RPM Limiting System

The Small Engine Team project was to research and make an RPM Limiting/Cut-off system to work with dynamometer for the ongoing Small Engine Round Robin Project. LabVIEW graphical programming software along with National Instruments were used to create a program that limits the RPM of the engine and engine shuts off when the defined threshold RPM value is reached. Some Dynamometers have inbuilt safety device which cuts power to engine if it over revs to prevent damage to engine and the dyno but on our dynamometer such system was not present, hence we came up with our own ignition cut-off system. An inductive pickup from FLUKE along with LabVIEW and NI modules were used after a lot of research for this project. After doing a lot of research and testing this system on our small engine we found that we had some problems with the program running a little slower than our anticipation and requirement. We had to use a different module which had a faster response time which helped our system work even better than expected. This system gave us the ability to test small engines without fear of any damage to engine as well as the dynamometer because of the elevated rpms which may exceed the mechanical limits of the engine