How to test a relay, the easy way!

All right, guys, hi. So in this video, we're gonna talk about how to properly test a relay. So relays come with four-pin relays, five-pin relays like this one, all different types. So what is a relay? What is its job? Relays are basically there to take the load off of a switch. So if you have a switch that turns something on, you send a very small amount of current to the relay that closes the relay and then lets the large amount of current that's already present at the relay pass through it and then go to the load. Or you might have a ground control relay in which the power being sent from the switch closes the relay, which then supplies the ground circuit for the load. But either way, you're not using main current through a switch to control a load, you're using the relay to do it. These relays have little magnetic contact surfaces in them that can wear out just like anything, right? So one of the ways you can test them, of course, is going to be with a test light. So if you had like a fuse box that had a relay in it and you had access to the bottom of it and all the wires coming from that relay, you could test power going into it. You could check to see if it had a good ground with the DMM and a test light. You could jump the power to it to see if it closes the relay like it's supposed to. But all of that is a really big hassle, especially when you look at modern fuse box assemblies like the one on this truck, where it's kind of damn near impossible to get to the underside of where those relays are. So here's what we're gonna use to test this relay instead. And one of the reasons why I like this tool specifically is because you can see it has the cables coming from it that connect directly to my 12-volt battery. So that means I don't have to put any AA, AAA batteries in it that are always gonna be dead when I need to use it. So you can see it has a whole bunch of different configurations for different styles of relays. And you pick the one that you have, right? So you gotta find which style of relay you have and then plug it into that correct spot, right? So we got it plugged in. We've got it set to five pin. Now I'm just gonna push the test button and see what happens. So it's coming out red. So this is a bad relay, which I already knew was a bad relay, right? So if I put it on four pin and check it, of course it's gonna come back bad. So let's see if we got any other relays that we can test on this thing. So maybe I got a four pin here. Let me check and see. Yeah, some of these relays are really hard to get out of this box, I'll tell you that. All right, so now we got a four pin relay. So we're gonna test it and see what happens. So for a four pin relay, we got this one right here where we plug it into. So we got it plugged in. We've got it set to four pin. Hit the test button and we'll wait and see what happens. And boom. So you can see there's a reason why I've got this in here. It's not exactly the, this thing was toast. All my bad relays went on it. But, so that's kind of why I like having these types of tools on hand is just because it makes testing the relay a lot easier than it does just trying to find the right stuff down below. So this is the kind of tool, it doesn't have to be this exact one. I mean, I'll put a link to this guy in here, but you really just, something like this just makes testing relays a lot faster, a lot more reliable, a lot easier. So if you have any questions, let me know in the comments. I'll be more than happy to answer them. So hope this helps. Hope you guys learned a little bit about relays and how to test them. But again, specific questions, let me know in the comments. Please like, follow, subscribe, all that good stuff. And I do these videos for free. So any kind of gratitudes, little gifts that you can do, those will be appreciated. Thank you, bye.