When you get back to the shop, you plug in your scan tool and find no trouble codes.
For example, when anti-lock brakes on your car are sometimes erratic, you might firstly try a road test to notice that the ABS light does not come on. DSOs alone cannot replace DMMs or scan tools.īy the same token, DMMs or scan tools cannot replace DSOs. 1.1 COMPARING SCAN TOOLS, DSOs AND DMMs All of these tools have unique capabilities, and today’s vehicles demand that automotive technicians are able to use all three tools to correctly diagnose various driveability problems. This Met er a combination DSO and GMM represents the most powerful and versat ile tool available for troubleshooting automotive electronics since we can track down elusive no-code driveability problems. A GMM (Graphing Multimeter) gives you advanced multimeter capabilities coupled with the visual power of trend graphing and waveform display.
A DSO can capture a live “signature” of a circuit and store it for later analysis or comparison against Known-good waveforms - an invaluable resource for detecting marginal components.
Therefore, repair technicians are finding more and more uses for a Digital Storage Oscilloscope (DSO) and a Digital Multimeter (DMM) thesedays. But to keep warranty costs in line, tolerances aren’t set to catch all transients, even though they can cause some of your worst driveability problems.