peakutils is a nice library for peak detection. it would be good to have it in scipy. the current peak detection algorithm fine_peak_cwt is more exotic, and does not take expected parameters or provide functionality of a simple peak detector.

this blog post gives a good overview of available peak detection in python

http://pythonhosted.org/PeakUtils/tutorial_a.html

i have contacted author, and he would be willing to help.