RE: Wastegate LED tester

[Ned Ritchie <NED@IntendedAcceleration.com>]

Scott Mockry wrote regarding a Wastegate LED tester:

"The LED with series resistor is  connected in parallel across both
Waste Gate terminals. This LED setup is similar to the US 1115 test
light used in the Bentley.  If you get two female and two male crimp
connectors like the original bullet shaped connectors you can make a
little harness that has two wires that plug onto to the Waste Gate
solenoid and two that plug into the original two pin wiring connector
along with the LED connected across these two terminals.
If you make the wires long enough connecting to the LED you can locate
the LED under the wiper blade and view it during a test drive.
Works best at night....
The LED normally needs a 500-1k ohm resistor in series to limit the
current, most LED’s operate with 10-30milliamps.  The lower the
resistance the brighter the LED, up until the point the smoke gets out.
There are some newer “Super bright” LED’s that should work great."

Crude asci art for test harness
WG solenoid    WG connector   resistor
WG+ -------------WG-C+ -----/\/\/\/\/\/\---LED +
WG- -------------WG-C- --------------------LED -

"I normally use two different colored wires similar to the original
wiring, green/yellow stripe is the ground provided by the ECU (varying
duty cycle) and blue/black stripe which is the steady +12V. The LED is
polarity sensitive. It won’t hurt it if you connect it backwards, it
just won’t make no light.....the resistor can be connected in series on
either the + or - wire to the LED."
"I can make up some of these for anyone if they don’t want to
bother.....let me know.
Thanks to Scott Justusson, some years ago.......... for his idea to use
the LED  to check and adjust the waste gate spring tension for best
operation in unison with the ECU and its new boost map."

__________________________________

An improved tester can be made using two LEDs [Light Emitting Diodes]
and two resistors.  In this case it would be similar to the new &
improved US 1115 Audi tester which in not polarity sensitive.  Use 680
ohm resistors.  Nominally this should give about 20 milliamps for safe
operation.  Radio Shack and some Automotive Stores have 12 volt LED
testers with the resistors already built in.  [It is not wise to use a
bulb type tester]

Another crude asci art for a hand built test harness:

[WGateSolenoid]--> >---|---wire with female & male connectors----->
>----[Original Connector]
                       |
                       |
                       |   |----\/\/680\/\/\---[-LED+]-----|
                       |---|                               |---|
                           |----/\/\680/\/\/---[+LED-]-----|   |
                                                               |
                                                               |
                                                               |
[WGateSolenoid]--< <------wire with male & female connectors---|--<
<----[Original Connector]


Ned Ritchie