reo + Oehm,
Thank you very much. So I guess it isn't a myth. This was my thinking on the experiment: The condenser is actually a capacitor, which "stores" an electrical charge. As the coil saturates, the points open, the electrical field in the coil collapses across the secondary winding producing the high voltage to fire across the gap of the plug. The points are just a switch in the primary circuit and as they open , because the system is DC, a large arc will develope between them. This uncontrolled arc is what BURNS the points. The condenser (capacitor) grabs this spike of voltage, stores it and bleeds it off to ground...thus saving the
points.
This is how I figured the system worked..so if the condenser is removed, why doesn't it still work? It seems like it should, just with more arcing & sparking in the points area.
I wonder what part of the equation I don't understand...so as they say on TV, the myth stands.
Thanks again to reo and Oehm for taking the time to try this...do I owe you a set of points?
Stuart.
