition. There was some of the black stuff that was coming out, but
it has stoped. It was in a very warm storage place and now I have put it
in a cooler place. It is made by K-W in the USA. The bottom term. has the
Ground mark, the side term. are marked 6V on the top one and HV on the
bottom one. On the top looks like a point contact with the printing in the brass
plate.. "Patented APR. 7, 1914".. Wow didn't see that before. To cool.
I hope these pictures are clear.

I also found what looks like a generator from something of that time period,
but I am not sure. I will try to post a picture some where as I am out of space here.
Mark

[Neight]

Hey Guy's,
I was just looking to see what the latest talk was about on the forum and
I came across this thread.

I found this several months ago, while going thru some old electronics.
This is as good as it gets. It looks almost brand new, even the wire is in perfect condition. There was some of the black stuff that was coming out, but
it has stoped. It was in a very warm storage place and now I have put it
in a cooler place. It is made by K-W in the USA. The bottom term. has the
Ground mark, the side term. are marked 6V on the top one and HV on the
bottom one. On the top looks like a point contact with the printing in the brass
plate.. "Patented APR. 7, 1914".. Wow didn't see that before. To cool.
I hope these pictures are clear.

I also found what looks like a generator from something of that time period,
but I am not sure. I will try to post a picture some where as I am out of space here.
Mark

very cool! these things are proving quite fun to experiment with, great find
It's amazing that those are in such great condition, they are very nearly 100 years old
I took a rag last night and started cleaning mine up. found some markings on a few of mine as well...
two of them are made by Kingston Kokomo, and have no date that I can find on them.
the one that I took the black tar out of is a K-W and has the same 4/7/1914 date marked on it
the other two have some corrosion on the contact plates and have no visible markings left on them.
it's also interesting that yours have markings by the terminals. I have found some markings on the large box that I found that seem to match up with these coils.
there are 5 terminal points on the large box, and they are marked
GRD
S
INT
S&INT
and the largest terminal isn't marked. there is one other stamp on the front of the box that I can make out and it says 6 VOLTS
still not exactly sure what this box does, and I can't get the bottom off of it to see whats in it either...
after reading the rest of the article i posted, I am thinking that the large box is likely a master coil?
the S and the S&INT could possibly refer to the secondary winding contacts, and the INT and unmarked could possibly be the supply for the primary, and then the GRD would be common ground for them. this makes sense to me, though looking at the contact terminals, it would be a mess to attach 4 coils to this box, so who knows.
I have some things I have to do this afternoon, but I am going to work with these more this evening and try and make a video
thanks Rl2003 for sharing those photos, very cool that someone else has some of these as well, maybe we can find something great to do with them

@zeropointenergy
very interesting idea!
I am going to work my way up to anything over 12V DC
I don't know what kind of condition they are in inside, and I don't want to push my luck with them just yet
It would be cool to get some decent long arcs out of these guys though, I will just have to see what I can come up with.
first thing I want to do is get a handle on just how efficient these things are, and also see if i can get them to pulse charge a battery, and how fast they can do it.
put a FWBR cap and timer on the secondary output and then put 3V @ 150mA pulsing on the primary. if last nights test is any indication, that should still produce good HV output to pulse into a battery.
don't know, but I am coming up with some tests I want to try, just need to work my way through everything

either way, should be fun, and I am glad I finally have them identified, I have been sitting on these things for over a month, just looking at them and wondering.
I will keep posting results, and I am willing to take any ideas and try them as I can.
thanks!

N8