how important is the condenser in the ignition circuit? and what purpose does it serve?

 

It was to prevent arcing across the points in the distributor. This system became obsolete when electronic ignition replaced it.

 

if i wanted a generic answer i would have stopped after i googled auto condensers instead of posting this......

 

 

You should have googled a little longer

"Capacitive discharge digital ignitions store charged energy for the spark in a capacitor within the module that can be released to the spark plug at virtually any time throughout the engine cycle via a control signal from the microprocessor."

You can monitor the signal with your oscilloscope

 

im sorry but what does that have to do with the condenser?

 

Basically it works the exact opposite on the G35, power is delivered full time to the coil packs when the ignition is on. It stores and discharges when it receives the GROUND from the ECM. That way there is no contact points to wear out inside the ECM, no potential for arcing, etc. All the ECM does is rapidly switch the ground wire on and off for each coil pack. All those grounds bond together from the ECM back to the IPDM where the power comes from and the purpose of the condenser is to keep any transient voltage from building up on the ECM ignition ground. Which can happen due to the very high voltage generated by the coil when the circuit is interrupted (opened) by the ECM.

 

Same thing!
Some say tomato, some say tomatto

"the main difference between capacitor and condensor is that the term capacitor is a relatively newer term while condensor is an older term."

Old electronic circuits may have referred to condensor's but they are actually capacitors that store energy.
There are start and run capacitors in the motor circuits of your furnace and air conditioner motors with capacitors in almost every electronic circuit
You can't see them in your IPhone but they are in there.

 

thank you cleric670, the only person who actually gave me a relevant answer!!! i swear dude im just gonna start tagging you in anything i post. that being said if my condenser was bad what problems could it cause?

 

loo
ok im sorry but first of all they arent the same thing or else they would have the same name. and you can call it a tomatto all you want buddy , it doesnt change a thing about the tomato. and how old of a term can it be the car is only like 14 years old at the most

 

I have no idea why they refer to it as a condenser in the drawing instead of capacitor. But nonetheless, either name still means the same component. The question remains as to what happens if this component goes bad. That could be several things, if it has gone open then it would not be storing the electrical energy as intended in the circuit. This could mean that there would be interference in the form of electrical energy in the circuit not being suppressed. If the component has shorted out to ground, then this could be providing an unintended path to ground that could short-circuit the remainder of the circuit or possibly destroy other components in the circuit rendering it useless.

The original answer given to you based on your question was quite correct. These components were used to limit the amount of voltage traveling across the ignition points in older vehicles, increasing the longevity of the points, reducing the amount of ignition dwell change and allowing the vehicle to travel maybe 10,000 miles without a tuneup. These components were also used to suppress excessive electrical noise in the ignition allowing you to actually listen to your radio.

 

From what I can tell as an electrician it is a term used mostly in Europe that carried over to American automotive. They don't call them capacitors in Europe even to this day, it's a condenser, I was recently working with a team from Ireland that built a bunch of electrical gear we were installing. We were the installers, they were doing startup and commisioning, there's a LOT of variation in terminology but the condenser one stood out because initially we thought it had some kind of active refrigerant cooling because they kept talking about those damned condensers...

 

Off topic here but I do need to clarify 99 percent of you're "furnace and air conditioner" caps are RUN capacitors "they constantly supply power while circuit is calling" only shaded pole motors use START caps "in which the motor is jolted with high electrical charge in the start electrical winding then stops after motor is 75/80 percent of full run. If anyone cared to know lol