Condensor check

[ford35lh]

A friend gave me a box of condensers ;a few are marked Ford.
Some are in boxes from Standard Motor Products.
Some are marked with the mfd's .

Will a continuity check prove that they "may" be good or bad ???

[tubman]

If they have continuity, they are shorted and therefore no good. Other than that, most multimeters made today have a capacitor test function. They will tell you the actual capacitance, but there are other factors involved, heat, vibration, etc. that really can't be tested for.

[FrankWest]

Originally Posted by ford35lh

A friend gave me a box of condensers ;a few are marked Ford.
Some are in boxes from Standard Motor Products.
Some are marked with the mfd's .

Will a continuity check prove that they "may" be good or bad ???

If there is continuity between both contacts, they are bad.
Condensers are capacitors. They store charge between two plates plates, crating a high voltage, once the plates are shorted together they are busted.

[glennpm]

Originally Posted by tubman

If they have continuity, they are shorted and therefore no good. Other than that, most multimeters made today have a capacitor test function. They will tell you the actual capacitance, but there are other factors involved, heat, vibration, etc. that really can't be tested for.

If your meter doesn't have this capacitance feature, you can charge the condenser with your battery. Put the case on one battery post and run a wire from the copper condenser tab to the other post. Keep it there for a few seconds. Now set your meter to DC volts. You should now read low voltage which will slowly decrease. You still may have "other factors involved, heat, vibration, etc. that really can't be tested for."

[marko39]

Originally Posted by ford35lh

A friend gave me a box of condensers ;a few are marked Ford.
Some are in boxes from Standard Motor Products.
Some are marked with the mfd's .

Will a continuity check prove that they "may" be good or bad ???

if you can find someone with a Sun machine they can be tested.

[rotorwrench]

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Capacity, leakage, and resistance are the three checks. The instruments that will check all three are expensive.

[tubman]

Originally Posted by rotorwrench

Capacity, leakage, and resistance are the three checks. The instruments that will check all three are expensive.

That's what I thought, too. However it seems that there are inexpensive multimeters out there with comprehensive capacitor test functions. I haven't bought one yet, but the reviews are good. The way electronics is progressing, it's easy to accept.

[52flthed]

Are NOS USA made Condensers recommended or just the NOS points? Ive learned on this and other forums that the NOS distributor parts are good to keep around. I found some FoMoCo points. Is it okay to stick with the newly made but overseas Condensers?

[tubman]

These days it seems that Vertex has high quality condensers available at higher (but not ridiculous) costs. NOS points do not suffer from age unless stored poorly, while NOS condenser can (and will) go bad over time.