Chapter 26.indd - Automotive Electronics Services

378
Part III: Automotive Applications of Technology
included in these kits (Figure 26-19).
The first automotive kit, offered in 2002,
was an adaptation of existing testing
and measurement units. In 2005, Pico
Technology offered the first dedicated
automotive DSO kit which was based on
their 3000 series. Automotive kits based
on the more powerful 4000 series are
now available.
Models
The PicoScope is available as a twochannel
input or a 4-channel input built
on two different platforms, the 3000 series
and the 4000 series. The 4000 series
is significantly more powerful than the
3000 series and for the small difference
in price (less than $200), the 4000 series
should be the professional’s choice.
A matrix showing the contents of the
three current 4000 series diagnostic
kits is shown in Table 26-1. Additional
specifications for the PicoScope 4223
and 4423 units are available at the links
provided in the section resource box.
Minimum Hardware Requirements
Windows PC
• 1 GHz processor, or equivalent
• 1GB Memory (XP) - more is better
• 2GB Memory (Vista/7) - more is better
• 500 MB of free drive space
• Windows XP SP2 / Vista / 7
• USB 2.0 compliant port
Training & Support
Even though the PicoScope DSO is
manufactured in England, the training
and support of this product in the United
States is excellent. The PicoScope
website offers a full list of U.S. distributors,
but the two most supportive of the
automotive service industry are Autonerdz
of East Olympia, WA and AES Wave
of Fresno, CA.
Tom Roberts, of Autonerdz, is a nationally
recognized PicoScope expert and
his website offers many PicoScope training
and information resources, most of
which are free.
The PicoScope website also offers a
large amount of training and support
material. Their Automotive Library is
excellent and contains:
• 10 Tutorials on engine management
• 15 Real world case studies
• Waveform Library (130+ Examples)
• 7 Articles about DSO usage
• 6 Videos - PicoScope DSO Guide
Screen Captures (At End of Chapter)
Figure 26-35 Graphing View
• 100 second capture at 690x zoom
• More than 16.5 million samples per
channel
Figure 26-36 Graphing View
• 50 second capture at 264x zoom
• More than 16.6 million samples per
channel
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