how can I correctly display a primary parade pattern of the ignition system showing the firing order. Secondly will it make much sense using this pattern with pico for any real diagnostic purposes? ???

wrote on Jan 27^th, 2005 at 2:00am:

how can I correctly display a primary parade pattern of the ignition system showing the firing order. Secondly will it make much sense using this pattern with pico for any real diagnostic purposes? ???

Depends on the system.  If it is a traditional distributor system you could use one channel to display the voltage using the 20 to 1 attenuator and use either the seccond channel to trigger off of a cylinder like number one or you could use an external trigger of that cylinder.  The main difference if I understand it correctly is that the external trigger does not divide the samples on the 212 3 models

If it is a DIS you could look at primary current  and trigger the same way to see an entire revolution.

Hope this helps.

Hi Ricardo,

Again, when you have a specific PicoScope help question, please post it in the PicoScope Users Area under PicoScope Help.  

Samuel's answer was great.  Here is an example using the 212/50 unit:

http://www.autonerdz.com/images/tar39.gif

This capture shows ignition primary and secondary from a distributor ignition on a Ford 351 V8.  An inductive clamp was used to externally trigger off of the #1 cylinder firing.  The firing order and the corresponding events are shown.

http://www.autonerdz.com/images/tar40.gif

This one is a 50x zoom on the #1 event.  There is enough detail there to see whatever you want for combustion analysis.  

The 212/50 does not divide samples or chop sample like the 212/3.  With its dual 50mhz ADCs it can sample simultaneously on both channels and the 128k buffer on each channel doesn't need to be shared.  In the above capture, the samples are 2.56 microseconds apart.

While the 212/3 does not have the same power, it is quite adequate and there are many examples posted in these forums.  You can use the Autonerdz Sample Rate Calculator to discover the sample rate limits of any DSO.

Under the same conditions, using both channels,  the 212/3 samples would be 21.3 microseconds apart.

Thanks for the information. and I apoligize for the posting in this area. :-[

No apology needed, Ricardo.  You can post anywhere you like.  It's just that if you post PicoScope specific help questions in the User Area you will get better service from me.  That's all.

You are entitled to the full Autonerdz support package.  You might as well use it.   ;D

I use a Ferret 953 Ignition adapter on distributed and DIS systems.  I got mine a few months ago from AES.  If I knew how to post pico images on this post, I could post some examples.
Can anyone help me there?

Hi Scott,

Basically, after you create the image, you upload it to a server and paste the URL into the post, highlight and push the image button.  This puts two bracket sets [img] around the URL, then the image appears in the post.  You can upload them to your own web space that probably came with your ISP or I can host them for you.  If you want me to host them, you'll have to email them to me.  800 x 600 work best.  I'll then send you the URL to the image and you can paste it into your post.