Review on Enhance Troubleshooting Efficiency with Electronic Specialties 181 LOADpro Dynamic Test Lead and Essential Electrical Troubleshooting Book,2 by Joshua Flake

Warning - long read. I received this instrument as a Christmas present. Prior to ownership I used the lightbulb method to load the circuit. It's much cleaner/easier. We all do voltage drop tests. That's probably more true of Euro cars than others, although the wiring principle is the same no matter whose badge is on the car. But it's not getting the fan base it probably deserves because the creator looks like an idiot to most people. It doesn't bother me personally. But some guys are offended by what he says. Mechanics must have a thick skin of everything that goes on in the shop, so I don't know. The tool is basically a set of wires connected to the multimeter. Lets you lower the voltage circuit. After getting it I did some research and saw people trying to compare it to a power probe. That's a bad comparison. IMHO, these are two different animals. Each serves a purpose, but to say they are the same or even similar is incorrect. Load Pro would rather compare it to a homebuilt headlight plugged in for load testing than a power probe. Up until a month ago it really wasn't of much use for electrical diagnostics. I have used it on 4 cars last week and am very happy with it. This reduces diagnostic time and makes voltage drop testing quick/easy. It costs $60 with the install book alone. You can buy it without the book for less, but the book is worth the extra money for the reference guide in the box if nothing else. I mainly work with Eurocars. I have colleagues in Asia. A rare case when we see domestic. Today was home day. An example of this in action today - a colleague had this ticket and it didn't go anywhere. I had to look at the deer in the headlights. I jumped on it with him after zipping up the car I was working on. Maybe he had 20 minutes to diagnose/fix. Before I jumped he spent 2 hours in it without moving anywhere. 01 Chevy 2500 8.1 liter truck is towed because it will not start. Check fuel/spark, no spark. There was a start signal. The pull-up diagram shows the common ground of all 8 coils installed on the side of the block. Check the coil wiring for power/ground by testing the ground/12V pins on the harness with test leads. Nothing. I connected the ground wire to the battery, it shows 12V power. Press the button to check the voltage drop - v remained - the power side is fine. Checking circuit continuity to ground showed continuity. A colleague was burned here. He suggested that continuity = good. Heck, I checked the resistance and for my taste it turned out to be on top. Can't remember the hand crowd though. Used by loadpro for the ground circuit when the voltage drops. Dropped from 12.6V to 7V. A 5V drop on the ground side is not good. To explain this to a colleague I showed how to check/test - I checked the ground on the coil harness on the valve cover and put a battery ground on it and the truck drove off. A minute later I removed the cover from the battery and it died. At this point I was left with the following: Either the ground point on the block is bad, or the wire broke in the bundle. If it is stuck at the bolted ground point then the ground in the wire harness will need to be superimposed as the wire harness will not be cut open to check for a broken ground point. After all, the ground connection on the block looks good. However, when it was removed it was rusted about an inch, and when I twisted the wire to look at the back of the ring terminal it broke. The wire was long enough that a new ring terminal fixed the problem. The tension dropped after the fix, all is well. In short, if you're doing voltage drop testing, this is an easy-to-use tool worth having in your toolbox.