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On 12 Jan 2004 at 21:47, Greg Merritt wrote: > At 11:32 PM -0600 1/12/04, Jim Adney wrote: > >Other way around: Increasing the dwell retards the spark. Don't feel bad, I > >ALWAYS have to draw myself a picture to figure this out. > > D'oh! And I always thought that dwell was the duration of > the points being open (that is, the spark 'sparking')! ....er, well > sort of. Right, it's the other way around the dwell is just a measure of how long the two halves of the points "dwell" against each other, their closed time. This is the time during which the coil charges up. It takes time for the coil to charge up because the coil has inductance, so the current in the coil only rises "slowly." > I think I got that impression from the specs -- they list a > range of acceptable point gap (.016" to .020", or something like > that) and a range of acceptable dwell angles (forty-something degrees > to fifty-something degrees, iirc). I never realized that the > numerically SMALLER point gap value corresponded to the numerically > LARGER dwell angle measurement!! Right, the smaller gap means that there will be more time spent closed, hence a larger dwell. -- Jim Adney jadney@vwtype3.org Madison, WI 53711-3054 USA ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ List info at http://www.vwtype3.org/list | mailto:gregm@vwtype3.org