cam/crank sensor voltage
02-20-2008, 03:00 AM
#3
TECH Apprentice
Join Date: Aug 2004
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That's a really good question, and one I never would have considered if you hadn't asked. I just assumed that crank/cam position sensors were "passive", for lack of a better word. When you get right down to it, cam/crank sensors produce output signals by making use of the Hall effect. This is a greatly over-simplified explanation, but you could think of either sensor as a magnetic pickup. The signal output fluctuates as the reluctor wheel "teeth" flash past the sensor's magnetic pickup. For this reason, I had always just assumed that the sensors didn't need to be "powered". I'm probably wrong, but my thinking was that as the reluctor wheel, which is steel, spins past a magnetic pickup, it acts something like a generator, or any other device that produces current by spinning magnets inside a metallic enclosure, only in this case, it's set up kind of backwards, with the magnets being stationary, while the "enclosure" spins around them. I vaguely remember learning about magnetic fields producing electricity way back in grade school, but anyway, that's how I think they work.
Or not.
Or not.
03-15-2008, 10:39 PM
#6
Teching In
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cam pulse signal voltage. my 99 ta 5.7 gm manual says 12 volts for the cam sensor. three wires, a 12 volt ignition from the ecm, a ground to complete the circuit and a pulse wire for the signal.
