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Can a pickup sensor cause power failure in a car?
By Product Expert | Posted in Performance & Efficiency, Service and Repair, Tips and Info on Sunday, June 14th, 2020 at 9:59 pm
Automotive Power Failure Due to Pickup Sensor Failure
The sensor housed within a car’s pickup coil is a very important part of a car. As it helps to trigger a signal to the car’s ignition system, the sensor tells the system to fire a spark within the correct order through a current picked up and processed by the vehicle’s ECU or ignition system.
What happens if a pickup sensor fails? Can this result in power failure within a car?
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Yes, a malfunctioning pickup sensor can cause a car to experience power failure. A malfunctioning sensor or actuator can cause the car computer (or transmission) to receive signals with the wrong voltage amount. This can cause the computer to lean the air-fuel mixture, which results in a loss of power for your engine or transmission.
What does a pickup sensor do?
A pickup coil, which consists of a Hall effect sensor, is housed within the metal rotor mounted on top of a vehicle’s distributor shaft. As the rotor spins, little windows pass in front of this sensor. When a window passes, it exposes a magnet which triggers a signal to the car’s ignition system. The signal then tells the system to fire a spark in the fitting order.
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What is the Hall effect?
The Hall effect is produced as an electrical current, or voltage, crosses a conductor. For the pickup coil, the conductor plays the role of the sensor. The magnet within the rotor presents a current. This current is picked up by the sensor as the window passes by. This picked-up current is then processed by the vehicle’s ECU or ignition system.
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What is an air-fuel mixture in a vehicle, and what does it do?
The air fuel mixture is a mixture of vaporized fuel and air that enters the cylinders of an internal combustion engine or is formed within them. The products of the combustion of this mixture constitute the working substance for converting the thermal energy of the burned fuel into mechanical work.
