The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area The Electrical Bay Another Alternative Condenser update...

I'm sort of conflicted on where to post this...it is after all in ways an offer to sell, however in a moment I'll revisit the whole "project" scheme so as to clarify it again. I'm partly posting this because in the last few weeks I've received three email messages asking if the condenser project is dead. Not in any way has that happened. In fact last month I bought the parts to make 100 more of them and have converted about 1/3 of those so far. There is a good deal of labor involved.

The way it works: This is the first project to offer anything for sale and as those sales occur, all income whacks away at expenses. When (if) income exceeds expenses then all funds are put into other projects. No money goes into my pocket. If I was doing this for income, I'd be selling these all over the place but they are only available here. And if any project fails to reach the "break-even" point or fails to produce a useful product, then I'll just eat the cost of it and move on to something else.

The other project list currently includes:

the 6v, 8v, 12v FM radio/MP3/bluetooth radio for the AD trucks (very close to completing that one)

the GPS speedometer for the AD truck (also close on that one...finding the proper GPS unit has proven to be a bit of a challenge and shipping cost from China to the USA has changed dramatically recently)

the intermittent windshield wiper control (the circuit work is done however the Covid pandemic halted production of the rotary switch so it will be a while longer)

HEI work is being done since the Tom Langdon HEI unit is no longer available and I'm not certain anyone could replicate that work at Tom's price. More will follow on that, and anything I come up with will not be a copy of the original distributor. There are limitations and some things may work well while others may not. So we have to think alternatively. Actually I'm even considering coil-on-plug or coil-near-plug applications as some of those have already been successfully adapted to 50s design SBC engines. Possibly controlled by one of the Arduino or Raspberry Pi boards or a variant of the mega-squirt stuff (if I can understand that whole scheme). A new frontier to be honest but there would be advantages. One being a cleaner burning engine, another being less tinkering and another being better power and economy.

What else? I'm always open to suggestions. You can find me here or at [email protected] One thing I will add...there have been 4 USPS rate increases since the start of the Alternative Condenser project and the USPS has also done away with First Class Service for things like this (in favor of USPS Ground Advantage --- at about 30% higher cost and rates determined by distance) so the cost of the Alternative Condenser may have to reflect these changes. I'm still thinking about that.

You are good to have around Jon. You are our resident Mad Scientist. I appreciate your cost consciousness, including how you are saving everyone all of the binary ones and zeros by omitting the frivolous and pointless "H" in your first name. Does anyone know someone named 'Johnathan'?
I didn't think so.

I would recommend that you make a request to the site owners to allow a link or something of that sort to make it easier for members to "find" your condensers... At the moment, your project is a sticky at the top of this forum (which i'm sure you are aware of).

I'll do that. Yes, I know it is a sticky but this message included a bit more so I posted it as new.

The "Jon" spelling goes back to the early 1600s, Carl. 1635, actually. When we came over from Wales, the name was Sion (pronounced depending on where in Wales you lived as Zhan...sometimes written as Sean). As I understand the immigration clerk (Ellis Island wasn't in operation then but it didn't matter because apparently we got very lost and came ashore somewhere in Indiana) heard Zhan, thought the people were French, wrote it as Jean (same basic name by the way) but changed it to Jon when somebody corrected and said nope we were misguided Welshmen on our way to Texas. Anyhow we were pretty excited to have a name with the letter J in it...since like Italian and Russian the Welsh alphabet lacks the character J. Or it did back then. I think the rest of the world shamed the Welsh into admitting the letter when Tom Jones and Catherine Zeta Jones came along.

Jon ... I have a thought, but its more housekeeping than anything else so check your pm's.

All the best people have J names, BTW (John the Baptist, The Apostle John, John Adams, John Henry, John Kennedy, John Lejeune, John Basilone, John Bobo ...) I have a cousin named Jon. There was never any confusion at family gatherings ... But *my* parents could afford to buy the consonant so here I am ... Thanks, Vanna! "John" is short for ... John. Its a derivative of ... John. Its in Scripture as John. And you Bible scholars will note, of course, that "Jonathan" is also in Scripture -- King Saul's son who was as a brother to David. There are no "Johns" in the OT. Just in the NT (starting with the voice in the wilderness ... which is how *I* feel sometimes ...).

So I yield the Sceptre of Onomastic Supremacy to my brother, Jon (G)

HERE IS Jon G's initial post on the Condensers. (December 2020)

HERE IS his first update. (September 2021)