[volt-nuts] Valhalla 2703 AC calibrator

[Mark Sims]

I recently snagged a Valhalla 2703 AC calibrator off of Ebay for less than $200 shipped.  It's a pretty nice machine that goes from 1 uV to 1200V without an external amp.   And it weighs less than my Fluke 5200A alone.

It was shown powered up with "-" in all the LED digits.  The opening bid was low enough to risk it,  so I put in a low ball bid (and luckily nobody else did).   It arrived a couple days later in pretty good shape.   I opened it up and saw nothing out of whack.  No magic smoke smell,  etc.  The fan was rather noisy and the the calibration key was missing.

The processor, eprom, and ram chips were in sockets so I reseated them and powered it up again.  Voila!  Display said "Hello" and everything works fine.   Running it past the HP 3458A's showed all ranges were in spec.  I replaced the fan,  pulled the calibration key switch and took it to my local locksmith (got the "oh, no it's him again" look).  2 hours and $12 later I had two calibration keys.

I've had it running for a couple of days and the readings are very stable.  I'll let it stew in its own juices for a couple of weeks and then run the calibration sequence.