Denso has announced the development of new starter, Tandem Solenoid (TS) starter, designed specifically for stop/start systems which feature world’s first mechanism capable of separately controlling the forward shift of the pinion gear and the motor rotation, resulting in a 1.5 second reduction in restart time. The new mechanism allows the engine to restart while it is still rotating, which shortens the waiting time during the restart for a smoother engine feel at the start-up. In the conventional stop/start system, starter conjunctionally shifts the pinion gear and energizes the motor for rotation; however this system is not capable of restarting the engine while the engine is rotating, or while the engine is coasting after the vehicle is stopped. Due to this reason there is about 1.5 second waiting period before the driver can re-start the engine again. With the new TS starter however, if the engine is rotating fast, the motor is first energized in order to increase the pinion gear speed and then the pinion gear is shifted forward when the rotation of the ring gear and pinion gear are close. In the event that engine is turning slow enough for the two gears to be connected, the pinion gear is first moved forward and then the motor is powered. Furthermore, in order to help with improving the fuel efficiency and reducing CO2, stop/start systems automatically stop the engine while the vehicle is stopped.
