Hello All,

I was at a Bill Fulton class the last two nights, he talked alot on secondary igntion.  I asked a question as to a downward sloping spark line that clears up and is very intermittent.  He asked what kind of scope I used, I said Pico.  His next comment surprized me.  Pico's are not good at secondary due to the high capacitance leads required for PC based scopes.  When he said Pico's don't do secondary he prefaced this with "this is not my opinion this is what John Thompson says"

Has anyone had a problem with secondary?  Because I haven't

Bob

Hi Bob,
        I haven’t seen Bill for quite awhile but I have had conversations with him on secondary ignition. I am an avid Pico user and IMHO there is no better automotive scope available. I whole-heartedly agree with Tom. For detail in secondary waveforms Pico will outperform all others.
       Bill has either misunderstood or misremembered our conversations and has misquoted me. I did tell Bill that Pico won’t raster secondary ignition but the main point of our conversations was that I don’t particularly like secondary analysis with any scope, period. I think It’s fine for Bill, Mac V and (anyone else who feels comfortable with it for that matter) but personally I believe there are just too many variables and there is a danger that some techs may tend to fool themselves by reverse analyzing secondary patterns (after a fault was found and corrected) to explain why it looked like “this” or “that”. Read more here if you wish (you’ll notice my secondary patterns were captured with Pico and my comments were not on Pico but secondary patterns). http://www.autonerdz.com/cgi/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1103693399/30#30


Again my opinions were on analyzing secondary ignition for root cause, NOT on PicoScope. For those who like to use secondary analysis the new Pico Mixmaster http://www.autonerdz.com/cgi/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1160081947should be great tool.

Thanks Tom & John,

I know that I didn't misunderstand what I heard because the guy I work with looked at me and said did I hear him right.  We both love our Pico's and wanted to see if we were missing something about secondary.

Bob

Hi Carl,

Yeah.  I have a lot of respect for Bill too.  That's why I am surprised to hear such nonsense attributed to him.  Need to get him into a PicoScope so he knows what he has been missing 

Bob,

Yes, Mr. Fulton is a very smart guy. I'm a knowledge sponge. I couldn't begin to tell you how many classes I've attended. Some Instructors are poor, good, better, or best. I'd put Bill in the best catagory. This why I've attended three of his classes and will continue to do so in the future. I'm a little surprised your experience was so much different than mine.

Instructing can be difficult due to students derailing the subject material at hand. I witness this all the time. It is a balancing act to answer questions, yet not drift off too far because there is only so much time to do your presentation.

Students come in different sizes and shapes. Their existing knowledge has a lot to do with this. They may be in a class they aren't prequalified for and nothing makes sense to them. Case in point: After one of Mr. Fultons classes, I heard two people talking about how boring it was. I was shocked! I couldn't write fast enough to keep up with all the nuggets he was giving out. These were the same two guys talking to each other during class about who knows what to the point I couldn't hear the instructor. Some students might be forced to go to class by their employer and could care less about the material. Some students may actually think the class is about product promotion when it actually wasn't.  As a matter of fact, at most events, the Instructors are formally told that this is strictly prohibited, and the ones I've been to, these guidlines are adhered to.

Another case in point: Some techs say that if you want to learn PicoScope, you should purchase the Nerd series. That is absurd. Those DVDs are about Lab Scope Diagnostics (LSD) and instrumentation limitations. Techs need to know technique and how far they can push what they have. It isn't about learning how to use PicoScope, Tom has other material for that. And that library keeps growing. His classes don't promote PicoScope either. He just happens to use that and the Fluke to show the difference. He has talked people out of it because it wasn't right for them. You need to match the instrument with the tech.

I think it is good for an Instructor to give some background so the students know who they are dealing with. Credentials builds trust.

I'm not doubting your observation. It is likely mine would have been different, but that is normal. Techs often view a presentation in a different light. Wish I could of been there. What you are saying doesn't sound like the same Bill that I know.

Regards,