Topic: should i have bright sparks at my points?

[USCG_C130]

so  i was out riding the other day and made a stop at gander mountain to look at some 44 magnums, i shut my bike off and go inside, i come back out ready to leave and i kick start my bike, while apparently i have a big hand of throttle in and it revved to life and then was running rough, so i stopped at my buddys real quick and went back out to leave and kicked the bike again and it was really really rough.

so long story short i didnt make it home i got the out of gas sputter as i lost 2 cylinders and it died on the side of the road, i had to get it trucked home. i am pretty sure i blew a condenser so i replaced that and had to redo my timing since i messed with that before looking at the condenser (duuuhhh)
but now i have it back running fairly smooth after fixing my timing but should i have bright blue sparks at both sets of points? because i have my 1-4 set with a big bright spark and my 2-3 have a weak and much dimmer spark at the points? it is firing on all 4 cylinders  but it seems like both sets should looks the same. i looked for an answer but haven't found one so i will just start a thread.

[lucky]

so  i was out riding the other day and made a stop at gander mountain to look at some 44 magnums, i shut my bike off and go inside, i come back out ready to leave and i kick start my bike, while apparently i have a big hand of throttle in and it revved to life and then was running rough, so i stopped at my buddys real quick and went back out to leave and kicked the bike again and it was really really rough.

so long story short i didnt make it home i got the out of gas sputter as i lost 2 cylinders and it died on the side of the road, i had to get it trucked home. i am pretty sure i blew a condenser so i replaced that and had to redo my timing since i messed with that before looking at the condenser (duuuhhh)
but now i have it back running fairly smooth after fixing my timing but should i have bright blue sparks at both sets of points? because i have my 1-4 set with a big bright spark and my 2-3 have a weak and much dimmer spark at the points? it is firing on all 4 cylinders  but it seems like both sets should looks the same. i looked for an answer but haven't found one so i will just start a thread.

No such thing as "blowing" a condenser.
I condenser/capacitor absorbs energy (dwell) during the time the engine is turning leading up to when the points open.

You should instal new condensers at the same time you install new points to get the maximum life out of your points.

The spark at the points has nothing to do with how the engine runs.
The purpose of the points is not to make sparks, but to simply release the energy from the coils to the spark plugs at the correct time when they open.

You need to gap the points like the workshop manual tells you and check the dwell at the same time. You must have a dwell meter.

If you do that when the points are NEW you will get the maximum life out of the points.

The dwell must be in limits at the same time as the correct gap is achieved.

[bjbuchanan]

Before screwing with your timing, too late now but anyway... Always check the easy stuff-is your plug cap screwed on tight tight to the wire (trim 1/4" off for fresh wire), is the plug cap good? I.e. is it a 5k ohm plug cap that is reading 12k ohm, because that is a bad cap. Is your cap on that plug good, sometimes they get beat up.

Check voltage at the coils, are you getting 12v at the coils on the black/white wire or less because of dirty connections? Could be as simple as loose bullets. I would check down near the clutch at those blue/yellow wires because they are easy to forget about and have weak/intermittent connection. What is the condition of your battery? Low electrolyte level or just old crappy battery that won't charge anymore?

Most of the time these problems are a result of corroded connections and bullets that don't have a tight fit anymore

[TwoTired]

Points can make more spark emission simply because the contacts are dirty.  The color of the spark is related to the material atomized within the spark gap.

Condensers are capacitors.  A capacitor consists of two conductive plates separated by a dielectric material.  If the voltage exceeds dielectric withstand capability, they do indeed "blow"?  The dielectric capability can be altered by chemical action or vibration.  But, they are ALL designed with some high voltage limit of withstand.

During the spark event, some of the energy used to spark the plugs gets reflected back toward the points.  It's the condenser's job to absorb some of this energy (and change the phase of the current and voltage peak timing).  Current leads voltage in capacitors,  Voltage leads current in inductors like the coil.

A change in coils (lower primary resistance) can increase the energy feedback to the points/condenser.  Same is true for reducing the secondary resistance (plug resistors, plug cap resistors, or resistance wire components).

In electrical circuits, a part can be damaged by other circuit failures.  Simply replacing the failed part does not always correct electrical circuit behavior.
Time to state what the rest of the ignition circuit looks like.

[USCG_C130]

thanks for all the input guys it turns out both my condensers went bad, i went through so much trouble shooting and then replaced only one condenser like a cheap-O- and paid the price, i think if i would have replaced both of my condensers i would have been good to go 2 days ago but one good one and one bad one is what has caused one set to have a big blue spark and the other to just have a small spark. so tomorrow i will be going to dimecity to pick up a new  set and am strongly contemplating a Dyna-S electronic ignition, this bike doesnt see long hauls its a local bar hopper for a couple hour rides, so if it does fail i wont be far from home with a truck and ramp. thanks again for the input.

[bjbuchanan]

Considering that it won't be doing long hauls it would be even more of a waste of money to run electronic instead of points