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Testing a sensor - oscilloscope needed?
lsdweb - 16/9/07 at 11:11 AM

Testing a sensor - oscilloscope needed?

Hi All

I’m having some difficulty deciding what ECU to use (see here ) and, in all honesty, may stick with the Emerald as it’s very good and it’s already wired in!

I also have a 36/1 trigger wheel which will fit inside the R1 with no modifications and will run on the Emerald ECU despite being quite small (2.5”). However, I’d like to test the wheel and sensor to make sure I’m getting accurate readings. I can set the both up in my pillar drill initially to test at lowish speed and then, hopefully measure the higher engine speeds when it’s running again.

How will I actually test it though – I was thinking of borrowing or buying a cheapish oscilloscope but I haven’t used one since school (a very long time ago!). I’ve seen some relatively cheap PC / USB oscilloscopes on eBay. Would they be any good and could a numpty like me use one? The engine revs to nearly 14k and with 36 teeth (35 really) that's expecting the sensor to pick up over 8000 'pulses' per second.

Regards

Wyn

bigrich - 16/9/07 at 11:20 AM

we use one at work on the pc 4 channels a very nice bit of kit should cope with what our intending to measure easily.
http://www.picotech.com/index.html
try the link for all their products, probably not cheap but very good

Rich

oadamo - 16/9/07 at 11:33 AM

i have 2 old oscilloscopes in my shed still working got i bit of spray on them i dont use anymore because i have a handheld one.adam

BenB - 16/9/07 at 12:51 PM

I use a handheld one... Very nice too!!! Or I use it when people aren't borrowing it- I think my brother has it at the moment....

lsdweb - 16/9/07 at 02:36 PM

What about one of these

Adam - do you want to sell one of yours?

Regards

Wyn

oadamo - 16/9/07 at 02:59 PM

quote:
Originally posted by lsdweb
What about one of these

Adam - do you want to sell one of yours?

Regards

Wyn


you have u2u

oadamo - 16/9/07 at 03:55 PM

if your just testing sensors you can use a multi meter.the one i have has a data port on you can get them from maplin and data log with that.
adam

[Edited on 16/9/07 by oadamo]

CairB - 16/9/07 at 04:10 PM

quote:
Originally posted by lsdweb
What about one of these

Adam - do you want to sell one of yours?

Regards

Wyn


I bought the 150Ms/s with 60Mhz bandwidth version, from the same source I think.
Seems ok to me although there are a few quirks in the software at very high sampling rates.

I have just been checking an EDIS based system and needed to use a pneumatic die grinder to get a high enough rpm, 10kRPM in my case.
The drag on the wheel is quite high at these speed, my electric roto tool couldn't get it past 4k rpm.

I used a strobe on the wheel to check the spark angle.

You don't need the scope for this test that tests the whole system.

Cheers,

Colin

lsdweb - 17/9/07 at 09:22 PM

Thanks guys

How do I check that a sensor is picking up on all the teeth etc by using a multimeter?

What about this?

Wyn

[Edited on 17/9/07 by lsdweb]