JA303 AUTOMOTIVE ELECTRICAL

CHAPTER 3 : TOOLS END TEST EQUIPMENTS

WHAT IS MEASUREMENT
Measurement is the act of measuring physical quantities to obtain data that are transmited to recording /
display device and/or to control device. The term instrumentation is often used in this context to
describe the science and technology of the measurement system.
The first task of any measurement system is to translate the physical value to be measured, known as the
measurand into another physical variable. Which can be used to operate the display or control device. In
the motor vehicle system. The majority of measurands are converted into electrical signals. The sensors
that carry out this conversion are ofthen called transducers.
A MEASUREMENT SYSTEM.
A Complete measurement system wil vary depending on many factors but many vehicle system will
consist of the following stages. These 7 stages include the example for each stage:i.

Physical variable.

ii.

Transduction.

iii.

Electrical variable.

iv.

Signal processing.

v.

A/D conversion

vi.

Signal processing.

vii.

Display or use by control device.

i.

Physical variable.
What variable to measure such as temperature, pressure, force
Example.
Engine water temperature.

ii.

Transduction.
Instrument to change analogue data to digital data.
Example . Thermistor

iii.

Electrical variable.
Scale to measure the digital data that to tolerate to the actual value.

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Example . Resistance decreases with temperature increase.

iv.

Signal processing.
Change to the actuator scale.
Example. Linearization.

v.

A/D conversion
Ratio to convert the data actuator scale from analogue to digital.
Example. A/D conversion.

vi.

Signal processing.
Scale for actuator followed the sensor reading.
Example. Conversion to drive a digital display.

vii.

Display or use by control device.

Receive the signal to display followed the variable.
Example. Digital read-out as a number or a bar graph

Measurements system block diagram

Some system many not reqire Steps 5 and 6. As an example, consider a temperature measurement system
with a digital display. This will help to illustrate the above seven step process.
1. Engine water temperature.
2. Thermistor.
3. Resistance decreases with increase.
4. Linearization.
5. A/D conversion.
6. Conversion to drive a digital display.
7. Digital read-out as a number or a bar graph.
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SOURCE OF ERROR IN MEASUREMENT,

An important question to ask when designing an instrumentation or measurement system is
What effect will the measurement system have on the variable being mesured?
Errors in a measurement system affect the over all accuracy. Errors are also not just due to
invasion of the system. There are many terms associated with performance characteristic of
transducers and measuremant system.
Some of these tersm are consdered below.

i.

Accuracy

ii.

Resolution

iii.

Hysteresis

iv.

Repeatability.

v.

Zero error Or Zero shift.

vi.

Linearity.

vii.

Sensibility Or scale factor

viii.

Response Time.

ACCURACY
A descriptive term meaning how close the measured value of a quantity is to its actual value.
Accuracy is expressed usually as a maximum error. Example, if a length of about 30 cm is
measured with an ordinary wooden ruler then the error may be up to 1 mm too high or too low.
This is quoted as an accuracy of 1 mm.
RESOLUTION
The finecess with which a measurement can be made. This must be distinguished from
accuracy. If a quqlity steel rules were made to a very high standard but only had markings or
graduations of one per centimetre it would have a low resolution even though the graduation
were very accurate.

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HYSTERESIS
For a given value of the measured, the output of the system depends on the whether the
measurand has acquired its value by incresing or decreasing from its previous value. You can
prove this next time you weigh yourself on some scales. If you step on gently you will weigh
less than if you jump on and the scales overshoot and then settle.
REPEATABILITY
The closeness of agreement of the readings when a number of consecutive measurements are
taken a chosen value during full range traveres of the measurand. If a 5 kg set of weighing scales
was increased from zero to 5 kg in 1 kg steps a number of times. Then the spread of readings is
the repatability. It is often expressed as a percentage of full scale
ZERO ERROR OR ZERO SHIFT
The displascement of a reading zero when no reading should be apparent. An analogue electrical
test meter. For example, often has some from of adjustment to zero the needle.
LINEARITY
The response of a transducer is often non-linear ( see the response of a thermistor in the next
section) where possible, a tranducer is used in its linear region. Non-linearty is usually quoted as
a percentage over the range in which the device is designed to work.
SENSIBILITY OR SCALE FACTOR
A measure of the incremental change in output for a given change in the input quantity.
Sensitivity is quoted effectively as the slope of a graph in the linear region. A figure of 0.1 V/C
for example, would indicate that a system would increase its output by 0.1 V for every 1 C
increase in temperature of the input.
RESPONSE TIME
The time taken by the output of a system to respond to a change in the input. A system measuring
engine oil pressure needs a faster response time than a fuel tank quantity system. Errors in the
output will be apparent if the measurement is taken quicker than the response time.
Looking again at the seven steps involved in a measurement system will highligth the potential
sources of error.
i.

Invasive measurement error.

ii.

Non-linearity of the transducer.

iii.

Noise in the transmission path.

iv.

Errors in amplifiers and other components.

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v.

Quantization errors when digital conversion takes palce.

vi.

Display driver resolution.

vii.

Reading error of the final display.

ELECTRICAL MEASUREMENT EQUIPMENT

Basic Test Meters
What is a multimeter?
A multimeter is a devise used to measure voltage, resistance and current in electronics &
electrical equipment
It is also used to test continuity between to 2 points to verify if there is any breaks in circuit
or line
There are two types of multimeter Analog & Digital
Analog has a needle style gauge
Digital has a LCD display
Analog meters
Analog meters use an electromechanical movement of a pointer over a calibrated scale to
display the value of the quantity (voltage, current, resistance, etc) being measured by the
meter

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Digital meters

Digital meters use an alphanumeric or numeric LED (Light Emitting Diode) display or LCD
(Liquid Crystal Display) for showing the reading of the measured quantity.

Analog Multimeter

Digital Multimeter

Wrong scale might be used, or might be

read incorrectly.

Leaves no doubt about the measured

quantity.

Inferior resolution and accuracy.

Superior resolution and accuracy.

Pointer attempts to deflect to the left of

zero when the polarity is reversed.

Indicates a negative quantity when

the terminal polarity is reversed.

Can be irreparably damaged when

dropped from bench levels.

Not usually damaged by rough

treatment.

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Meter 0 corrector
2. Range selector switch
1.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

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+ terminal
-Com terminal
Output (+) terminal
12A exclusive terminal
Pointer

8. Mirror
9. Indicator cover
10.
11.
12.
13.

0 adjuster
Polarity revesal switch
Rear Case
Rear case screws

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Meter leads

Red meter lead

Is connected to Voltage/Resistance or amperage port
Is considered the positive connection

Probes
Are the handles used to hold tip on the tested connection

Black meter lead

Is always connected to the common port
Is considered the negative connection.

Display & Dial Settings

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Measuring Voltage
Voltage (V) is the unit of electrical pressure; one volt is the potential difference needed to cause
one amp of current to pass through one ohm of resistance
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Voltage is broke up into 2 sections AC & DC

Alternating Current (AC) is house voltage (110vac)
Direct Current (DC) is battery voltage (12vdc)
On switched meters use one value higher than your expected value
Be very careful to not touch any other electronic components within the equipment and do not
touch the tips to each other while connected to anything else

To measure voltage connect the leads in parallel between the two points where the measurement
is to be made. The multimeter provides a parallel pathway so it needs to be of a high resistance to
allow as little current flow through it as possible

Measuring Resistance and Continuity

Resistance (W) is the opposition to current
Resistance is measured in Ohm's
Disconnect power source before testing
Remove component or part from system before testing
Measure using lowest value, if OL move to next level
Testing for continuity is used to test to verify if a circuit, wire or fuse is complete with no open
Audible continuity allows an alarm if circuit is complete
If there is no audible alarm resistance of 1ohm to .1ohm should be present

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Measuring Current
Current (amps) is the flow of electrical charge though a component or conductor
Current is measured in amps or amperes
Disconnect power source before testing
Disconnect completed circuit at end of circuit
Place multimeter in series with circuit
Reconnect power source and turn ON
Select highest current setting and work your way down.

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Functions of Multimeter for car diagnosis

i.

Freq. measurement:
camshaft sensor test

ii.

Temperature measurement
Temperature sensor

iii.

Resistance measurement
Injector test

iv.

Voltage measurement
voltage test on component

v.

Current measurement
Current test into the battery from the alternator

vi.

Oxygen measurement
Lambda sensor ( Oxygen sensor)

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OSCILLOSCOPE
Used to observe the exact wave shape of an electrical signal

What is and Oscilloscope

The Oscilloscope basically a graph displaying device that draws a graph of an electrical signal. The
vertical (Y) axis represents voltage and the horizontal ( X) axis represents time. The intensity or
brightness of the display is sometimes called the ( Z ) axis.

FUNCTION OF OSCILLOSCOPE..
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.

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Shows and calculate the frequency and amplitude of an oscillating signal.

Shows the voltage and time of a particular signal.
Helps to troubleshoot any malfuntion components.
Shows the content of the AC voltage or DC voltage in signal.

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Waves.
i.

Waveform shapes reveal a great deal about a signal.

ii.

Anay time you see a change in the height of the waveform, you know the voltage has changed.

iii.

Any time there is a flat horizontal line, you know that there is no change for that length of
time.

iv.

Straight, diagonal lines mean a linear change.

BASIC OF MEASUREMENT.
1. Frequency and Period.
If a signal repeats, it has a frequency. The frequency is measured in Hertz (Hz). A repetitive signal
also has a period, which is the amount of time it takes the signal to complete one cycle.
2. Voltage.
Voltage is the amount of the electric potential between two point in a circuit. The voltage from the
maximum peak to the minimum peak of a waveform is referred to as the peak to peak voltage.
3. Amplitude.
Amplitude refer to the amount of voltage between two point in a circuit. Amplitude commonly refers
to the maximum voltage of a signal measured from ground, or zero volts.
Sensor can convert these forces into electrical signals thet you can observe and study with an
oscilloscope.
A sensor is a device that creates an electrical signal in response to physical stimuli, such as sound,
mechanical stress, pressure, light or heat.
An automotive engineer uses an oscilloscope to correlate analog data from sensor with serial data
from the engine control unit

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Types of waves.
i.

Sine waves

ii.

Square and rectangular waves.

iii.

Saw tooth and triangle waves

iv.

Step and pulse shapes

v.

Periodic and non-periodic signals

vi.

Synchronous and asynchronous signal

vii.

Complex waves.

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Define What is measurement.

Measurement is the process observing
Recording the observations that are collected as part of a research effort.

What is a multimeter and draw a simple analogue multimeter.

Multimeter or amultitester is an electronic measuring tool that is a combination of several tool
in one unit. It usually includes an ammeter, voltmeter and ohmmeter.

The Oscilloscope
Of all the test instruments available to audio engineers, the one most frequently taken for granted - yet
often least understood - is probably the oscilloscope. Anyone can figure out how to use a voltmeter, and
an oscillator and frequency counter are more obvious still. There are many recording engineers,
however, who wouldn't recognize slew rate limiting if it were staring them in the face. This article will
attempt to demystify the most versatile of all audio tools.

BASIC PRINCIPLES

The main purpose of an oscilloscope is to display the level of a signal relative to changes in time. A
voltmeter is fine for measuring steady levels like test tones or for checking flashlight batteries, but it is
impossible to observe a signal's instantaneous value - or to determine whether you have a square wave
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or a sine for that matter - since the meter's pointer could never move that fast. An oscilloscope uses an
electron beam which creates a dot of light when the beam strikes the phosphor coating inside a cathode
ray tube (CRT). The beam is then swept across the screen quickly enough to follow variations in the
input waveform.

Besides the CRT, all scopes also have both vertical and horizontal amplifiers, as well as a variable
frequency sawtooth oscillator connected to the latter. The purpose of this oscillator is to create the
recurrent sweep that makes tracing the input signal possible. Since the CRT produces a single dot of
light, the dot must be swept constantly from left to right to create the illusion of a continuous solid line.
The signal to be observed is then applied to the vertical amplifier's input which shifts the dot up or
down, as shown in Figure 1.

Without the horizontal sweep there would only be a single dot in the center of the screen; applying a
signal into just the vertical input simply moves the dot up and down. By using both the vertical and
horizontal inputs the signal's voltage can be determined by the amount of vertical deflection, and its
frequency by the horizontal position. Both can be read directly from the calibrated lines, called a
graticule, that is drawn on the face of the CRT (Figure 2).

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Switches set the gain of the vertical amplifier which is calibrated in volts per division. The frequency of
the horizontal sweep oscillator is controlled in a similar fashion, and determines how long it takes the
dot to move one division to the right. When the dot reaches the right edge of the screen the sawtooth
ramp quickly resets, and in all but the least expensive models the dot is turned off during this time.
Otherwise a confusing double trace would result, especially at the higher sweep speeds. Okay, that's the
basic concept. Now let's look at some of the refinements you'll find in a commercial oscilloscope.

ADDITIONAL FEATURES

The most important feature is a triggered sweep, which serves to synchronize the sweep oscillator to
the input waveform. Without this feature the displayed waveform would constantly flicker and wander
about, since each time the sweep began the input would likely be at a different part of its cycle. Instead
of immediately beginning a new sweep as soon as the beam is reset, the trigger circuit delays the sweep
until the input signal returns to the same voltage as when the last sweep began. Triggering usually
occurs on the rising edge of the input waveform, though better scopes have a switch that lets you
trigger on either the rising or falling edge.

Another standard feature is a continuously variable level control on the vertical input for making
relative, rather than absolute, voltage measurements. If you are measuring the response of a filter, for
example, you would use this control to make the unfiltered wave exactly fill the screen. Then, it is easy
to see when the signal becomes attenuated by a half, a quarter, or whatever after passing through the
filter. In fact, many scopes have an additional dB. scale printed on the screen to allow these readings
directly. Likewise, a calibrated fine-tuner called a vernier is provided for the horizontal sweep speed as
well, to simplify relative frequency measurements. Also, every oscilloscope has an AC/DC switch - just
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like a voltmeter - to observe only the AC voltage regardless of any DC offset present in the signal. This is
useful for inspecting small levels of high-frequency noise on a power supply's output, and it lets you
raise the vertical gain without the trace going off the top or bottom edge of the screen.

Most scopes let you disable the automatic sweep, and most also let you feed a signal directly into the
horizontal amplifier to measure the phase difference between two inputs. Used in the X/Y mode like
this, it is simple to optimize the azimuth alignment of a recorder's tape head by comparing the relative
phase between two tracks. As shown in Figure 3, when two identical (in-phase) signal sources are
applied to each input a diagonal line results. Contrast that to the other patterns you get when different
amounts of phase shift are introduced. Thus, to adjust a tape head's azimuth you feed the output from
an upper track to the Vertical input and a lower track's output to the horizontal input, then adjust the
head angle until the line goes from the lower left to the upper right of the display. This method is
considered by many to be more accurate than simply maximizing output level while looking at the
recorder's VU meters.

Another useful feature found on medium- and high-priced scopes is dual-channel capability, which is
essential if you want to be able to view two different signals simultaneously. These oscilloscopes let you
switch between two different two-channel modes: Alternate and Chop. In the Alternate mode, a sweep
is performed first on one signal in the top half of the CRT screen, and then on the other signal in the
lower half of the display. The Chop mode is created by a single sweep, with the channels switching back
and forth very rapidly. For a readable display (to avoid phantom alias frequencies), the chopping
frequency must be much higher than that of either input frequency. Some oscilloscope models have
four or eight inputs - the ultimate in digital circuit monitoring - and adapters are also available for
regular scopes to let them display many different inputs at once.

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A built-in square wave generator is another common accessory, and it is used to calibrate the scope's
Volts/division vertical trimmers, as well as provide a high-quality source for "rise-time" testing. Which
brings us back to recognizing slew-rate limiting. First, all audio equipment has a limit to the highest
frequency it will pass. When viewing a square wave this limitation results in a rounding of the wave
edges as shown in Figure 4A. If the rounding doesn't occur until 50 KHz. or so there is no problem unless you believe you can hear that high. But real problems do occur when an amplifier stage cannot
supply the current required to charge up the various circuit capacitances. Then the signal begins to look
like Figure 4B, where the straight triangle lines reveal distortion as well as bandwidth restriction. If you
aren't concerned about being able to pass a Megahertz signal, a simple Resistor/Capacitor filter can be
added to an amplifier's input to prevent extremely high frequencies from getting in to begin with.

Once you get to the most expensive oscilloscope models you'll find storage capability, which is a method
to freeze the display even after the input has been removed. Early storage scopes used a charged grid
inside the CRT face to retain the beam pattern, though current units use digital memory that is looped
much like the repeat-hold feature of a digital delay line.

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Differences Between Mutimeter and Oscilloscope.

Multimeter
Number display
Show current reading
Sense reading according scale

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Oscilloscope.
Graph display
Record reading at curtain period
Reading can be amplified ( adjust intensity)

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