8BA flathead, generator, voltage regulator,Mallory Breakerless Magnetic Distributor, Mallory Ballast Resistor, Mallory Power Cell - Unable to start engine and after considerable diagnosis found that Mallory Power Cell was the problem - Cell has one wire to ground and the other to Neg coil terminal and Cell had failed and become a direct short to ground - Removed Cell and engine started instantly - Conducted autopsy on Cell and after removing mass of silicone (lump of the silicone is shown in photo of empty upside down Cell case) I found the 1 1/8" device in photo in the bottom with a heat sink strip attached - Lettering on device, "Cen CR12-060 (current flow symbol) 0240" - Googles to a "Rectifier General Purpose" made by Central Semiconductor Corp which item does not appear to be available from a retail source Thus my questions are: 1. Can I safely run without the Power Cell and not face module failure for doing so ? 2. Is there some rectifier or diode that I can purchase and put in place of the failed Central Semiconductor one that will do the job that it did 3. Any other serious thoughts on this problem ??? Thanks in advance for your advice David Watson
The Mallory magnetic should run fine without the cell. it is a self contained ignition. let me give the numbers to the wife maybe she can get you the part she works in the electronics industry.
That appears to be some sort of 'surge protector' for the electronics in the distributor. You get a 'counter EMF' out of the coil winding when it's switched off, this appears to bleed that to ground rather than letting it go back into the distributor. Although Mallory says this is more of an issue when running a generator, which you are. As to the longevity of the distributor without this, I can't say. But the fact that Mallory make this leads me to think that they have an issue and this is the 'fix'. Do you have it hooked up correctly? This diagram shows it on the negative terminal... http://www.jegs.com/InstallationInstructions/600/650/650-611M.pdf ...but this is for a 12V negative ground system. These appear to match the specs for what you have, but any savvy electronics guy should be able to fix you up with a replacement diode. http://www.mouser.com/Semiconductor...e-Power-Switching/_/N-ax1mp?P=1yzxpgcZ1z0waqg
on the "issue"...electronic Mallory stuff had a widespread reputation for repeated failures caused by grounding that was less than 100% perfect. Perfect as in direct wire from distributor plate to battery ground. Grounding flicker can I think cause surges, the sort that can burn out headlight bulbs with shaky wiring.
Mallory makes surge protectors for most of their electronic stuff. I just make sure that my stuff is properly wired and use an inline fuse. For example, a Mallory Unilite uses 1 amp per thousand RPM. So if you are running a mill that will turn 7K a 7 amp fuse is all you need. A 7 amp fast burn fuse will pop before any damage is done to the distributer in a power surge. I don't know what the magnetic uses per 1000 RPM but it wouldn't be hard to find out. The inline fuse was not my idea, I have been running unilites since before anyone even knew what they were and a Mallory rep told me about the fuse deal.
Seems to me that rather than offering 'add-on' fixes, making the part more robust in the first place would be a better choice. These aren't circuits where you need to worry about lightning strikes or some moron hitting a power pole, these operate in a known environment and proper design should take any 'normal' environmental variations into account.
ECG5882 should be a direct replacement. 12 amp, 600 v, DO-4 package, etc. about ten bucks, on ebay. Or from your local electronics supplier (NOT radio shack)
The power cell is needed with a generator charging system to filter out and regulate the power to the control module. The modules dont like the irregualr voltage that comes from most generators.... Yours melted ( from your pictire) based on excessive current. Excessive current comes from low resitance in the primary ignition..... You need a 1.5 ohm coil and a 1.5 ohm resisitor to lower this current. I think you will find your coil is less than 1.5 ohms!! Mallory makes a couple coils , one is 1.5 ohms and the other is .6 ohms. The .6 ohm will burn them up!!!
I had this dist and power cell in my car. The power cell has two wires coming from it: a red wire and a black wire, I had tagged the red wire as going to a ground. Could anyone tell me where the black wire goes? It has a small end on it like coil or generator size eyelet. Thanks
Red to power and black to ground.........https://www.jegs.com/InstallationInstructions/600/650/650-611M.pdf
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