Pertronix Flamethrower coil.

[Robbo1971]

I have been struggling to get a spare Pertronix Flamethrower coil as everywhere has them sold out or on back order.
My bus has a Pertronix Flame Thrower 3ohm coil Part Number 40511.

I managed to get one from ebay bay new, but on the label it is saying "Non Ballast"

Can anyone explain what non ballast means and is my coil spare going to work. It looks exactly the same.

Cheers

 

[ozziedog]

Don’t quote me here. But from memory a ballast coil works at a lesser voltage about nine volts I think. This was to help older cars start as they were using a lot of battery power just to crank them over. A non ballast coil operates at twelve volts and is fairly standardised now days. A lot of stuff like that came and went as they weren’t really fab ideas when they came out and mostly disappeared on the Brit scene as they left positive earth behind and went negative earth across the board.

Ozziedog,,,,,,,,,,,showing my age now

 

[sparkywig]

Ozzie's right.
Ballast coils require an external ballast resistor and will produce 12V output from as little as 9V input. Usually have primary winding resistance of around 1 - 2 ohms.
Non ballast coils produce 12V output from 12V input, and have primary winding resistance of around 3 ohms.
Electronic ignition systems don't require a ballast resistor.

 

[Earlybay1]

Read this and you get the proper definition of how a ballast resistor works. https://blog.simonbbc.com/ballast-resistors-resistance-and-coils/

 

[Robbo1971]

Thank you both

 

[naskeet]

There are various after-market ballasted ignition coils available.

I have a Microdynamics Macrospark ballasted ignition coil and Microdynamics Formula 1 electronic ignition system, fitted to my 1973 VW 1600 Type 2 in circa 1990.

https://www.thesamba.com/vw/archives/lit/microdynamics.php