Trispark Ignition Issues

Yes, several members of the Victorian branch in Australia have had the same issues that you relate. A friend of mine spent hours working on the ignitian on his Commando sending back his Trispark unit to Trispark several times. Eventually he gave up and fitted the latest Boya to his bike. END OF PROBLEM. Older wiser members pointed out that fitting a unit near the pickup is asking for problems as it gets too hot there. I know one of our members solving  the problem by fitting a thin piece of neprene behind the unit to insulate it. Might be worth a try.

That solves that problem, as I was going to fit a Tri-Spark, to one of my twins and going by the above, it is not such a good idea. My Boyer HT twin coil when they got hot would cut out, and would miss fire. When tested by Boyer they told me they were faulty. As the bike was being built, many years before the ignition was being used,  the coils were then out of warranty, so they would not replace them.

There is regular drip fee of Tri spark failures, can't help having the electronics in the timing chamber, Boyer tried that with their MK1 and then went to a separate box. The original Tri spark for Tridents was also a separate box.

And not one problem, including a hot day riding from Passau last Aug uphill for about 4 hours - not one issue. The bike stank when we stopped for fuel it was that hot, on the Kawasaki Z1000SX that was one year old the incoming temperature on the front of the bike was 39 C.

The later Tri Spark is now more better to withstand the heat, as it was changed a few years ago now at aleast.  

I suspect lead free solder. Imposed on the world with no argument. It has lower fatigue life ( cracks more under vibration), grows tin whiskers (which cause random short circuits in circuit boards) and is now widely used in aircraft. What could possibly go wrong? Don't mention Boeing, Air China, Air France...

Send the unit back to Stephen Kelly in Adelaide,  had a couple of NMCSA members (when I was resident in Adelaide) who returned out of warranty units and one for sure was replaced FOC and pretty sure there was a deal on the second unit which was a very early device. I will stick by the product and have used two with no issues so far. Oldest one is 5 + years old with twin output coil (Commando) with no iproblems.

I dumped the aged Boyer because of unreliable starting and heavy current draw.

Rgds Steve

Like all these units the Pazon goes to sleep after a set time to protect the coils and the EI box. To wake up the Pazon requires not just 1 signal from the stator in the timing chamber but 2 as it has been told not to wake up below 200 rpm so 2 passes of TDC before thinking about providing a spark. Guess what happens on big singles with light flywheels, the bike will only start on a bump start, That no doubt was the starting issue Stewart had. Pazon have a secret special version that takes longer to sleep, so with that version you switch on the ignition just before the starting kick and a spark will be provided at first TDC.

So for big singles and hard to kick twins stick to Boyer MK4.

I would have thought that if you switch the ignition off there's no power to the EI / coils so what's to protect? Sounds like a daft bit of design to me unless I'm missing something.

Nothing about the when the ignition is off but when the ignition is on but the engine is stationary.

If you turn the ignition on but the engine is not started if the EI box does not turn off it draws 4A to 5A and the box overheats, even with pre EI points the set of points that are closed mean one coil is drawing current and will overheat that coil as it never sees dwell time until the engine runs.

In the 80's or 90's Boyer built this sleep mode into their boxes (MK2 to MK3 possibly), all subsequent versions and clones all have this feature.

The problem is two fold, with the engine stopped the system does not know how fast the engine is turning and thus when to create the spark. Software in the systems needs to tell between starting and running, the Tri Spark also has a directional element to this as well, that is why they are directional. That is why the passes are 'counted' between passes the system would consider the engine stopped and your ignition would be all over the place. This is in real simple terms.