Jim,
Gee, Jim, and I always thought all that little capacitor did was just kept
the coil from arcing across the points! ;-)
Bob
At 11:52 PM 11/12/99 -0500, TIGEROOTES(at)aol.com wrote:
>Bob, etal,
> That is not the purpose of having a condenser (or two in the case of a
>dual point unit). Although the ignition coil is charged by DIRECT CURRENT,
>it charges and discharge so rapidly, the circuit behaves similar to
>characteristics seen with ALTERNATING CURRENT...in fact it is "seen" as a
>square wave: on-off-on-off...
>
> Consequently, there is a component of INDUCTIVE REACTANCE (XL (little L)
>the opposition to the flow of alternating current or pulsating current by the
>inductive reactance (ac resistance) of a circuit: this puts voltage and
>current OUT OF PHASE.
>The equation: 2 pi fL.....where f is in hertz and L is in Henrys
>
> The consenser/s (capacitor/s) is/are chosen to RESTORE the phase
>relationship of current and voltage, using CAPACITIVE REACTANCE, (Xc The
>capacitive reactance (ac resistance) a capacitor offers to alternating
>current or pulsating direct current.
>The equation: 1over 2pi fC......where f is in hertz and C is in farads.
>
> Inductive reactance and capacitive reactance are INVERSELY PROPORTIONAL
>to eachother: THEY CANCEL EACHOTHER OUT...and that is the goal.
>
>Jim Leach, PTC Seattle
Robert L. Palmer
Univ. of Calif., San Diego
Department of AMES
rpalmer(at)ucsd.edu
rpalmer(at)cts.com
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