Took apart a lighter to drain the butane and throw it away. Thought it was cool to look inside. The trigger pushes on the button (left) end of the thing near the bottom right with the wires coming off it. Thats a piezo igniter which is a little hammer inside the plastic casing that hits a “piezo material” when the trigger is compressed all the way. That piezo material is a crystal that, when hit, produced a voltage across itself. It’s called the piezoelectric effect and some materials have it. When you deform the material and it bounces back it creates a voltage across itself. I think it has to do with the crystal structure “liking” to be in a certain state and when you out energy into deforming it one way it stores that as potential energy and outputs it as electrical energy as it bounces back to its “natural” shape. This is actually the aame effect but in reverse for ceramic capacitors that “ring”. On some circuits, if the voltage across a ceramic cap keeps changing then the ceramic itself actually grows and shrinks such that it acts like a speaker... and rings!
So the black wire connects to the black tube just above it. This is the outside shield of the lighter nozzle. The yellow wire goes all the way to the wnd of the tube and touches that brass looking nozzle on the bottom left of the image. So when the igniter hits a large voltage a created across the black shielding and that brass nozzle which is held at the center of the metal shield. The voltage is so high that a spark is produced across the gap.
At the same time as the trigger causes the piezo igniter to go off, a small valve is actuated by that little white lever sticking out of the tank on the bottom right. The tank holds the butane and the little lever opens up a valve and releases butane as the trigger is pulled. That butane travels up the tube in the nozzle and flows out of the brass nozzle we talked about earlier just as the spark is generated. The butane is flammable (which is why you shouldn’t just throw away a full lighter) and it ignites as long as you keep the trigger pulled so the butane can keep flowing to sustain the fire that started originally due to the spark.
it’s a really awesome and simple design, no electronics, little moving parts. So next time you’re struggling to pull the trigger on these things stop and reflect on the fact that the same squeezing energy you’re putting into the trigger is the exact energy converted to electrical voltage that creates a spark which lights the lighter.
So the black wire connects to the black tube just above it. This is the outside shield of the lighter nozzle. The yellow wire goes all the way to the wnd of the tube and touches that brass looking nozzle on the bottom left of the image. So when the igniter hits a large voltage a created across the black shielding and that brass nozzle which is held at the center of the metal shield. The voltage is so high that a spark is produced across the gap.
At the same time as the trigger causes the piezo igniter to go off, a small valve is actuated by that little white lever sticking out of the tank on the bottom right. The tank holds the butane and the little lever opens up a valve and releases butane as the trigger is pulled. That butane travels up the tube in the nozzle and flows out of the brass nozzle we talked about earlier just as the spark is generated. The butane is flammable (which is why you shouldn’t just throw away a full lighter) and it ignites as long as you keep the trigger pulled so the butane can keep flowing to sustain the fire that started originally due to the spark.
it’s a really awesome and simple design, no electronics, little moving parts. So next time you’re struggling to pull the trigger on these things stop and reflect on the fact that the same squeezing energy you’re putting into the trigger is the exact energy converted to electrical voltage that creates a spark which lights the lighter.