I've been on a diagnostic course for Kia over the past couple of days through work. Today we where in the workshop diagnosing various staged faults on various Kia vehicles.
One scenario was on a petrol cee'd with a blocked fuel injector filter. It was misfiring with a cylinder 3 DTC. STFT was 5% and O2 sensor was reading lean. First we scoped the injector to see if the ECU had turned it off due to a faulty coil. Injector waveform looked ok apart from a slightly increased 'on' time due to the 'lean' condition.
Then I scoped the number 3 COP ( 2 wire) this is the first proper time I've had chance to look at ignition. The waveform looked ok. This is where things got interesting and I had a few questions for the instructor...
First off, there's no zoom feature! So the detail was severely lacking.Only one set of measuring rulers. Placed a trigger on the waveform to stabilise it. Switched on another channel and scoped number 1 (known good) but couldn't have 2 triggers at once and couldn't scroll across to see number 1. Had to compare number 1 and number 3 separately!! On the tiny Toughbook screen they looked the 'same', the instructor came over and asked about our findings. On very close inspection of the number 3 waveform you could see that the burn time was different and the pattern didn't look the same. This was down to the partially blocked filter.
I asked him about the scope and it's lacking features. He then started talking about dedicated old Skool sun crypto tuning scopes
Purely down to my lacking knowledge about ignition waveforms, if I was using this Kia scope at work I would have totally missed this. All of the other lads agreed! I think with the pico I could of zoomed in and compared number 1 and 3 on screen and spotted the problem.
Either way, it was interesting but the pico would have blown this out of the water! It doesnt even come with a current clamp!
Could you not have adjusted the time base to see the other event you were after ?
I set a trigger on channel 1 to stabilise the number 3 ign. Waveform. My next plan was to set a second trigger on channel 2 on the number 1. But I couldn't do this... Infact can you do this with the pico? I thought each channel had there own trigger?
Anyway, I then adjusted the time base to try and get them both on the screen but it just wouldn't fit. There was no 'record' function either so I couldn't stop it and scroll across either.
It was limited
Robski wrote:1 trigger.......1 channel ( selectable on pico )
The Kia scope sounds pants, but surely by adjusting the time base you could have seen the 2 waveforms on 1 screen ?
What were the time bases you could select ?
Thinking back, I should of been able to get them both on the screen. I didn't really observe the actual time base, I was just clicking the arrow to try and get the 2 waveforms. It was still years behind the pico though I regards to zooming in to check the detail.
I've just watched Paul's latest video on his YouTube channel (scannerdanner) ford COP ign testing and you can see the POWER of the pico in action! Mind you it's got a excellent driver
Robski wrote:1 trigger.......1 channel ( selectable on pico )
The Kia scope sounds pants, but surely by adjusting the time base you could have seen the 2 waveforms on 1 screen ?
What were the time bases you could select ?
Thinking back, I should of been able to get them both on the screen. I didn't really observe the actual time base, I was just clicking the arrow to try and get the 2 waveforms. It was still years behind the pico though I regards to zooming in to check the detail.
I've just watched Paul's latest video on his YouTube channel (scannerdanner) ford COP ign testing and you can see the POWER of the pico in action! Mind you it's got a excellent driver
Thanks for the comment dave i've learnt more in the past 6 months than i have in the past 3 years! getting to grips with a scope is a challenge and understanding the actual waveforms is a different animal, but i'm slowly getting there.
I know i've said this before but working in a main dealer all my career has certainly blind sided me. Its down to me now to actully try and learn!