Pico Technology

Here is your monthly Test and Measurement update from Pico Technology. This month’s highlights include: improvements to our automotive diagnostics kit and new releases of oscilloscope and data logging software.

1.  Improved Automotive Diagnostics Kit

We have just released a new version of PicoScope Automotive software. This further increases the capabilities of the oscilloscope diagnostics kit.

The main changes are:

• New presets and help topics on CAN Bus diagnostics
• A French language option
• Support for the ADC212/50 and ADC212/100 oscilloscopes
• Presets and help topics for the FirstLook sensor
• The ability to turn off the web based help topics

This new version of the software is currently a beta release so may contain minor bugs. It is available to existing users of the automotive software as a free download, or alternatively an upgrade can be purchased on CD for a nominal fee.

2.  New Software Releases

New beta releases of PicoScope, PicoLog and software drivers are now available for free download. Software release R5.10.0 does not contain any major new features, rather it contains a number of minor bug fixes and usability enhancements.

3.  Oscilloscope Training Course

Most electrical or electronic engineers are taught how to use oscilloscopes at a very early stage of their careers, and continue to us this versatile tool throughout their working life. However, many people who don't have the benefit of this training or experience are called upon to use these complex instruments.

PC Oscilloscopes are becoming more and more popular, and the uses to which they are being put continues to increase and diversify. For this reason many more people are being asked to use these instruments without even a basic knowledge of just what an oscilloscope is, how it works, and how to get the best from them. Pico Technology, the market leader in PC Oscilloscopes, have recognised this problem, and to help them have designed a training course "Basics of PC based digital oscilloscopes, and how to get the best from them."

The course is a half-day course, and is priced at £50 per attendee. It assumes none, or very limited basic knowledge of oscilloscopes, and has the overall objective that each attendee will understand basic operation and functionality of the instrument. Each attendee should be able to make basic timing and amplitude measurements having attended the course.

The initial course will be run at Pico Technology's headquarters in St Neots, UK on Wednesday May 5th. If you are interested in attending or require more details please contact us.

4.  Testing Fuel Injectors with the FirstLook Sensor

Using an oscilloscope it is possible to check the electrical operation of fuel injectors, but until now it has been difficult to spot problems such as blockages that can cause either too much or too little fuel to flow.

Using the FirstLook engine diagnostic sensor, it is possible to quickly measure the relative fuel flow from each injector without removing the injectors from the vehicle.

This injector test for petrol vehicles is one of the new presets in the latest version of the automotive software. To perform this test, simply remove the vacuum pipe from the fuel pressure regulator and attach the FirstLook sensor to the regulator. Each time an injector fires there is a pressure drop in the header rail which is picked up by the sensor.

If the fuel flow through one injector is different to the others it can instantly be seen as a bigger or smaller waveform than the others.
For more details on this application see: Injector Analysis from the Regulator

5.  Technical Tip — Spectrum Analyser Options

The spectrum analyser built into the PicoScope software has a number of powerful options that can be accessed by selecting 'options' from the 'settings' menu.
These include:

No of spectrum bands - this defines how many "bins" the frequency range will be divided into. It can be set between 256 and 16384 (product dependant). Lower numbers give a faster update time, higher numbers give more resolution.

Window Type - this gives seven options on how the edges of the block of sampled data are filtered to reduce distortion. For most users the default window (blackman) is adequate, the PicoScope help file gives more details on which window should be used for which application.

Display Mode - this offers three options. "Normal" displays the spectrum for the current cycle. "Average" gives a moving average of successive cycles which is useful for removing random noise. "Peak" displays the maximum of all cycles (useful for bandwidth testing of filters and amplifiers.

X & Y Scales - these give options for the vertical scale to be in dB or Volts and the horizontal frequency scale either to be in linear or logarithmic form.

6.  New Science Experiment

The Pico Technology Library of Experiments contains a number of educational experiments that make use of our oscilloscope and data acquisition products.

New this month is an experiment to build a Magnetometer which can be used for recording the minute changes in the Earth's magnetic field.

See this and over seventy other interesting and educational science experiments online.

7.  Exhibitions and Training Dates

We have started compiling a list of exhibitions, seminars and training days which will feature our products. This will be expanded in the coming months as we add in information supplied by our distributors.

23rd - 25th March 2004
Automotive Trade Show & Commercial Vehicle Show- NEC, Birmingham, UK
Pico will be exhibiting on stand 12-302

14th - 15th April 2004
Automotive Training Course - Leeds, UK - more details >>

5th May 2004
Oscilloscope Training Course - St Neots, UK - for more details please please contact us.

15th - 16th June 2004
MechanEx - G-MEX, Manchester, UK
Pico will be exhibiting on stand 19

14th - 17th September
BIAS 2004 - Milan Trade Fair - Italy
Pico will be represented by PCB Technologies

23rd - 24th November 2004
MechanEx - Sandown Park, Surrey, UK
Pico will be exhibiting on stand 25

8.  Latest Software Releases

As soon as we release new software, it is made available for FREE download from our web site. To check which version you are using, start the software (PicoScope, PicoLog or EnviroMon) and select HELP | ABOUT.

The current releases are:

• PicoScope R5.09-4 (release) R5.10.0 (beta)
• PicoLog R5.09-6 R5.10.0 (beta)
• EnviroMon R5.09-6 R5.10.0 (beta)
• Drivers R5.09-6 R5.10.0 (beta)

To download the latest software please visit the software downloads page

(Note : the above web page also contains a link to our 'what's new' page which describes recent changes and additions to the software).

9.  Back Issues of this Newsletter

Back issues of this newsletter are available online at http://www.picotech.com/maillist.html

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