Simon Manley

Using an oscilloscope in the workshop.

Sometime around 1995 I bought an oscilloscope for my workshop. There was one in the college I went to, a Crypton I think, but I don’t have a memory of it being used. And if it was, it was a very brief introduction.

I finished my college time in the summer of 1992 and then worked trying to find my place in the motor trade. I enjoyed getting stuck into problems and working them out. The more I got into this the more equipment I needed, and to be honest I really couldn’t afford what I wanted.

It was some time in 1993 I was visiting another workshop locally to me and I noticed a machine he had just gotten secondhand. It was the same one we used in the Citroën main dealer where I worked, it was a Souriau which was the brand supplied to dealerships at the time.

It had a three gas analyser fixed in the middle of the frame with an oscilloscope CRT screen on top and a boom for the cables and timing light attached to the back.

When I was in the dealership we only used the gas analyser to set CO and that was it, I don’t think the screen was ever turned on in my time there. As far as I remember it also had a few blow-moulded cases with special brand-specific connectors. This would have been before the widespread use of the 16-pin connector we see everywhere now.

I was a junior so I didn’t get a chance to investigate the machine but I was always curious.

This style of diagnostic tool was high-end at the time. You could fit the software it had and a hell of a lot more on a tablet or laptop now.

Anyway — After seeing the tool in this workshop I made it my goal that I was going to get one — not the same brand — and really immerse myself in a higher level of diagnostic and tuning work.

Eventually in late 1994 I came across a Sun 4 Gas Analyser — I think the Snap-On guys were selling them at the time, and I think they were old MOT station units from the UK. I’m open to correction on that — and within a year or so I bought the oscilloscope unit that the gas analyser fitted into, finally giving me that all-in-one unit I craved from a couple of years previous.

I had a terrible time with the 4 gas analyser, it always had issues. Mostly on a Monday morning you’d turn it on and just hope you wouldn’t see ERR on every display. But unfortunately, more often than not, that’s what would greet me. And every time it was this or that cost to get it running again. Only recently I came across the saying “Nickel and Diming me” well that about sums it up.

I had a Snap-on single gas that was doing everything at a fraction of the cost. So I traded in the whole thing for a Snap-on Counselor. That was a fantastic tool. I really loved using it. The only problem I had with that was the cost; at the time it outweighed what it was bringing in and times were tight so it had to go — at a huge financial loss just to get out of the payments!

The game changer for me was the Snap-on Vantage Pro. This was a multimeter, a graphing meter, and a 2-channel oscilloscope all in your hand. Not only that, but it had pinout and diagnostic information on the unit via a programmed CF card. Amazing!

This machine was next level. It was by far the most advanced piece of equipment I had in my workshop. I believe I had this even before I had a computer.

Comparing the Vantage to my previous oscilloscopes

The Vantage is a DSO (Digital Storage Oscilloscope) whereas my Sun for instance was an analog CRT (Cathode Ray Tube) scope. With the Sun, you were watching a live waveform trace across the screen in real-time. If an intermittent glitch happened, you had to catch it with your own eyes right then and there, blink and you’d miss it.

The Vantage, being digital, could capture, freeze, and store that data. It meant I could actually pause the recording and analyze a waveform frame by frame to find that one rogue drop in voltage.

What came next?

The next tool I bought to feature an oscilloscope was the Snap-on Verus Pro. This was a 4-channel — mind-blowing at the time — touch screen, full OBD capabilities with manufacturer and generic data.

The Verus felt like the culmination of everything I’d been chasing since I first saw that old Souriau machine in the 90s. It bridged the gap between a standalone scope and a powerhouse scan tool, running on a Windows platform that allowed me to save screenshots, print reports, and look at data or wiring diagrams without walking away from the car.

It was the ultimate diagnostic workstation, finally packed into a portable tablet.

Looking back from the advanced scopes I use today, it’s amazing to see the evolution. We went from massive, temperamental, garage-sized cabinets that couldn’t save a single screen trace, to handheld digital powerhouses that can catch a glitch occurring in a millisecond.

It was a costly and sometimes a frustrating journey, but mastering those early tools is exactly what paved the way for the diagnostic work I do today.

Recently I bought a Sun SST 1500, which goes somewhere in-between my original Sun scope and the Counselor. See some posts I made about that here on the blog:

https://blog.simonmanley.com/sun-sst-1500-digital-oscilloscopesnap-on-eeos104a/

https://blog.simonmanley.com/more-on-the-sun-sst-1500-scope/

It still works and it’s nice to have a piece of old but useful equipment in the workshop.