Oscilliscope recommendation for ludite

I have been wrenching on cars for about 30 years as a hobby, and haven't needed much more than a code reader and mechanical intuition until recently.  I just picked up an Autel MS906 Pro and would like to add an oscilloscope to my bag of tools.  Is there a sub-$600 oscilloscope I could pickup that would work with either a windows/mac laptop or the android tablet that the Autel is loaded onto? I thought the Autel MP408 might be a good choice, but it appears to be discontinued and Autel has no replacement.  I have a cheap Chinese oscilloscope (Yeapook ADS1013D) that I've been playing with, but it seems a little clunky and limited.

www.aeswave.com/uScope-Basic-Kit-p9621.html

The U-Scope is widely used in the industry with much praise.
I don't personally own one, but have used one. It's a good option for beginners, or even experienced techs that don't need to bust out the big guns.
It is a single channel, so if you want to to cam and crank relationship waveforms, you'll need to upgrade.

I think for a variety of projects I'll need 4 channels. I may have to raise my price ceiling.

What about the Micsig brand? I see they have a 4-channel virtual scope that can output to a laptop or android tablet. I might be able to use that with my Autel MS906 Pro tablet.

Pico scope 2405A may be a good option for you.

One of our most senior members uses a Micsig at the Nissan dealership.
Maybe he will be kind enough to pop in here and give an honest review.

It would be great to hear real-world use of a MicSig scope.  I thought about it a bit, and the virtual scope route with the scope connected to the laptop/tablet with cables, and then leads from the scope to the car, might be too much juggling.  I might be more inclined to break out the scope if it was more consolidated.
Something like the MicSig SATO1004 might be worth the extra cost if it is reliable.

Hello,

I am the Migsig user Noah mentioned, and I do like it a lot, and would buy it again. Do you have any specific questions?

I also have a uscope that I still use often, but probably use the Micsig SATO 1004 most often. The one with the touch screen and buttons on the side. I like having the buttons and would probably not like the touch only as much.

It doesn't have isolated channels like the higher end PICOs, but I don't think you can beat it in this price range. Battery life is good. It feels very nice, and is heafty. I like very much that the battery is replaceble.
You can get a DC adapter that connects right to the car battery to charge it and the charge ground is connected to the lead ground, so while using the DC charger your neg lead is always connected to battery ground, which is cool. I haven't used it, but it has the ability to connect to a monitor or diplay if you want a bigger screen. I saw some videos where people complained about fan noise, but they must not be working in a shop, cause I can't hear it. Very easy to use interface. You can easily save captures and name them quickly with the tool.

The four channel option I used before this was the android based HScope, which requires a tablet or phone with 4GB of RAM and one of the approved budget scopes on the list at the bottom of this page. This makes the garbage Hantek software a non-issue. The software of this app is unbeleivibly good and is continually updated. Very feature rich and a huge buffer. It is not a standalone set up like the Micsig though, so I don't use it anymore. It's just easier for me to grab a standalone than set all of the stuff up, but for a low budget 2-4 channel setup, there is nothing close. You can do 2 channels for like $80 and 4 for less than $200.

www.martinloren.com/hscope/#media_gallery-3

The Autel was on my list too. I didn't know it has been discontinued. If I had a compatible scantool, I probably would have gotten it for the price, but didn't want to use my laptop.

Thanks for that very informative post.  I'll order a MicSig SATO1004.  Are there accessories I will need to work on a car besides what come with the MicSig scope?
I am looking at the Hantek CC-650 and CC-65 current clamp meters.  I have seen coil-on-plug probes, are those helpful over just backprobing?

To see secondary ignition on some coil types (3 and 4 wires/integrated module) you will need a dedicated probe if you wanted to see "true" voltages. Otherwise you will get away with regular probes, inductors etc if you just want to catch the basics like burn time to compare between coils.

Current probes are great to have. Once you find scoping is for you then take it from there and get intersted in things like pressure transducers, supersonic probes, piezo sensors and all the other "weird" stuff that makes for a lot of fun.

I've read a bit more, and have come across a lot of discussions of 8-bit vs 12-bit vertical resolution. From a few Youtube videos the 12-bit does seem to give better resolution, primarily using the PicoScope 4425a.

Is the increased resolution of a 12-bit scope a significant advantage in automotive diagnostics?

Yes. 12 bits vertical resolution vs. 8 bits makes a significant difference. This will be obvious when diagnosing ignition, while working with pressure transducer as examples.

Another distinction between oscilloscopes appears to be whether the channels are grounded separately (floating) or common.  What are the advantages of a floating ground for automotive diagnostics?

An oscilloscope with floating grounds allows simultaneous measurements of signals with different ground potentials.

You could measure across
one or more variable reluctance sensors (CKP, CMP) and battery negative referenced signals for example. With a common ground scope you could - worst case - cause a no start when grounding the CKP inadvertently.

On newer cars sensor grounds are often offsetted from chassis ground for noise reduction and floating grounds come in handy in these scenarios as well.

The ground isolation is a 'relative' thing...out of my head the pico automotive scopes with floating grounds are rated at potential differences up to 30V..

Though floating grounds are nice to have they are not necessary nor a big advantage on > 90% of automotive labsope diagnostics imo.