Circuit Design

An electrical spark is caused when a sudden electrical discharge occurs when an adequately strong
electric field creates an electrically conductive channel through a regular insulating medium such
as air. Hence, to create a working spark gap with a minimum distance of 3mm, the voltage between
the two ends has to be high enough in order to overcome the dielectric breakdown voltage of the
intersecting air between the spark gap. A proposed design for the spark igniter circuit is shown in
Figure __ below.

Figure __

The first part of the circuit aims to receive a DC input voltage from between 3-9V and
produce a high AC voltage for the energy to generate a spark. A step-up transformer will have to
be used to produce a voltage level which is much higher than the initial voltage. However, the
transformer does not operate with DC voltage hence the DC supply voltage has to be converted
into AC before connecting as the input into the primary side of the step-up transformer. To do this,
a NPN bipolar junction transistor (BJT) is connected to the primary side of the transformer and is
used as a switching device, which switches at a high frequency to change the current flow through
the primary side of the transformer, thus producing a voltage polarity which alternates between
positive and negative, resembling an AC voltage. The step-up transformer then uses this converted
input and produces a high level output AC voltage. With an input of 4.5V, the step-up transformer
is able to produce an output voltage of 185V, which will then be fed into a voltage multiplier
circuit.

The voltage multiplier circuit is a type of diode rectifier circuit which consists of high
voltage ratings capacitor, to reduce ripple voltage, and diodes, to produce a DC output voltage
many times greater than the AC input voltage it receives. A basic unit of a voltage multiplier circuit
is shown in Figure __, with two capacitors and two diodes. Its operation begins during the negative
half cycle of the input waveform, whereby diode D1 is forward biased and conducts electricity to
charge up the capacitor C1. Since there is no return path to ground for capacitor C1, it remains
charged up to the peak input voltage, Vp. Meanwhile, diode D2 is also forward biased and conducts
the charging for capacitor C2 to the peak input voltage, Vp. However, during the positive half
cycle of the input waveform, diode D1 is now reverse biased, thus preventing the discharge of
capacitor C1 while diode D2 is now forward biased and conducts the charging into capacitor C2.
Since the charge of capacitor C1 is already equal to the peak value of the input voltage, Vp, and it
is connected in series with the original input voltage, hence capacitor C2 now charges to a voltage
value of 2Vp, doubling the value of the input voltage. By cascading 5 basic voltage multiplier
circuits together as shown in the designed circuit, the output voltage could potentially be a value
of 32Vp, producing a voltage high enough to generate a spark.

Figure ___

References:

Electronics Tutorials. (2014, May) Voltage Multiplier and Voltage Doubler Circuit. Retrieved 26
March from: https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/blog/voltage-multiplier-circuit.html