Capacitive discharge ignition system

Claim 1

In a capacitive ignition circuit comprising a source of rectified power, a capacitor in series with said source which is charged thereby, a coil including a primary winding in series with said capacitor and a secondary winding magnetically coupled to said primary winding and in series with a sparking device and a triggering device in series with said primary winding for alternately connecting and disconnecting said primary winding to said capacitor whereby said capacitor is periodically discharged through said primary winding, the improvement comprising that an auxiliary winding wound in opposition to said primary winding and also magnetically coupled to said secondary winding and a diode properly connected to said auxiliary winding to allow the passage of current therethrough are connected in parallel with said primary winding and said triggering device whereby the rise-time of said sparking device is controlled by the relative impedances of said primary winding and said capacitor, while the arc duration is determined in a first hemicycle of a capacitive discharge cycle by the relative impedances of said primary winding and said capacitor and a second hemicycle of said capacitive discharge cycle by the relative impedances of said auxiliary winding and said capacitor, a diode in parallel with said auxiliary winding for damping current flow to said auxiliary winding during said second hemicycle, the rise-time of said sparking device being controlled by the relative impedances of said primary winding and said capacitor, while the arc duratIon is determined in a first hemicycle of a capacitive discharge cycle by the relative impedances of said primary winding and said capacitor and in a second hemicycle of said capacitive discharge cycle by the value of the loss inductance of the said auxiliary winding and diode in parallel.