On supporting science journalism
If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.
This device is intended to eliminate the difference in adjustment and difference in time element of the various vibrators on the spark coil. From the diagram it will be seen that the battery wires are transferred from the coil to the master vibrator or synchronizer, and that there is a wire which runs from the center binding post on the synchronizer to one of the battery binding posts on the coil. This places the synchronizer in series with the battery and coil, or with the magneto and coil, so that nQ matter which unit in the coil the timer closes the circuit on, this master vibrator vibrates for it, in place of the regular vibrator on that particular coil. Each vibrator on the coil is short circuited, as shown in the diagram, so that the current does not pass through the vibrators of the coils, but goes around them through the copper wire shunt, after which it goes through the large twin-blade vibrator of the Lacoste type. This is connected to a condenser of large capacity and having its layers of tinfoil so far apart that it is practically puncture proof. It matters not within reasonable limits what the adjustment of this vibrator is, for it vibrates for every cylinder, and no matter what its time lag is, this is the same for every cylinder, thus giving exact synchronism, and placing the sparks in every cylinder at exactly the same position of the piston and the same angle of the crankshaft, just as would a high-tension distributor and a single coil. It possesses an advantage, however, over the high-tension distributor system, for it does the synchronizing on the low-tension side of the circuit, and does not require any high-tension distributor with its consequent troubles. This device was one of the novelties at the auto shows.
