CYCLOPS INSTRUMENTS Antifreeze Premium Refractometer for Automotive Antifreeze System, AdBlue, DEF, Battery Acid, and Windshield Washer Fluid | Measures Freezing Point Temperature and Concentration

These things can really save your vehicle come winter time. Know for a fact how protected your car is. Save money by buying concentrated and blending with distilled water to get the correct protection.

These are a great way to insure your coolant is rated/mixed properly for your climate. Being a motorcycle repair shop its nice to verify coolant especially for winter storage, and summer riding. I have used this to upsell customers on a coolant flush, since alot of liquid cooled bikes never ever get coolant flushed and they need it to. I prefer my tools measure in freedom units, but I keep conversion charts on the wall for quick reference anyways. The meter seemed to be accurate when tested against fresh coolant, using the non diluted rating for comparison. I love things that come with a case for storage, so its nice to see they included needed accessories as well as a case to protect the tool. Overall very happy with the tool.

Im a big fan of these for vehicle antifreeze and battery electrolyte. I never measured DEF, just poured it in the DEF tank. This device can pay for itself in a winter on windshield washer antifreeze alone! This can be used to dilute a -30F rated windshield washer solution if only protection in the teens or 20s is needed. Can save 50% or more. Certain brand antifreeze containers can have cryptic instructions on them and its hard to differentiate between antifreeze that is already diluted or the concentrate. This solves that problem. The temperature charts between ethylene glycol and polypropylene are technically slightly different depending on the point on the temperature scale, but they are so close that if one were to make a mistake reading the graph, the impact would likely not be all that great. I used to use the battery electrolyte testers with the floating balls. What a mess!! Use this refractometer instead!! A drop or two from each cell is all it takes to determine if your flooded battery is in good shape. Its better than a voltage measurement. Be sure to let the battery rest for 6 to 24 hours unless specific gravity during equalization is being checked on deep cycle batteries. The price at $15 for this is decent. This is good enough. Be careful not to bump or drop these. They are fragile!

This instrument relies directly upon the optical properties of some common automotive fluids to reveal meaningful information. For me, the big questions were: Whats the charge state of the battery? At what temperature does the [antifreeze|washer fluid] risk freezing? A couple of drops of fluid on the instrument gave me instant, actionable answers. Prefect.

Im sick of my old Preston bulb tester as its a piece of garbage. This refractometer will give you a dead nuts answer on the effectiveness of the coolant. I used these at a former place I worked at so I do have some knowledge on how to use it. Watch a video online on how it works as the instructions they provide are not that informative. Regardless, it seems to be providing accurate results.

Still working of figuring out all the ins & outs of using a refractometer, but so far its been pretty cool.

Comes with the unit, a dropper, and instructions on how to use. Instructions were kind of hidden behind the padding inside the case, but they describe the procedure of how to calibrate and use it. It works well, though the calibration screw was a bit tight. They case is decent - a basic plastic case with some padding to keep it secure.

The instructions were very poor. I had to refer back to the item description on Amazon to get the information I needed. Once I had the info it was easy to use the item. I found it very easy to use and extremely accurate. There are several scales for different liquids so this tool is very useful. The antifreeze scale is marked in centigrade so I had to convert the reading to Fahrenheit for my local use. It would be handy if the instructions included a conversion chart. This tool gives much better results than the tube wilt floating balls . It is nice to get a tool that works well and doesnt require batteries. Just point it at the daylight and it works. I like that they included a dropper for getting the sample from the radiator to the tool. Overall very good tool , poor instructions, good value. I would get this again.

Handy item to have for any automotive mechanic! Quality parts and a really nice case to hold the refractor. Would definitely recommend!

The Cyclops Refractormeter comes in a hard plastic box with a squeeze bulb, cleaning cloth, small screwdriver, and instructions. The instructions needed improvement, the pictures didnt depict the scales as seen through on the eyepiece. It also references calibration of the device, it appears (to me) the device was already calibrated at the factory, using distilled water, it already indicated a zero reading, which is what you want. Turning the adjustment knob in either direction didnt affect the meters readings. I watched a Youtube video on how to use a refractometer. I was able to test the anti-freeze and windshield washer fluid in my car to confirm their freezing points, which it did. The scales were in Celsius, so I had to convert to Fahrenheit with my smartphone. Overall, a neat device that I probably wont use too often, maybe once/twice a year to check my anti-freeze/washer fluid if adequate to hand the cold for ski season. Rated 4-stars.