Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Have not used one, look forward to hearing how it goes to convert. I will say that I think the hall sensors are getting damaged by the ignition circuit some how, perhaps the ignition spark is arcing to the hall sensor somehow.  I have not had any additional issues with my hall sensor since soldering my ground wire to the bolt that connects it to the frame, my theory is that if the engine is not grounded correctly, then the high voltage on the engine(from the plug)  will try to get to the circuits ground by the fastest means. If the hall sensors is a smaller jump than through the ground wire, then it will do it.

I have actually tried to rule out the grounding issue by connected a wire to the ground put and directly connect it to an earthed  surface. The ignition leads are definitely flawed with exposed wires only without any proper means of securing them. Must be a voltage/spark leaks internally, I started the engine in an almost pitch black room to see if I can noticed a visible arc elsewhere but couldn't.

I'm not the only one having issues with Microcosm CDI, many do and some found a work around by using one fake battery. It's definitely a problem with the circuit design or parts used.

After sorting many mechanical issues with the engine ( list in my other post ), got it running great, then out of the blue started playing up till it was fully dead ( no sparks ). However after replacing the hall sensor, and even with spark back, the engine is not working fine at all. Checked everything else and they are unchanged, so it leaves the CDI to be faulty but it can be confirmed with the replacement .

Not all Chinese products are made equally, even by looking at the components in RCexl you can tell its higher build quality and after my researched it's rarely problematic as microcosm ones. At similar price I decided to give that a try than risk it by ordering the same CDI. Should have it in few days and will report the results

Received the RXecl CDI. Quality is beyond microcosm CDIs. However the spark cap is large and barely fit the hole on the cylinder. Being a metal cap and touching the metal body. It runs the risk of shorting.  So I kept it to be used for another project perhaps and will get a spare microcosm one in case of future failure