Does anyone have an oscilloscope they'd recommend getting to perform diagnostics. I have a 08' G35x and the SES threw a camshaft positioning code. It could be a $150 sensor or a $550 sensor; I don't want to have a dealership do the diagnostics and replacement and buying the CONSULT-III software is pretty expensive too. I saw in the factory service manual you can just use an oscilloscope to test the sensors and figured this would be the cheapest and easiest way to figure out what sensor I need.

 

Buy a Hitachi sensor and replace it, they are the OEM supplier and it's cheaper than buying them from Nissan.

Also, the diagnostic is only a 1 hour labor fee, it's usually $125-$150 but then you would still need to buy the sensor. They only last 100k-150k miles so if you're over that range it's almost definitely the sensor itself that needs replacement.

As for the oscilloscope, that's a hard one, I've had really terrible luck with the cheap handheld ones that handle higher frequencies, you need to be using a laptop with an oscilloscope USB interface. The handheld ones that are under $2000 just don't have a good enough processor to handle the data unfortunately and I have yet to see a single one that works well and a LOT of guys in town have tried them. Any of the laptop interface ones seem to work fine and are usually under $200. However you will NEED to have a PC to plug them into, preferrably a laptop of some kind which adds a significant cost to the tool if you don't already have one.

I have not tried any of the Android OS ones for Chromebooks and such, smartphones are just not powerful enough to be able to handle the datastream so avoid those.

You need at least a 2 channel device, most of them now are 8 channel which is probably more than you will ever use at once. You also want ones that are USB 2.0 or better, and the PC needs to have a USB 2.0 port or better, otherwise it's not fast enough for the data transfer rate. It's pretty insane how much realtime processing goes into handling 5 channels at once (4 cam sensors and 1 crank sensor).

20 ms/s interval or better is ideal for modern cars, you don't need that fancy gigabyte sampler and they're stupidly expensive anyways. However if you find a 10 ms/s at a killer price then it will work fine for the sampling rates needed for the G35.

Automatically adjusting vertical scale is pretty common on the PC based software from what I've seen but it's not really a dealbreaker. You will just need to adjust the vertical scale manually down to something you can see on screen, a lot of the ones you find are dual purpose auto/general electrical use so they will have a vertical scale of +/- 500v but for automotive use you only need +/- 15v so you end up dragging the top and bottom bars WAAAAAAY down to get it to display 15 v. It's more of an inconvenience thing but if it's a higher voltage display it MUST be adjustable otherwise it looks like a straight line on the screen.

You definitely want a 720 degree display though, those are your typical "motor testing" kind of oscilloscopes, a lab oscilloscope usually only has a 360 degree display but it's SUPER handy having the 720 degree ones which are what most automotive oscilloscopes are nowadays.

I can't recommend any specific brands unfortunately because I've been using a Fluke from work that costs an absolute fortune. I've looked into them numerous times over the years because I'd like to have my own but they're just so damned spendy and I have access to oscilloscopes because of my job so I've never purchased my own.

 

If you can find an old CRT oscilloscope at a good price I'd jump on it. Analog displays like that are MUUUUUCH smoother looking since it doesn't have to deal with refresh rates on a modern flat panel monitor. It just dumps electricity into the cathode ray tube which has no display frequency, it's literally just a tube of gas that splatters image on the screen as fast as you pump electricity into it. They're big and heavy but they work fantastic and from a DISPLAY perspective they're definitely better than the digital ones that require a lot of fancy/expensive silicone parts to work (and potentially fail). A CRT oscilloscope won't really wear out but you will only have a single channel to work with which is usually FINE.

 

You can buy a hundred dollar PicoScope or Autel 539B I think can graph voltages too. I have both, but rarely have I ever had to capture a waveform you can usually get by with resistance, continuity, and checks like that. A scope would be real good for a relative compression test, intermittent issues, and checking the amps and things like that of motors like a fuel pump.