Another look at Charles Franklin Kettering, his Ignition System, and the Development of Self-Starter

Below is my account of C.F. Kettering's ignition and self-starter inventions that were done before WWI. The past few days I have been revisiting this topic, and a bit of the material was dealt with in a previous post involving the work of J. Clyde Coleman and his early self-starter patent. What I have discovered is that the entire ignition/self-starter episode is about as complex as it can be.  And for me, my lack of full understanding of the principles of electric city and magnetism is a real hindrance to unpacking the story. In addition to the fine work of Stewart Leslie, I draw on  two previous Kettering biographies, T.A. Boyd, Professional Amateur: The Biography of Charles Franklin Kettering (E.P. Dutton, 1957) and Rosamond McPherson Young, Boss Ket: A Life of Charles F. Kettering (Longmans, Green and Co., 1961). Of course all of this work centers on the life of Kettering -- they are biographies that do not place in context Kettering's work in any kind of full context.  What can be said of the work of many others that took place at the same time that Kettering developed the Delco ignition system and then the self starter? In order to simplify a complicated history, we first need to separate ignition from starting functions, although the two will ultimately be combined into an integrated system. That synthesis is the most singular achievement of Kettering as a technological system builder.
The ignition system story points to a number of issues that demand further work. What seems so striking in the Young biography is the rivalry between Kettering and the "Magneto Boys."

In 1909 Moon employed a magneto starter in some of their vehicles

Also Young points a picture of a naive, focussed inventor who was at home in the shop and did not realize the commercial significance of what he was working on related to the rapidly expand automobile industry. I sincerely doubt that. Rather, it is more reasonable to see Kettering as driven and ambitious.

Kettering preferred to depend on storage batteries. (In initial versions of the Delco ignition system dry cells are also employed, as in a magneto system -- see diagram below). Dayton area inventor Vincent G. Apple preferred magnetos, and his Dayton-based Aplco was a major player in 1913. Was their a connection between Kettering and Apple?  To be followed up on by some archival work in the very near future!

Edward Deeds' efforts were also critical to Kettering's success. At critical junctures Deeds negotiated the assignment of patents both related to ignition (magnetic clutch) and starting. Deeds collaboration and business acumen proven critical to the success of the Delco venture.

Note that there were a good number of spring and compressed air starter motors both before and after Kettering's self starter installations on Henry Leland's 1912 Cadillacs. In fact , a very large electric motor was used to start an internal cousin engine as early as 1896.

Undoubtedly Kettering understood the limitation of springs from his work at National Cash Register. Most notably compressed air starters were standard on Winton sixes beginning in 1906. So Kettering did not invent the self starter. What he did was invent a reliable and small combination dynamo/motor that eventually dominated the marketplace.

Delco System in a 1913 Cole Motor Car. Note the important role of both the magnetic clutch and relay in the circuits.

From my book:
Biographer Stewart W. Leslie has said this about Kettering and his technological style:  “He made corporate bureaucracy work for him. Within the largest private organization of his time he fashioned a managerial role that proved technological entrepreneurship could flourish, and one man could still make a difference.”⁸Kettering had remarkable personal qualities that distinguished him as one of the leading industrial scientists of his and any other era in American history. He was sharply inquisitive, and this trait led to an intimate knowledge associated with the problem at hand, the result of close observation and direct experience. Kettering was equally comfortable in both theory and practice, and he usually focused his attention on a commercial bottleneck where improvement seemed possible rather than striking out into completely unexplored areas. Yet he had little use for high-powered scientific theories and abstruse terminology that usually had little applicability in an industrial setting. He once said that “Thermodynamics is a big word for covering up our inability to understand temperature.”⁹

Born in Loudonville, Ohio, Kettering attended The Ohio State University, majoring in electrical engineering.¹⁰Perhaps it was due to the strain of studies, but whatever the cause he temporarily lost his eyesight, only to regain it before he began work as a telephone line repairman. In 1903 he took a job at the National Cash Register Company (NCR), working in Invention Department No. 4 and was charged with the development of an electrical motor that would possess enough torque to operate a mechanical cash register. Dissatisfied with boss John Patterson, Kettering, along with Edward Deeds (then a vice-president at NCR), Bill Chryst and others, began work on an integrated automotive electrical system, a technology that would ultimately greatly improve the automobile as a form of transportation.

            In 1908, on the eve of Kettering’s involvement in the development of an efficient automobile ignition system, it was well recognized that ignition or providing the spark to ignite the fuel was a weak link. As Stewart Leslie has recounted:

A proper ignition for such a variable, high-speed engine had frustrated inventors for decades. Continental engineers, led by Robert Bosch, had eventually worked out an acceptable magneto around the turn of the century. Americans still preferred dry cell battery ignitions, which were cheaper though less reliable. However, battery ignition had its own shortcomings. To provide a spark of adequate intensity from a relatively small bank of batteries, the dry cells were connected to an induction coil in such a way that the primary circuit was repeatedly interrupted by a master vibrator that created a shower of sparks, which then depleted the non-rechargeable batteries after a few hundred miles of driving.¹¹

            Kettering responded to this problem by drawing on his experience gained at NCR. Unlike invention that was born out of accident, inspiration, or a flash of genius, Kettering worked with deliberate purpose. He drew on his own experience and on the previous work of Clyde Coleman, who had filed patents for both air and spring starters in 1903 and 1904.¹²Taking a magnetic relay that he had used for a cash register design, Kettering used it to serve as a holding coil that would release the ignition contact only at the proper moment in the cycle and send one intense spark instead of a shower. He subsequently sold this ignition coil design to Henry Leland at Cadillac. His success would not only form the basis of the Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (Delco), but also further work leading to an integrated electrical system. That technology involved a self starter, generator, voltage regulator and lighting units, which Kettering also first sold to Cadillac before marketing it to other companies.¹³

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What is so striking about the Kettering self-starter patent is his precise language and careful attention to detail. While there had been many other self-starter mechanisms in the recent past -- spring, air, and electric -- this one was fully integrated and reliable. It took a special mind to construct such a device, 

By early 1913, Delco occupied three floors of a rented factory building in East Dayton, Ohio, employed 1,500 workers, and had sold a total of 35,000 starting, lighting, and ignition systems. Despite the catastrophic Dayton Flood of 1913, Delco continued to grow, and thus by the end of that year the firm tripled its annual output, to more than 45,000 units. Profitable and innovative, it would be purchased by Durant in 1916.

            Self-starters were rapidly adopted throughout the industry. In 1912 only Cadillac used the device, but in 1913 the number increased to 48 companies, and by 1914, 92 percent of all vehicles offered the convenience. Even Ford adopted the technology before too long. The danger of a hand crank “kick back” upon backfire, resulting in what was known as a chauffeur’s fracture or fractured wrist, was now largely a thing of the past.