How To Test Heated Oxygen Sensors(O2 Sensors) Without A Propane Torch

[Music] today I'm going to show you a reliable way to test two three or four wire heated oxygen sensors without the use of a propane torch as shown in other YouTube videos folder one wire oxygen sensors without heaters like you see right over here cannot be tested using the method I'm about to show you oxygen sensors also known as lambda sensors are used by the vehicles computer to sense the amount of oxygen present in exhaust gases to determine if the engine is running too lean or too rich information from the oxygen sensors along with the MAF sensor mass airflow sensor are used by the computer to regulate fuel injector output to achieve the ideal fuel air mixture which is 14 point 7 grams of air per 1 gram of fuel many people that get trouble codes when using an OPD scanner that show oxygen sensor problems such as heater circuit problems slow sensors or to lean or to rich codes usually go out and buy a new expensive oxygen sensor when it's usually not the problem other faulty components such as the MAF sensor can cause oxygen sensor trouble codes to pop up and poor wire harness connections can also cause trouble codes to show up now for this testing procedure you're going to need a good digital multimeter a set of jumper wires like you see right here these are very inexpensive you can pick these up at Harbor Freight or many places online you're going to need a 12 volt source of power and that's going to be the vehicle's battery you're going to need a small bucket with the lid as well as a candle the tests I'm about to show you for this oxygen sensor is very reliable but it's not 100% like many other tests now when you take a close look at the oxygen sensor you can see there's little tiny openings right over here and what that does it allows the exhaust gases to enter inside where you have a zirconium ceramic material with a small amount of platinum that is used to sense amount of oxygen in the exhaust gases in order for the sensor to work properly it acts like a little low voltage generator it needs to be heated high enough in temperature and that's usually between 300 and 400 degrees Celsius or 600 and 750 degrees Fahrenheit when that temperature has been reached the sensor output water is going to produce a very low voltage between 0 and 1 volts but normally it's going to be around point one two point nine volts the computer is going to use that reading to adjust the fuel air mixture of the vehicle you're going to have a very low reading at the computer of 0.1 volts if the engine is running very lean very high levels of oxygen and you're going to see a reading that's going to be very high when the oxygen levels are very low or running very rich now to help this oxygen sensor get to the normal operating temperature fairly quickly inside that sensor is a heating element so when you turn on your key to start the vehicle up that heating element is going to receive current allowing that to heat up quickly along with the exhaust gases from the engine most oxygen sensors unless they're very expensive usually heat just below the operating temperature of the sensor element it's going to require the engines exhaust which has an average temperature of around 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit around 8 or 900 of the vehicles idling and it could be as high as 1500 degrees Fahrenheit when the engine is wide open throttle so it's going to use the heater and side along with the exhaust gases to get this up to operating temperature very quickly when the engines first started is going to take a little bit of time for this to heat up to the right temperature until it reaches that correct operating temperature the computer is going to be running an open-loop using preset or saved values for the oxygen sensor once the voltage starts coming into the computer it's going to know the temperature of the sensor is now high enough and it's going to start using the voltage readings from the sensors that determine the level of oxygen in the exhaust gasses now as mentioned earlier there are some oxygen sensors out there that are a lot more money usually made Bausch and what they have inside is a heater that has the ability to not only heat this to just below the normal operating temperature but to heat it all the way up to the operating temperature of the sensor element well under a minute maybe 20 or 30 seconds the heaters not only used to get this to the normal operating temperature when it's cold but it's also used to maintain the operating temperature when the vehicle is idling at a low rpm when the exhaust gas temperature is much lower in this video we're going to be checking the most common problems one is the internal heater two is to see if it's reacting to oxygen or the lack of oxygen and you're also going to be able to see if the reaction time is very fast because you do not want the sensor that's very slow to change when different levels of oxygen are being detected in the exhaust system now in order to check this we do not have to heat it all the way up to the operating temperature you can heat it just below using the internal heater of the oxygen sensor the voltage is going to be far less but you could still tell using the lower voltage readings if this is working properly so the first thing you're going to want to do is identify the heater wires in your oxygen sensor now this one here you can see the two white wires and then I have a black wire and then there is a gray wire so if I look this one up online you want to check yours online to get the pin out for your vehicle this one right here the two whites are the heater and it's very easy to identify if you have a four pin just take a digital multimeter on a low resistance range and you're going to probe between the pins and then you're going to look for a reading between two of the pins that's between 5 and 10 ohms once you identify the two pins you're going to know that you have the heater some oxygen sensors may not have the ground wire here the ground connection may be coming from the plug itself so you may have to test between the connector and the oxygen sensor body once you identify the heater wires the next thing you're going to do is take jumper wires just see the connector right there put one on the bottom there good this one here on the top okay so those two are connected you're going to take this right here and you're going to connect it to your car battery and you're going to let it sit for around five minutes keep in mind this is going to get very hot around 480 to 500 degrees and you can see right here in this infrared image that the temperature of this part right over here is right around 470 after a few minutes of being heated and if it's 470 on the outside you know the internal part is going to be even hotter okay mine is connected up to a power supply unit which is going to output a voltage of twelve point six volts which is going to be exactly what a fully charged car battery should be the power is not on yet the next thing you're going to want to do is take your digital multimeter in a minute we're going to be putting it on a millivolt DC range you're going to identify the sensor output pin in this case it's the black one which is right here so I'm going to reach in connect it to the black pin okay so that one's on there now going to take that negative from the meter and connect that to the sensor ground so that's going to be the gray one on this one right there now before connecting the positive and negative of the heater for the oxygen sensor to your car battery you're going to put this two millivolts all right leave it like that and now I'm going to turn on my power supply unit current for the heater usually starts off around two two and a quarter amps and as it heats up the current begins to drop to a level of around one amp that's going to maintain the temperature of the sensor so now you're just going to leave this alone allow the sensors to fully heat up for about three to five minutes then we're going to come back take a look at the reading and I'm going to give you a couple of demonstrations using the sensor okay after three minutes this should be very very hot do not touch it if you put your hand over it it does not feel hot that's going to indicate that the heater inside the sensor is faulty and you're going to want to replace it and over here the voltage reading has reached a stable output of around one point two six millivolts the reading you get is not critical just as long as it reached a level that's very stable before carrying on the next test so this is the reading in our atmosphere with the oxygen that's available in the air around 21% now we're going to take a candle and place it inside of a container we're going to put a lid on that container and allow the candle to burn up all the oxygen inside the container and then I'm going to take this place it inside by holding it from the top and you're going to observe the reading right over there okay you see the candles inside I'm going to place a plate on top and now we're going to wait for the candle to use up all the oxygen inside this container keep an eye on the meter and watch what happens as soon as I place the oxygen sensor inside the chamber here we go you see that they went way up because there's a lack of oxygen inside the voltage went higher just like the propane torch test it displaces oxygen around the sensor element causing the voltage to rise take it back out and it should go right back down you want to make sure that the response time was very quick like you saw in the meter if the value does not change or changes very slowly you're going to want to replace that sensor now the last thing I want to do is just show you what this is going to do when I place it in a pure oxygen environment let's do that and then take a look at the meter okay now just like the propane test when the flame is removed from the tip of the oxygen sensor the voltage goes low and here is pure oxygen watch what the reading does on the meter here we go went low in a big way take it back out there you can see it goes right back down and it's as simple as that the test does work and it should help you rule out the oxygen sensor as the problem if you're getting in trouble code on your vehicle one important thing to mention if you're a subscriber of my channel be sure to click that bell to the right of the subscriber button underneath the video player window so your going to be notified every time I upload a video to my channel thank you very much for watching you

Channel: electronicsNmore

Views: 234,796

Keywords: how to test oxygen sensors, how oxygen sensors work, different types of oxygen sensors, obd oxygen sensor trouble codes, diy auto repair, obd code scanner, testing oxygen sensors with a propane torch, testing heated oxygen sensors, zirconia oxygen sensor, titania oxygen sensor, electronicsnmore, tutorial, Colinfurze, The BackyardScientist, insurance, Asbestos, donate car, Project Farm, DVT, diabetes, cancer, lawyer, diy, hack, how to, engineering explained, ChrisFix, Scotty Kilmer

Id: M55qmlHZmko

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 09 2019