Yep, I do sometimes dig out more serious equipment, but it is surprising how often you can get away with nothing other than the scan tool and one of these lights...
Did you ever use one of those old Sun ignition scopes, where you could literally see the spark plug voltages? Now that's a serious oscilloscope... [/quote]
LOL... I owned that very unit. Honestly, I used the gauges more than the scope; it was kewl to diag point ignition, and would help you identify a coil that's breaking down on a electronic ignition unit, but as a 'scope it was horrible. Their idea of precision cal'd was display voltage accurate within half a KV between 10-40KV.
![Face Palm :palm:](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/xfacepalm.gif.pagespeed.ic.EBDwh1hCfo.png)
Also, not really a 'scope as we know it; just a yoke-deflection analog TV monitor with a lot of amplification on a inductive pickup with a very low, very narrow useful bandwidth.
![Confused :-//](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/confused0024.gif.pagespeed.ce.5xOqKkq0Co.gif)
mnem
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Haha that's funny, I only used one once or twice - once, I was able to correctly diagnose a worn timing chain, as you could see the timing jittering on the oscilloscope screen and I concluded that could probably only happen if there was a lot of play in the drive to the distributor... It is also interesting how the voltage on the plugs go up when you load the engine (blip the throttle)... so as a learning tool, it was definitely useful. I'm not sure there are any modern equivalents - with the advent of on-plug coils, where would you even connect the probes... so this kind of stuff is probably only seen in research labs nowadays...
Re the little lightbulb probe - it was enough to trace the drive for the A/C clutch and verify that the relay was not working properly. It is refreshing to work with such a simple tool, no computers, just a man and his light bulb!
![Cheesy :D](https://www.eevblog.com/forum/Smileys/default/xcheesy.gif.pagespeed.ic.KPzuH4J-TG.png)
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Yes Automotive 'scopes are still made. Pico Tecnology's Automotive range.
https://www.picoauto.com/They are brilliant bits of kit. The even cover mechanical issues, noise and vibration. They do everthing the Tek kit did and more. I have a 4 channel one and a Panasonic CF19 toughbook. Cost me under £100 because it was in a make branded case and badly described on ebay.