Pico Technology releases a fully-featured, high performance, update of its Waveform Library
25/07/22
New update and delete features make it easier for technicians to manage their waveforms, whilst search performance gains help them find waveforms more quickly.
In mid-July, Pico Technology released a major update of its PicoScope 7 Automotive Waveform Library featuring new waveform management tools and substantial performance enhancements. The new release allows technicians to upload, update and delete their waveforms, meaning they can now fully curate their collection within the library. Waveform uploads now happen within the new and improved Waveform Library, meaning users can continue with their diagnostics whilst their waveforms are uploading. In addition, users can continue to search and download all waveforms, whether uploaded by themselves or others, and do so more quickly and with increased availability and reliability.
When carrying out vehicle diagnostics it is essential for technicians to have reliable reference data to hand. This data tells them exactly what range of measured values and behaviours to expect from the component and/or system under test. With this information and the values captured from their own measurements, the technicians can quickly make decisions as to whether a vehicle is operating within tolerance (out of tolerance values or behaviours indicate a fault). Without reference data, and irrespective of a technician’s technical knowledge and experience, it can be impossible for technicians to make these decisions. In the worst case scenarios, the value of reference data becomes almost priceless. In a somewhat better scenario, reference data can save technicians from having to carry out repeat measurements on a functional sibling vehicle and more than halve their diagnostic labour time. With these possible outcomes in mind, reference data can be seen as perhaps the most valuable weapon in a technician’s diagnostic arsenal.
With oscilloscope diagnostics, waveforms are a technician’s reference data of choice. They aid almost instant pass/fail diagnostic decisions. However, due to vehicle diversity, vehicle complexity and the almost limitless conditions during which faults can occur, it can be hard for a technician to find the exact reference waveform they need for a given situation. As such, they can do two things to improve their chances of finding a suitable reference waveform: They can build and curate their own collection or search for waveforms gathered by others. As it turns out, Pico Technology’s Waveform Library gives its PicoScope users both those options.
Pico Technology’s Automotive Product Manager, Barnaby Donohew, enthused “There are around 7,500 waveforms within our totally-free Waveform Library and the number is continually growing. A waveform collection of that size significantly increases a PicoScope user’s chances of diagnostic success and we regularly see user reports to that effect. Even then, in the absolute worst case, the waveforms help users to quickly set up their tests when they are unsure what settings to use. So there really are only upsides to its use.”
Phil Service, Automotive Business Development Manager at Pico Technology emphasised that the Waveform Library can deliver substantial benefits to a much wider group of users by stating: “It’s easy to see the library as only a resource for technicians. However, technical support personnel, service managers, dealerships, dealer groups and claims handlers can all use the library to store and share important waveforms so that colleagues can reference them at a future point. For example, this may be to provide quick access to reference data for commonly occurring faults or for determining whether a case has met warranty claim criteria. There is no other reference waveform library tool out there that can deliver those benefits.”
You can download our PicoScope 7 Automotive software from our website.
