PicBasicPro Glow Driver

Pilots using glow engines, especially inverted engines, run into problems with unburned fuel at low throttle settings.  The unburned fuel pools around the glow element and quenches its heat.  The resultant engine stoppage usually occurs in the pits after engine start up, or on landing short final.  The former creates frustration and the latter causes a lot of crashes.

The answer is to fix a remote glow plug head to a battery carried on board.  This circuit should have a safety switch in it so that a plane does not have power on the plug when the pilot is not ready to start the engine - fingers beware.

The PIC has been hard coded so that Pin 5, GP 2 goes high if the throttle is less than 25%.  The transistor buffering the output switches on an N Channel MOSFET that carries the current to the glow plug.  A MOSFET is needed as the PIC outputs only 25mA and a glow plug can draw 3 amps !

Caution:  The PIC has been tested, but the output circuit remains theoretical only. The user should test this circuit before committing it to a plane

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Last modified: March 18, 2004