Fixing the ignition box.

[terrydavis]

T.C.I. trouble

Hey, all you blokes out there, that are helping me - randy,bruce, b.j,shawn, etc.Thanks for all your help you've given me, I now have something to work with. your a great bunch of lads. Terry.

[tommystinson]

Funny to see this post. I just picked up some new electrolytics for my TDI box. 25 year old capacitors are something to be suspicious of. I've got a "79, so it uses all discrete components. Question for others: Would the "pick up coils" actually be considered a Hall effect switch? If someone had a failed/failing rectifier, could that cause problems due to excessive ripple in the DC supply? Just curious, more than anything. (What would Geezer say?)

[desert1]

Hall effect

Electrician at work said that the Pick-up used the Hall affect or switch whatever......pretty much above my head, all I know is to use the meter and see if the pick-up meets the ohms value or not. thats as far as my electrical training goes........now if someone would sit down and draw up a schematic for all the parts and there values in a working CDI unit maybe I could repair my 2 faulty units.
Bruce

[randy]

Nope, Our pickups are electromangnetic. That is, it's just a coil of wire. That's why an ohmmeter will give you a reading. A Hall Effect switch is an integrated circuit.

He's right in a way, in that today's electronic ignitions use a hall effect switch to sense the timing lobe, but back in '79 the Hall Effect switch wasn't even invented yet!

That gives me an idea, though...there is a way to adapt a modern ignition pickup to work with the XS. That would solve one failure point, then on to the TCI box. Interesting project. Anyone care to join forces on this one?

Randy

[desert1]

Thanks Randy

Thanks randy for clearing things up on that pick-up point. Should have saved the faulty one just out of curiosity, melted the outer plastic casing just to look at the innards. Mine I assumed, got water logged and shorted the coil.....once i swapped a known good one immediately all the plugs had tons of spark!
Bruce

[MartyA]

randy, anti-lock brake sensors use Hall-effect sensors. Most use a 'tone ring' which consists of teeth or cogs on a metal ring. As each cog passes a magnetic assembly, it causes a sudden change in the magnetic field, which trips the Hall effect sensor, which causes the pump to pulse the brake fluid. Some tone rings I have seen have 45 to 55 'cogs' or 'teeth' which mount on an axle. Should be able to fabricate a tone ring with 4 cogs.

[TheDjost]

The distributor off my old VW Passat had a 4 cog hall effect sensor. The engine was the 2L 16V, and the car was a '91. I would need to look it up, but I would think that all the VW distributors on the 2L16V engines use the same type of sensor. That one would be pretty easy to adapt... Only you would have to find one that's cheap. A very hard thing to do! When my distributor seized, I went looking, and the cheapest one I found was 200$!!!


-Juastin

[Geezer]

One of my suppliers has replacement magnetic pick up coils for most cars but key is finding one that will be a good replacement without ordering every one in the catalog. Another thing to consider is that the XS11 pick up coils are left and right parts that are a mirror image of each other.

Geezer

[MartyA]

Yeah geezer, but I think Randy is talking about replacing those magnets with one Hall effect sensor.

[randy]

We're on the right track, all right. What I am thinking is two hall effect sensors, one for each coil. The reluctor can be a four prong that i will alter by grinding off the uneeded prongs.

The really exiting part of this is that in automobiles, the Hall Effect unit is self-contained ignition controller. It goes directly to the ignition coil. This conversion, if successful, will eliminate the XS TCI box!

I'm going to pursue this further and when I have something to report, I'll post it.

[Mike F]

Hi All
I've just had an email from a member where he showed a few pix of the ignition mods that someone had done on his XS11 chop. The Yamaha ignition box has been done away with and replaced with two of these

Standard pick ups are used. The alloy plate is a heat sink.
I did a search for OKI MPS 200 and apparently the modules were fitted to CBX's and other Hondas. Obviously the coils resistance would have to be matched to suit.
Keep revving
Mike F

[desert1]

Ignition repair site

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homep...I_Rebuild.html

The site I pasted to this reply above may have been visited by some before but its worth taking a look.....they deal with TCI units and some suggestions involving their repair.
Bruce

[randy]

Good info, Bruce.

I've actually done some in-depth research on this, having repaired a couple of XS boxes in the past and I've found that the 2N3055 transistor works fine as a replacement output. Our outputs are NPN also, just like the Virago and Vison boxes.

I'm not reccomending that you take your box apart if you've never done board-level electronics work, though. Without the experience you'll probably do more damage than good. As I offered before, if anyone has a trashed one they want looked at, mail it to:

Randy Rago
1435 Sycamore Avenue
Merrick, NY 11566

Randy

[desert1]

Swamp thing

Got any pics of the swamp thing Randy?
Bruce

[randy]

Sure.. Here are some progress photos. She's about a month or two away from being ready.



My XS

I'm considering re-naming her Phoenix.

Randy