Pico Diagnostics software?

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TwoWaves
TwoWaves
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Pico Diagnostics software?

Post by Technician »

I'm not sure at all, may I start as I go along!

I was trying to use the Pico battery test function yesterday, tapping the button the software activates, the test plan is on the desk top, so I go to the lower footer and enter data as requested, then I move back to the left hand side of the footer and go to depress start, but it is grayed out!

I shut down the software and the PC and re-booted and tried about three times, on one occasion the software asked me to start the engine, when I did the software kept scrolling across the screen waiting for the engine to start, it was already running but nothing happened, I eventually had to disconnect the scope to get the battery test back on the desk top, but I could not get it to work at all yesterday!

Please advise.

speck
TwoWaves
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Re: Pico Diagnostics software?

Post by speck »

Looks like your PC is not seeing the Pico, or your software is corrupt. Can activate start button as soon as software is opened. Hope that helps

PicoMike
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Re: Pico Diagnostics software?

Post by PicoMike »

This sounds very odd, I won't deny it.

Any better luck today? Have you got the latest software installed? Seems very strange behavior :(
Mike Valentine
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TwoWaves
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Re: Pico Diagnostics software?

Post by Technician »

I'm going to change the hard drive Wednesday and re-load the software, will let you know, thanks for the replies.

liviu2004
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Re: Pico Diagnostics software?

Post by liviu2004 »

Are you on the longer usb blue cable?

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TwoWaves
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Re: Pico Diagnostics software?

Post by Technician »

Yes I'm on the blue lead. I thought the other day maybe the USB power supply (frequency) or whatever its called might be too low and causing problems with connections?

Anyway I'd seen USB drives with a separate power supply so I bought one and connected that into circuit today, ran a USB from the hard drive to the USB ports and connected the scope to the USB ports with the additional power supply, I thought try this and should be OK?

Nope, it is the same, the pico diagnostics software boots up every time and is on the desk top, you can go into any menu you like and all menus work, but when you go to the lower tool bar of pico where it asks for battery voltage settings etc, you can select and adjust any settings, they all work, but the start button is grayed out, so you can't run a test?

At this point I was thinking maybe its the hard drive? I have a second one that I was going to install tomorrow, but I have previous history also with this fault, so read on...

I decided to unplug the blue USB lead because the monitor is not showing me anything to turn off the pico software, so when I did unplug it and then plug it straight back in, the software came on screen and said connection lost, so I OK'd that and then the pico established connection, then the start button lite up :D , I depressed it and the software told me to crank and start the engine, I did and the software calculated the battery voltage and starter current draw etc, then it produced the results :D

I have noticed this previously when I used the Windows 7 laptop, connection to the scope is not recognised and after disconnection of the blue lead and re-connection, the scope activates and works, its just that it took much longer this time with the pico diagnostics software.

Maybe I'll just have to live with that and when it happens just remember to unplug the blue USB lead and re-connect it to establish the connections!

Added information.

Tried the setup again today with the latest Windows 10 software installed, initially it appeared to work when I opened the pico software, but when I tried opening ps data files previously saved the day before, the files software is corrupt. Today I have spent considerable time using the scope with the updated Windows software and found that the software (windows) locks up and is very very slow when changing from one frame to another frame of data. I'm sure all this is pointing to the hard-drive so I am now changing it for another hopefully of better quality.

I was also wondering today if there actually is a minimum software/hardware that is required to run the pico scopes?

Anyone!

Technician
TwoWaves
TwoWaves
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Re: Pico Diagnostics software?

Post by Technician »

Progress so far, I'm typing this out using the Pico diagnostic station, I've downloaded the latest software and just need to test it,hopefully tomorrow afternoon everything will be ok. The software does seen to open up and the start button is not grayed out anymore so fingers crossed .

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TwoWaves
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Re: Pico Diagnostics software?

Post by Technician »

Spent some good time yesterday afternoon working with the new hard-drive installed and downloaded the latest Windows 10 software followed by Pico'Scopes latest software downloads. The PicoScope software opens and works every time I've tried it now. I used the automotive menu and setup tests according to those instructions and each test has worked fine, but, there has to be one, when testing ignition secondary traces, X4 those traces are very small and none readable on screen, using the upper tool bar menu buttons to increase and decrease the scope traces proved very difficult, at this point I was leaning towards the touchscreen monitor not reacting to the commands, the operation of the scope traces seemed quite slow across the screen also, but when I shut off the channels and left just one running, the tools in the upper menu bar would then allow me to expand the trace. I was not successful expanding x4 traces together yesterday.

Quite odd that when I bought the HD touchscreen monitor (New) that no user guide came with it, and I'm now wondering if the sampling rates of the monitor are too slow for the PicoScope?

Edited to add.

All sorted, the reason the sampling rate seemed slow was because I needed to change the setting in the scope menus, the automotive guide settings are different to the scope 4423 I'm using, it's all a learning curve. :)

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