Diesel timing light adaptor

"Make a 100 turn loop of #26 magnet wire that is large enough in diameter to put around the injector solenoid (loose loop). Wrap tape around to hold the loops together. Drive the base-emitter on a 2N3055 transistor with the loop outputs. Connect your strobe trigger connection across the collector-emitter on the transistor. You might want to add a 1k, 1/4 watt potentiometer in series on the transistor base and start with it at 1k, adjusting down until it's just enough to trigger the transistor. The 2N3055 is pretty cheap and it has pretty high gain. This means it will use very little induction current from the injector to trigger it."

Did I miss something? You said "....on diesel engines with mechanical injection."

Tain't a solenoid on mechanical injection....at least the mechanical injection of which I am aware; where the pump generates enough pressure to unseat the injector valve which is nothing more than a housing, plunger, and spring. It's all mechanical?????

Now I have heard of units that contain a pressure transducer that has to sense the pressure in the line; hence a tap is required.

Since you have to have the engine off to set the pump anyway, are you really gaining that much over trial and error?

Mark

The Snap-On unit, MT257A is $333 and listed at:

Link

Snap-on unit may be a Ferret. Snap-on calls it a "diesel pulse adaptor." I found a message in a web-forum where a woman claims the design was stolen from her husband. Her message as follows:

"My late husband designed a timing light for diesel engine, only to have Snap On Tools steal it. He showed it to our tool man to see if he thought they might be interested. Then came back a month later and said no they weren't. 6 months later they came out with one of almost the exact design and the tool man retired. He was 41 years old."