Diagnose Electrical Circuits Like a Pro! English - Español - Français - Deutsch - Italiano
Contents Congratulations ....................................................................................................... 4 Parts......................................................................................................................... 5 The SMART transmitter ...................................................................................... 6 Charcteristics of the Short/Grounded Circuit signal ...............................................
English Contents How to Trace Out a Short Circuit to Chassis Ground........................................... 17 Isolate your Circuit ............................................................................................... 18 Verify the Short Circuit to Ground........................................................................ 18 Short Circuit inside a Wire Harness ...................................................................... 19 Reception Distance and What that Means ................
Congratulations Congrat ulations Thank you for choosing the Power Probe “SMART ECT-2000” (Electronic Circuit Tracer- 2000) This instruction booklet will give you some valuable diagnosing tips gathered from the field and from our testing lab. This instruction booklet has convenient references that will take you to appropriate pages that provide more information and clarification.
#20014 - Universal Wire Adapter* #AA4 #AA6 Back Probe #AA3 #AA1 #AA2 Blade Probe Light Bulb Adapters #PNECT000R #PNECT000T SMART transmitter SMART receiver #PNECT057 Alligator Clip Adapter #PN012SET Battery Hook-up Clip Set Included in the Kit: SMART transmitter SMART receiver 1-Blade Probe** 1-Back Probe** 3-Light Bulb Adapters** 1-Piercing Probe 1-Alligator Clip Adapter 1- Battery Hook-up Clip Set 1-Universal Wire Adapter*: (You can solder to any connection for custom use.
The SMART transmitter The SMART transmitter is designed to generate Grounded Circuit signals and Open Circuit signals. The grounded and the open circuit signals are very different from each other, so it is very important to understand the differences in each signal type. (see “Characteristics of the Short/Grounded Circuit Signal” pg.. 8 and Characteristics of the Open Circuit Signal” pg..9) Power Lead The 20 ft.
English After connecting the SMART transmitter’s 20 ft. power lead to the vehicle’s battery, a signal is generated through the green signal wire and banana plug. This is connected to the circuit you want to trace. The signal will radiate along the circuit, which you can detect by using the SMART receiver. There are two types of circuit signals that the SMART transmitter generates. They are the Grounded Circuit SIGNAL and the OPEN CIRCUIT SIGNAL.
Characteristics of the Short/Grounded Circuit Signal: Path of least resistance Major portion of signal 1. Strongest when flowing exclusively through one wire goes into short (ground) When the signal is conducting through only one wire, the signal strength is at its maximum because 100% of the signal is traveling through that wire exclusively to return back to the negative side of the battery.
Characteristics of the Open Circuit Signal are: 2. Easily Shielded by Conductive Materials The open circuit signal is however easily shielded by conductive materials such as metal, wet carpet, neighboring wires in a harness and even your hand. This means that if conductive materials are between the transmitting wire and the SMART receiver, the open circuit signal will not penetrate through and therefore not be detected by the receiver.
3. Capacitive Coupling to Parallel Floating Circuits Another characteristic of the open circuit signal is that it will capacitive couple to parallel floating circuits. (See: “Bench Tracing a Wire Harness” pg. 24) 4. Travels to ALL Open Ends In Fig. 1 we are injecting an open circuit signal into a parallel circuit that has three wires. Two of those wires lead to open switches and the other leads to the open/break. As you can see the open circuit signal travels to all open ends.
English The SMART Receiver The SMART receiver is designed to detect the “Grounded Circuit signals” and the open circuit signals from the SMART transmitter. Auto shut-off feature The SMART receiver will automatically shut-off within 30 seconds when it is NOT receiving a signal. The “Open & Short Pick-Up” located on the side of the receiver housing labeled “Open and Short Pick-up” is to sense and detect complete and open circuit signals. The “Power/Sensitivity Lock” button does a few things. 1.
Battery Installation 1. To install the batteries, remove the battery cover on the back of the housing and insert (2) AAA batteries into the battery compartment. Be sure the polarity of the batteries are correct then replace the battery cover. Testing the SMART Receiver To test the SMART receiver, connect the SMART transmitter to the vehicle’s battery, turn on the SMART receiver by pressing the “Power/Sensitivity Lock” button. Place the “Open & Short Pick-Up” of the receiver on top of the green signal lead.
English When the SMART receiver is in “pulse mode”: 1. It detects both “grounded” and “open” circuit signals. 2. It picks up and determines strong from weak signals by the pulse frequency rate. 3. The sensitivity is ready to be locked in, by pressing the “Power/Sensitivity Lock” button. 4. It detects and displays the direction to ground or a short circuit.
Locking the Sensitivity for Short/Grounded Circuits Fig. A To lock the SMART receiver’s sensitivity for short/grounded circuits, it must be turned on and in “pulse mode”. Hold the “Open & Short Pick-Up” of the receiver parallel and as near to the wire as you can while achieving the most rapid pulse rate. (See: Fig. A) Now press the “Power/Sensitivity button”. The SMART receiver is now locked into the strong “Grounded Circuit signal” and will ignore weaker parallel circuit signals.
Direction to the Short The ECT 2000 works equally well with either positive chassis ground or negative chassis ground. The only thing you need to keep in mind is, when tracing short circuits the SMART receiver always points you towards the minus of the battery so if you have a short between your wiring and the chassis is a positive ground system, you just need to trace in the opposite direction the LED is pointing! Direction indicator shows direction to ground or short.
How to Use the Adapters in Diagnosing Circuits Connection Accessories Included in the ECT-2000 are the following connection accessories. • Alligator Clip: for connecting onto any conductor such as a wire or a terminal. • Blade Probe: for tapping into fuse socket terminals and connectors. • Back Probe: for back probing connectors. • Piercing Probe: for tapping into wires by piercing through the insulation. • Light Bulb Socket Adapters: 3 common types for connecting easily to light bulb socket terminals.
How to Trace Out a Short Circuit to Chassis Ground 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. Remove the blown fuse Connect the SMART transmitter’s “power lead” to the vehicles battery Connect the “signal lead” to the shorted terminal of the fuse panel using the Blade probe. Turn on the SMART receiver. It will be in “pulse mode”. Place the “Open & Short Pick-Up” about 2” from the wire harness and parallel to the shorted wire until the “Direction to Short or Ground” indicator beeps rapidly.
Isolate the Circuit You are Tracing Isolating the circuit you want to trace is absolutely necessary when using “Open Circuit Signals”. It is always good to disconnect the circuit you are tracing away from other parallel circuits. Once you isolate the troubled circuit, you can then connect the SMART transmitter’s signal lead exclusively to your selected circuit. Connecting exclusively to your ISOLATED circuit insures that the SIGNAL is confined in just that one single circuit.
Short Circuit Inside a Wire Harness + supply signal – return signal __________________ = 0 reception When supply and return signals run close and parallel to each other, they can practically cancel each other out to the point where there will be no signal detection. Short circuit inside wire harness 19 English A common occurrence inside of wiring harnesses is that there are two wires running close and parallel to each other.
Reception Distance and What that Means. When tracing parallel circuits, you can determine if a one wire has a stronger “Grounded Circuit signal” present over another wire. The wire that has a stronger signal carries a larger current. This means the circuit that has the stronger signal also has a lower resistance compared to the other parallel branch. Just knowing this information can come in handy when determining the fault of a circuit.
Wet carpet, metal and even your own hand can shield open circuit signals. English Other wires can shield open circuit signals. Break/Open Plastic Harness Cover Wire harness probe lets you probe between wires Tracing Circuits that are Shielded. Quite often you will need to trace circuits in areas that are shielded from the SMART receiver. This doesn’t have to be an impossible feat. Sometimes just a little logic and planning can overcome many obstacles.
Open Circuit Signal vs Grounded Circuit Signal Open circuit signals can only be present in a circuit when there is a resistance of about 100 ohms or greater. (Figure A) If a switch was to close in this circuit, (Figure B) the open circuit signals would cease to emit and the short/ Grounded Circuit signal would replace it. The SMART transmitter will also sound a tone that tells you that the circuit has just made contact with ground.
How to Trace out an Open Circuit: Verify an Open Circuit: One of the best methods for verifying an open circuit is using the Power Probe III circuit tester together with the SMART transmitter. Since the SMART transmitter’s open circuit signal delivers 8 volts and a 4 kHz signal, it can be easily detected by directly contacting the Power Probe III to the wire of the transmitting circuit. Contact the probe of the Power Probe III to the open circuit with the open circuit signal applied to it.
Bench Tracing a Wire Harness Not connected Not connected +Voltage There are cases where you may have a wire harness removed from the vehicle, sitting on the bench, and tracing an open circuit. Wire Open Circuit Signal harnesses that are removed from the vehicle’s electrical system have only floating wires in them. The open connectors of the harness are Fig. A. Top and bottom wires are floating connected neither to positive nor negative because they are open.
English When you have a battery or current draw that is drawing enough current to drain the battery over night or a couple of days, you have a condition that the SMART ECT-2000 can assist you in. In cases like this you can inject a signal into the main positive battery cable after removing it from the positive battery post. Now you can follow the signal along its path and look for the possible cause of the battery drain. Tracing battery drains are a little different than tracing a short or open circuit.
Circuit wiggle & flex test At times it’s necessary to check for intermittent connection problems. The circuit wiggle test allows you to wiggle, twist, pull, push and flex wires or connectors and observe a circuit change. The SMART transmitter monitors the condition of the circuit and alerts you to a change. For instance, if you are injecting an open circuit signal into an open circuit and you wiggle the wires, it might make contact inside of a broken wire or a loose connector.
page power lead .............................................. 6 power/sensitivity lock .......................... 11 pulse mode ............................................ 12 reception distance.................................. 20 reception sensitivity .............................. 13 self test .................................................... 6 sensitivity locking ................................. 14 shielding .................................................. 9 shielding ............................
