Which Secondary Ignition Probe Does It Best?

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[ulfg]

There's a PDF online from Electronics Today 1977 with an instruction how to make a DIY ignition secondary probe. If I remember it right, they suggest a maybe 2" wide strip of tin foil wrapped around the ignition lead, to that foil you connect a 1nF capacitor (different sizes can be used to adjust voltage, the same goes for the width of the tin foil) to ground, an a 1 megaohm resistor parallell to the capacitor. Then you just connect the scope to the tin foil wrap. Similar to the wire wrap, but with a way to limit the voltage = less risk of BBQing the scope.

As far as i know the store bought secondary probes use this basic construction.

[juergenscholl]

Thank you Darren.

You may want to capture the same ignition event simultaneously with all 4 probes connected to the four channels? You would avoid whatever might be caused by differences/changes between different combustion events.

Another economy trick is to use a paper clip around the ignition wire, one of those that look like a butterfly where you press on the levers to open them. Then you connect your gator with the test lead to it. It will work as a capacative probe, like the pico, rotkee and hantek.

[aranhaydar]

Honestly the Rotkee seems to have the cleanest waveform. And it's more consistently detected by the pico. Thanks for the demo :) you definitely have the more useful + interesting contents on YouTube. So i appreciate that.
one small detail, i really would've liked to see a paddle probe and see how it compares. I've got one from aeswave and i think pico has a more expensive version.

[amirouw]

Ammazing and it even works on coilpacks a type that all four coiled packed in a black box and altogether directly sits on plugs

[YOYODiagnostic]

You are doing an excellent job!
Keep up the good work and always stay honest, that's what makes me follow you.

[wetleyrocks]

I thought I'd subscribed to enough diagnostic YouTube channels but I've decided (after viewing several of Darren's posts) that there's room for one more

[sheerwillsurvival]

Old school we were taught check dwell, firing line, spark line. All where usable patterns

[masongray]

Daren what I like about you channel is all the options you give great ideas especially if your on a budget thanks

[robertfrancisco]

never took notice! thanks for the info .got it all setup now on my MP408

[markhills]

Would the wire coil not be a bit risky for your scope as it’s not grounded in the event of a lead arcing out and sending all that energy straight to the scope. Just a thought. Great comparison of probes here.

[robertmobileman]

Good comparison, Rotkee is the one I would say here, clearer waveform, cheers

[beluxauto]

I strongly lean towards the Rotkee. That being said, I do own all the "nice" accessories from Pico however I have purchased two 2204's to use for the younger ones to learn . Mainly for understanding how and when to use an attenuator and get to grips with using a scope. For this I was looking at the Rotkee accessories. Good value for money.

[donniejohnson]

Awesome video. Never seen the copper wire trick.

[davidhardwick]

The Hantek et al are capacitive pickups and measure the voltage on the line, the coil is an inductive pickup and measuring the current that flows in the line. I've got no experience with spark ignition, but maybe you could use both the further analyze the system.

[pinpointauto]

The best I've used is pickup coils out of distributors amazing waveforms, even Toyota coils

[jimnugent]

Using the preset channel for configuration for the first two and a custom one for the Rotkee skewed the comparison test results. You should have revisited the first two and using custom settings it might have been possible to get a better trace. The only one which showed the combustion adequately was the Rotkee.

[davidboughman]

I believe that Hantek makes the Pico part for Peco. Just an opinion. I know how China does things like that. I'm new and know very little. My father tried to teach me when I was younger, but I was into girls at the time. Like a boy puppy. I believe the waveform was a little different for reasons aside from the leads.

[williamhasbrouck]

Has a DIYer I bought the hantec which is more reasonably priced for occasional use.

[ThunderbirdRocket]

Excellent presentation ! Super helpful !! Thanks !!!

[marekhabel]

My vote goes to pico
Others are not really bad either although after personally testing several units I noticed there is always something to adjust while pico is consistent. Now I keep the other units for cylinder reference duties.