What does the ignition condenser do?
It is basically a temporary storage device for electricity. The condenser is a simple capacitor that can store a small amount of current. When the points begin to open, the current flowing through the points looks for an alternative path to ground. If the condenser were not there, it would try to jump across the gap of the points as they begin to open. If this were allowed to happen, the points would quickly burn up and you would hear heavy static on the car radio. To prevent this, the condenser acts like a path to ground. It really is not, but by the time the condenser is saturated, the points are too far apart for the small amount of voltage to jump across the wide point gap. Since the arcing across the opening points is eliminated, the points last longer and there is no static on the radio from point arcing.
