CW,
CW wrote on Jun 5
th, 2012 at 9:57pm:
what do you mean by this?
I meant the Snap-On Verus/Modis are the most powerful native hand held four channel automotive scope available at this time. By native hand held I mean an integrated platform all in one scope and screen.
They can even out perform some PC based scopes like the Escope. To advance beyond the SO scopes you really have to go with a Pico.
CW wrote on Jun 5
th, 2012 at 9:57pm:
Can anyone comment on the Picoscope/software having this function or something similar?
The 4000 series scopes can graph frequency live on one channel at a time. You can also just not bother with this....capture four channels of data and then apply one or more frequency math channels to any of the active channels. This will add an additional channel to the display that graphs the frequency and can sure help you locate the area of interest in a long capture time.
With a little more math you can also make an RPM channel. With other math functions you can do all kinds of things you would never be able to do with a Snap-On scope.
Here is an example:
http://www.autonerdz.com/cgi/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1308802930/To address a couple of your cons in the Pico list:
Harder to resell:
This has not been my observation. The ones I have seen go up for sale don't last long.
Laptop isn't as rugged:
That depends on the laptop. You can either get a ruggedized laptop or several standard ones for the same $$. Keep in mind that the Verus is a very minimal PC that resists upgrading. It does not even have the resources to run a Pico. Small RAM, low end processor, not even a real OS, etc. Any modern PC would be way more PC.
Windows based:
Yup, that can be a problem sometimes but Windows 7 is really quite good and light years away from XP Embedded in the Verus.
You are doing the right thing....your homework. You have narrowed things down to two excellent choices. It all depends on what kind of techs you have or what kind of techs you want to have. The SO scopes are somewhat limiting if you have techs that really want to take this LSD thing to the Outer Limits.