[time-nuts] Re: HP / Agilent 53132A

[Michael Wouters]

Curious. We had about eight 5313x counters operating until a few years ago.
These were in logging systems and cal setups, where they were never powered
off, some for 20+ years. There were no power supply failures.

Cheers
Michael


On Mon, 1 May 2023 at 4:44 am, Bob Camp via time-nuts <
time-nuts at lists.febo.com> wrote:

> Hi
>
> The power supply in the 5313x counters was made by who knows who
> ( = HP bought it from the low bidder). They are very much the weak point
> in the device. Will yours fail tomorrow? Who knows …..
>
> The “cheap answer” to the replacement issue is to buy a 53181. They are
> not a popular item. They don’t fetch much compared to the other counters
> in the series. They *do* share the same power supply. We  swapped a
> *lot* of supplies between the 181 and 131/132 counters. (as in dozens …).
>
> Bob
>
> > On Apr 29, 2023, at 3:21 PM, Richard (Rick) Karlquist via time-nuts <
> time-nuts at lists.febo.com> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > On 4/27/2023 4:34 PM, Brett Fanoga via time-nuts wrote:
> >
> >> equipment leasing company for around $1100 US.  I have only had one
> problem with mine, the fan failed.  It runs all the time, if the unit is
> plugged in to power – even if the unit is off on the power switch. Called
> HP and they do not sell the fan, they want to sell you the whole power
> supply which they wanted a small fortune for.  But, I found Digi-Key
> carried the exact fan, and I bought 2 units for just under $50 US about 10
> years ago.  And now if I am not using the counter,  I unplug it.
> >
> > I worked for the HP Santa Clara Division during the era of these
> instruments, which were code named "Major League Baseball" (MLB).  I suspect
> > (based on other HP instruments) that the fan is necessary to keep
> > the power transformer from overheating due to its own core loss.
> > And the power transformer is connected to the AC line at all times,
> > to save the hassle of a line level on/off switch, with all the
> > safety problems.  Fans running 24/7 are well known not to last for
> > more than a year or so.
> >
> > And yes, vacuum fluorescents are famous for wearing out.  My N8LP
> > digital vector wattmeter puts the VF display to sleep after a
> > few minutes to extend the life.
> >
> > Add on prescalers using dynamic flip flops are fairly fussy about
> > about broadband noise floor, etc.
> >
> > This reminds me of a humorous anecdote.  I was in a meeting with
> > the designer of the MLB FPGA and Len Cutler.  The MLB engineer
> > offered his opinion about some technical issue, after which
> > he appended it with a self-deprecating remark along the lines
> > of "of course I've only been here for 30 years".  As if on
> > cue, Len angrily fired back with "well, I've been here 40 years".
> > This was classic Len behavior.  I kind of felt bad for the
> > MLB engineer.
> >
> > Rick N6RK
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