Tool Review: Hickok/Waekon Secondary Ignition Pickup
May 16, 2016
Voice Your Opinion!
Voice Your Opinion!
The Hickok/Waekon Secondary Ignition Pickup, No. 75300, is specifically designed to connect to the company's Auto Wave (No. 75000), providing detailed secondary ignition waveforms on all conventional ignition systems. The battery powered SIP has a long, flexible probe for hard-to-reach ignition systems and comes with a Coil On Plug and spark plug wire adapter. The SIP connects to the Autowave quickly with instant ignition waveforms in seconds, providing a window into the combustion chamber without the hassle of disassembly.
Automotive technicians are always looking for tools that meet expectations in terms of performance while still being easy to set up and use. Barry Hoyland, owner of Vehicle Service Solutions of California, found the Hickok/Waekon Auto Wave signal waveform viewer, No. 75000, and the Hickok/Waekon Secondary Ignition Pickup, No. 75300, to be impressive offerings that are well-suited for those technicians who don’t own a lab scope but need a tool for observing secondary ignition waveforms.
“I think (the Secondary Ignition Pickup) is a great addition to the Auto Wave,” says Hoyland. “I love the Auto Wave tool, especially for people who are not familiar with a lab scope, because it’s self-adjusting. The Secondary Ignition Pickup just adds more value to it because it allows you to do a different type of test than the standalone tool gives you."
Hoyland employed the Auto Wave with the Secondary Ignition Pickup to observe ignition patterns on both coil-on-plug (COP) and plug wire ignition systems. Doing so allowed him to differentiate a good waveform from a bad one, and it also helped him to locate a faulty COP coil and a faulty spark plug by observing other vehicles.
“The Secondary Ignition Pickup allows you to look at the spark plug, the ignition coil, and… it can show you how well the fuel is combusting in the cylinder,” says Hoyland. “You can look at that all very easily with a quick hook-up, and look at an individual cylinder.
Hoyland has used the Auto Wave waveform viewer on repair jobs in the past, but prior to testing it for this review, he had employed it without the corresponding secondary ignition pickup.
“I use secondary waveforms a lot, but typically I use a lab scope, which takes a little bit more time to hook up,” explains Hoyland. “The benefit of this is a quick, easy way of getting a waveform for the suspect cylinder.”
After testing the 75000 (with the 75300), he says he struggled to find any features he didn’t like about the Hickok/Waekon offerings, or identify any ways in which they could stand to be improved by alterations or additions. He also noted that entry-level technicians should strongly consider the Auto Wave as a means for observing secondary ignition waveforms. The Auto Wave came with a battery, a user guide, both a plug wire and a COP adaptor, as well as a carrying case. The tool required minimal setup time, as all Hoyland had to do was install the supplied battery and turn on the tool before putting it to use.
“There were no undesirable features, and I like it as is,” he says.
