What you and I and a few others here understand, Bart is anytime you "sacrifice" (for lack of a better word) 6 volts from 12 volts, it isn't as though you went to the grocer and selected 6 potatoes out of a display of 12 and just innocently purchased those. The 6 missing volts must basically be destroyed continuously whenever the circuit is made and that creates heat. Heat to many electronic components is instantly or rapidly fatal---depending almost entirely on the rating/quality of the component, how rapidly that heat builds up and how effectively it can be dissipated. In cases of poorly made discrete components or an incorrect application, the damage can be almost a guarantee...and that is what I expect is the root problem here. The runtz device (from my observation) seemed to have more than expected failures right from the start. Two years ago a neighbor reached out to me, complaining the ignition control module in his Ford had failed and kept failing no matter how many of them he installed. Turned out Ford had used an incorrect heat transfer material between the module and the heat sink. It formed a ridge of about 1.5mm, the newly designed module sat atop that ridge and unless you worked with acetone to remove that, the module could not dissipate heat fast enough to keep from burning itself out. As I said I'll give this some thought. Anyone who knows me already knows I would never connect my name to anything expected to fail. Look at the "alternate condenser." Months of study went into that...the selection of the capacitor, the German maker's corporate philosophy and history, the design and then after that several were sent to people to test and see if there were any reasons they didn't work so changes could be made. I imagine if (and I doubt I'll be around long enough) I sold 1000 of them that there would never be a single failure. It isn't something designed to be changed when points are changed and it was also designed to help keep points alive longer. I've mentioned the Vol-Ta-Drop. That was a very clever product. A single coil of special resistance wire divided into 2 lengths and put into a ceramic box. That's all it was. One length of the coil supplied voltage for the radio and the other length to other accessories. The company is gone now but back when I talked to them there had been no failures at all. They made the product for both 12 and 24 volts and converted into 6, 8 or 12 volts.
As I mentioned, simplicity, durability and a zero failure rate...and I don't see that in the Chinese condenser, the runtz device and some other things out there.
Our tip section needs attention, by the way.
