A few testing tools compared

[mikebramel]

The loadpro has half an amp load. the Voltpro has 80 milliamps

 

[signcrafter]

The loadpro has half an amp load. the Voltpro has 80 milliamps

Can you explain what this means and which is good or bad? I'm electrically challanged so don't really understand how the loadpro had half an amp load?

 

[Skin]

hes insinuating the volt pro is safer. What it really comes down to is more idiot proof. 500 milliamp load applied for a short period shouldn't do any harm.

 

[srmofo]

I mostly use my PP3 for effecting entry into locked cars with the keys inside.

Or I might use it to temporarily run a supply or ground to a fuel pump with a broken/corroded wire to get it back to the workshop.

I think you just learn more quickly using a DVOM, the more you use it the better you get with it, then when you get a tricky job its second nature.

My DVOM is about all I use when Im really digging into an electrical problem. None of the other tools do what a dvom can, and with the addition of a load tester it cant be beat. I pull my noid lights out to check injectors and occasionally a test light if I need to be at another area of the car (ie brake lamps). But after a small problem I had last week with an Acadia and the drivers window not working, Ive decided to pull the trigger on the load Pro. Ive had it in my amazon cart for probably over a year and honestly kinda forgot about it. Being able to quickly apply a load probably would have saved me 30 minutes when diagnosing that bad window switch. I kept getting conflicting readings/wrong readings and it made me second guess myself and my Fluke

BTW if you havent checked your batteries in your meter recently, Now is a good time. I found a half swollen 9V and some corroded screws (battery leakage)in mine while popping the cover open to look for obvious issues.

 

[richfinn]

Can you explain what this means and which is good or bad? I'm electrically challanged so don't really understand how the loadpro had half an amp load?

I think what he is saying is that the Volt-Pro doesn,t load the circuit heavily enough to unearth the fault, which effectively makes it useless in the scenario in which Dan was using it.

 

[richfinn]

My DVOM is about all I use when Im really digging into an electrical problem. None of the other tools do what a dvom can, and with the addition of a load tester it cant be beat. I pull my noid lights out to check injectors and occasionally a test light if I need to be at another area of the car (ie brake lamps). But after a small problem I had last week with an Acadia and the drivers window not working, Ive decided to pull the trigger on the load Pro. Ive had it in my amazon cart for probably over a year and honestly kinda forgot about it. Being able to quickly apply a load probably would have saved me 30 minutes when diagnosing that bad window switch. I kept getting conflicting readings/wrong readings and it made me second guess myself and my Fluke

BTW if you havent checked your batteries in your meter recently, Now is a good time. I found a half swollen 9V and some corroded screws (battery leakage)in mine while popping the cover open to look for obvious issues.

My Fluke is hibernating without its battery, I,m using company issue UEI products at the moment. Which although not as good as a Fluke are actually quite well made and have some nice features, my only beef with UEI is the screen is way slower to update than a Fluke. Tough meters though I work outdoors in the British weather and they stand up OK.

 

[richfinn]

Can you explain how you power up components with a DVOM?

Sure, I set the meter to 20 Amps move the positive meter lead to the 20a jack and jump a battery supply or chassis ground to whatever I want to test.

negatives

1. not all meters will support 20a (cheaper ones tend to be 10a max)

2. you risk blowing the fuse in your meter if you calculate the draw wrong

3. standard leads are a bit short

positives

1. you can read the current flow direct on the meter (good to learn)

2. quality meters have fast blow fuses so its a little safer than a PP3

3. you can get super long leads

Again I wont knock Power-Probe, I think they make a reasonably priced convenient product in the PP2/PP3 that has made auto electrics more accessible to a lot of techs. They don,t claim it will load test circuits/measure current or resistance (which is fair enough) and in my experience the quality is good.

 

[richfinn]

And seriously can we discuss this like adults without the stupid tags at the bottomof the page.I do not want to get this thread locked because there is actulally good info without all the bickering.

Who keeps putting up the stupid tags?

In Britain that kind of of thing is considered Cowardice and bullying.

I dont know if a moderator can do anything about it, but if it continues I think you might start losing interesting posters which would be a shame.

 

[richfinn]

Mercedes has been doing drive by wire braking for close to ten years. It's a system called sbc. It uses hydraulic fluid like a conventional brake setup but the brake pedal is just an electrical switch that turns on a pump that works the brakes.

Yeah, I,m not so familiar with Mercs. I have seen a Saab with a Joystick instead of a steering wheel. And I know they are fooling about with electronically controlled brake calipers to eliminate the need for the hydraulics altogether.

 

[joedodge]

Ya mods please delete the tags lets keep this one about the tools. I have a power probe I use it ocasionaly for door lock and window motors but mostly for installing camera systems and emergency equipment my fluke and test light are my go to tools. After Xmas ill be getting load pros though. I had an ambulance the other day that had no comm with Tcm it would light a logic probe at the batt voltage wire to the module and show 12.6 with my meter couldn't figure it out ended up using my old matco test light to load the wire barely lit the filament worked my way through the connectors and harness ended up being a burned terminal on the circuit board in the fuse box dropping voltage. Replace the fuse box good to go. That's why I don't like the led logic probes almost anything light them up if I'd had load pro it would have taken half the time probably.

 

[Hyster Gareth]

All these tools have there place but it's suprising how many of us still go and rely on our DVOM and use it the most!!

 

[FiendFX]

Great title. Time for round 2. IBTL!

 

[FiendFX]

Was it still working fine with the bad battery? Did the battery indicator went on? I got 2 fluke 115 one at work and one at home. Thats how much i like dmm.

My DVOM is about all I use when Im really digging into an electrical problem. None of the other tools do what a dvom can, and with the addition of a load tester it cant be beat. I pull my noid lights out to check injectors and occasionally a test light if I need to be at another area of the car (ie brake lamps). But after a small problem I had last week with an Acadia and the drivers window not working, Ive decided to pull the trigger on the load Pro. Ive had it in my amazon cart for probably over a year and honestly kinda forgot about it. Being able to quickly apply a load probably would have saved me 30 minutes when diagnosing that bad window switch. I kept getting conflicting readings/wrong readings and it made me second guess myself and my Fluke

BTW if you havent checked your batteries in your meter recently, Now is a good time. I found a half swollen 9V and some corroded screws (battery leakage)in mine while popping the cover open to look for obvious issues.

 

[Robbie UK]

Can't the mods ban the members who post such rude tags that are aimed at a named forum member?

Keep the discussion going guys.

 

[ourkid2000]

My Fluke had a low battery a while back and it was acting possessed until I realized what was happening. It had me thrown way off track when I was taking some measurements.

 

[Stick]

Can't the mods ban the members who post such rude tags that are aimed at a named forum member?

Keep the discussion going guys.

I'd imagine a one week vacation from the forums would work as well, and seems more than reasonable to me. PM the mods and let your opinion be known.

++ on keeping reasonable discussion going.

 

[FiendFX]

My Fluke had a low battery a while back and it was acting possessed until I realized what was happening. It had me thrown way off track when I was taking some measurements.

What kind of symptoms did you get?

 

[joedodge]

Ya I'm interested to hear also never actually had a meter battery die before I decided to change it. Anyone have any really practical power probe uses other than the ones stated

 

[The_Rookie]

I don't post much but after reading the last thread and this one ,I will be ordering a loadpro .For 60 bucks it will add a lot of fuctionality to a tool I already have.

I would rather have a tool that dose one thing really well than a tool that dose a mediocre job of multiple things

I'm an Electrician by trade and understand whats been discussed in this thread and the value of good tools and sure I could build one of these but why would I ,my time is valuable and I could be making money with my tools rather than making them.

As someone said earlier the pp3 is great for installing and loadpro to troubleshoot whats allready there.

The Tags that have been added to this thread are disgusting and who ever added them deserves to be banned .

Steve

 

[Brownsfan]

What are you getting at BC?

Data Transmission network not a safe area to test?

Its OK if you follow the rules, it doesn,t carry a load, so unless you isolate the physical layer from the nodes and power it independently you wouldn,t ever need to use any of those 3 tools anyway. Although you can use a DVOM and Load Pro to carry out some network testing.

That still leaves an awful lot of load carrying wiring to test.

Actually I use a logic probe to test certain data lines when interfacing into transponder systems. The pulses are too fast for a meter to catch. The logic probe will pulse with the data transmission. Now this is ONLY on some vehicles where I know it is safe and know what exactly I am looking for. The only logic probe that works when doing this is the waekon cts42v or whatever part number the tool trucks will give it. I think the volt pro will do the same test because it behaves the same way. And the glitch capture helps with it

 

[ourkid2000]

I have a question that I've been pondering for a bit......let's see how we make out on this one. This is a practical application, I believe, of the LoadPro that the outcomes may be a little offside from what we've been shown. It will get us thinking anyways because it deals with computer inputs and transistor drivers etc.

First, watch Scanner Danner's door lock testing video (

). To save you some time, the wiring diagrams are shown starting at about 9 min. This circuit is fairly simple.........a 12v source feeds the the door lock switch and depending on which 12v source is driven straight to ground by the switch, the door will either lock or unlock. The wiring to the switch carries no current (well, very little), rather the computer is simply "watching" for it to get a ground and commands the door lock motors to operate based on what it sees.

So what we have here is a computer input.......remember how we talked about that in great detail in the LoadPro thread?

So, in the video, go to the 14:30 min mark and you will see that inside this computer is a 12v feed followed by a current limiting resistor. The voltage sensing happens inside the computer right after the current limiting resistor (because without the resistor, there would be no load and it would be a short to ground). The resistor drops all the voltage and the voltage drops to 0 (ohms law).......The computer, watching this, sees the 0v input and commands the appropriate door lock motor. Make sense? Still following?

Lets assume there is corrosion at the door switch connector in this circuit (basically a second resistor or load). I feel that the LoadPro is no good for this kind of troubleshooting. You would use the DMM normally to find this problem, correct?

Perhaps this is a good example why they say not to use the LoadPro on inputs? Seems to me that if you used the LoadPro to load up this circuit, your measurements would be misleading (but not damaging). You can see an example of this at 4:45. His test light does not light, which means that there is already a huge voltage drop in the circuit even when it is operating correctly.