[volt-nuts] hp 3458a advice

[J. L. Trantham]

Paul,

First, the meter is worth something if nothing other than parts.  It is
quite a meter and you should at least open it up and see what it might take
to get it operational again.  I am sure there are folks on this list
(including me) that would love to have the meter if you want to part with
it.

It is still in production, still supported and you can get the manuals from
the Agilent website.  The assembly level repair manual should be able to
give you an idea of where the problem is.  The CLIP is available and you
might be able to find the specific part (or parts) that need replacing.

I don't know of a way to get the serial number if there is no sticker on the
back.  You can open it and look at the date codes on the chips, etc., and
get an idea of when it was manufactured.

You can enter some queries from the front panel to get some other
information.  I can't remember what they all are but if they end in a '?',
it will return the data.  Things like 'OPT?' will tell what options are
installed, '1' being extended memory and '2' being the high stability
reference.  You can tell how many times it was CAL'd, what version of
firmware it has, etc.  I think version 9 is the latest and version 8 is 'out
there' somewhere, IIRC.  If you just start with shift A and scroll down the
list, you can see what questions you can ask.

Agilent offers a 'repair service' for about $1900 (IIRC) that will put it
back in operational condition, up to specs, and with a fresh calibration.
However, I don't know if that service requires a serial number or not.

There is a guy at the Agilent calibration center in Colorado, Gary Bierman,
and he is 'the man' when it comes to that meter.  I have spoken with him in
the past about other 3458A questions and he was most helpful.  I suspect he
would be more than willing to talk to you about the meter and what it might
take to get it up and running.

I think his contact information is in the archives if you would like to
pursue that.

Good luck.

Joe

-----Original Message-----
From: volt-nuts-bounces at febo.com [mailto:volt-nuts-bounces at febo.com] On
Behalf Of Paul Fox
Sent: Monday, October 15, 2012 9:50 AM
To: Discussion of precise voltage measurement
Subject: [volt-nuts] hp 3458a advice

hi --

i'm not a volt-nuts regular, and not even a precision measurement nut
at all, but given past discussion in the list archives, i think you
folks might be able to help.

i was recently given an HP 3458a multimeter.  the donor thought it
worked when he last used it, but that was quite a long time ago, and i
think it was stored in an attic for some time, so i'm not too
surprised that it now doesn't pass self tests. :-/  he mainly wanted
it out of his house, along with a bunch of other vintage (sadly mostly
non-working) equipment he'd accumulated over the years.

the self-test error is:
    ERRSTR 204, "Hardware Failure -- Flatness DAC Convergence: 198"

judging from past list traffic, repairs on these units are 
expensive, and it would still need recalibration to be useful, and
there are may be other parts (eeproms?) that may not be good
any more.  i'm not really interested in pursuing any of this
myself.

what's worse is that the unit doesn't have a serial number.  (i assume
the s/n would normally be obvious on the rear of the unit.)  it bears a
sticker on the back that says "MTG PROTO 27".  i think the unit came
from a place that themselves produced reference standards, and they
may have gotten a very early model from HP to work with.  that's
conjecture.  i haven't opened the unit, so i don't know if there are
other clues to its age inside.

so:  is this machine useful to anyone?  given the error message above,
are there any measurements at all that it might still get correct, in
it's current state?

paul
=---------------------
 paul fox, pgf at foxharp.boston.ma.us (arlington, ma, where it's 63.1 degrees)

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