new member, seeking 3458A advice
Hi folks, I'm new to the list, but I think I'm acquainted with many
of the people here.
The time has come to get my 3458A repaired and calibrated. It's a
middle-aged unit, built in 2000, and its ADC board has failed. My first
inclination was to send it to Keysight, which would give me great
confidence, but I understand there may be other options. I'm not made
of money, but I am willing to pay for a trustworthy repair and
calibration. I am well aware that whatever route I end up taking will
not be cheap.
I figured this list would be the best place to request advice. What
would volt-nuts do?
Thanks,
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
McGuire Scientific Services, LLC
New Kensington, PA
Hi Dave,
I work at Custom Calibrations in Florida we repair and calibrate 3458's at a significantly lower rate than Keysight and we do a zero dollar evaluation.
From: Dave McGuire mcguire@mcguirescientificservices.com
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2021 10:53 AM
To: volt-nuts@lists.febo.com volt-nuts@lists.febo.com
Subject: [volt-nuts] new member, seeking 3458A advice
Hi folks, I'm new to the list, but I think I'm acquainted with many
of the people here.
The time has come to get my 3458A repaired and calibrated. It's a
middle-aged unit, built in 2000, and its ADC board has failed. My first
inclination was to send it to Keysight, which would give me great
confidence, but I understand there may be other options. I'm not made
of money, but I am willing to pay for a trustworthy repair and
calibration. I am well aware that whatever route I end up taking will
not be cheap.
I figured this list would be the best place to request advice. What
would volt-nuts do?
Thanks,
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
McGuire Scientific Services, LLC
New Kensington, PA
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to volt-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
Thanks for that!
From: Dan McAlexander femustang@hotmail.com
Sent: 18 October 2021 18:29:10
To: Discussion of precise voltage measurement
Subject: [volt-nuts] Re: new member, seeking 3458A advice
Hi Dave,
I work at Custom Calibrations in Florida we repair and calibrate 3458's at a significantly lower rate than Keysight and we do a zero dollar evaluation.
From: Dave McGuire mcguire@mcguirescientificservices.com
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2021 10:53 AM
To: volt-nuts@lists.febo.com volt-nuts@lists.febo.com
Subject: [volt-nuts] new member, seeking 3458A advice
Hi folks, I'm new to the list, but I think I'm acquainted with many
of the people here.
The time has come to get my 3458A repaired and calibrated. It's a
middle-aged unit, built in 2000, and its ADC board has failed. My first
inclination was to send it to Keysight, which would give me great
confidence, but I understand there may be other options. I'm not made
of money, but I am willing to pay for a trustworthy repair and
calibration. I am well aware that whatever route I end up taking will
not be cheap.
I figured this list would be the best place to request advice. What
would volt-nuts do?
Thanks,
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
McGuire Scientific Services, LLC
New Kensington, PA
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to volt-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an email to volt-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to and follow the instructions there.
Hi Dave,
Over many years, I have bought several non-working 3458A DMMs from several
sources, repaired/refurbish and resold them. Most needed a new A3 A/D
converter board 03458-66503 due to the well-known drift issue. I maintain
two such 3458As both on current Keysight service contracts with one on a
multi-year calibration contract that I have calibrated yearly and use to
keep my personal cal lab standards characterized.
Has your A3 board actually failed or does it just have excessive drift? If
it has failed, what is the error code (maybe multiple codes)?
I have always exchanged the failed 03458-66503 boards for a replacement
03458-66513 usually around $1300 exchange. Keysight now shows a 03458-66533
board as the replacement but offers no exchange and says instrument must be
returned for repair??? A search for HP 03458-66503 shows a company offering
a "tested" board for $899.
Regards,
Don Johnson
Retired HP Engineer
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave McGuire mcguire@mcguirescientificservices.com
Sent: Monday, October 18, 2021 10:53 AM
To: volt-nuts@lists.febo.com
Subject: [volt-nuts] new member, seeking 3458A advice
Hi folks, I'm new to the list, but I think I'm acquainted with many of
the people here.
The time has come to get my 3458A repaired and calibrated. It's a
middle-aged unit, built in 2000, and its ADC board has failed. My first
inclination was to send it to Keysight, which would give me great
confidence, but I understand there may be other options. I'm not made of
money, but I am willing to pay for a trustworthy repair and calibration. I
am well aware that whatever route I end up taking will not be cheap.
I figured this list would be the best place to request advice. What
would volt-nuts do?
Thanks,
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
McGuire Scientific Services, LLC
New Kensington, PA
volt-nuts mailing list -- volt-nuts@lists.febo.com -- To unsubscribe send an
email to volt-nuts-leave@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to and follow the
instructions there.
On 10/18/21 4:31 PM, Don@True-Cal wrote:
Over many years, I have bought several non-working 3458A DMMs from several
sources, repaired/refurbish and resold them. Most needed a new A3 A/D
converter board 03458-66503 due to the well-known drift issue. I maintain
two such 3458As both on current Keysight service contracts with one on a
multi-year calibration contract that I have calibrated yearly and use to
keep my personal cal lab standards characterized.
Nice. Seems A3's U180 is the Achilles' heel of the 3458A. I think
my A3's failure is not related to the drift issue, though, specifically.
Has your A3 board actually failed or does it just have excessive drift? If
it has failed, what is the error code (maybe multiple codes)?
Here are the error codes that it throws, shortly after applying power:
209, "hardware failure - - timeout: unable to read A/D: 108"
114, system error - - multislope rundown convergence"
Last year, I removed my A3 board and sent it to a friend who is a
former design engineer at HP Loveland. He tested it in one of his
3458As. He said that the "board does work, but hangs the system after a
few samples are taken".
Running it with 10VDC input, it will run with an NPLC setting of 1 or
below, but produces the above errors pretty quickly with NPLC set higher.
I have always exchanged the failed 03458-66503 boards for a replacement
03458-66513 usually around $1300 exchange. Keysight now shows a 03458-66533
board as the replacement but offers no exchange and says instrument must be
returned for repair??? A search for HP 03458-66503 shows a company offering
a "tested" board for $899.
That's annoying; I wonder why the don't do the exchange deal anymore.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
McGuire Scientific Services, LLC
New Kensington, PA
Dave, Volt-Nuts is really the wrong reflector to be effective in
pursuing this question. Far better that you join and ask on the
HP-Agilent-Keysight groups.io Group. The real HP experts reside there
and are better placed to address your question. Look here:
https://groups.io/g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment
This is a very active Group, with many emails about HP equipment
operation and repair every day.
Larry
On 10/18/2021 8:53 AM, Dave McGuire wrote:
Hi folks, I'm new to the list, but I think I'm acquainted with many
of the people here.
The time has come to get my 3458A repaired and calibrated. It's a
middle-aged unit, built in 2000, and its ADC board has failed. My first
inclination was to send it to Keysight, which would give me great
confidence, but I understand there may be other options. I'm not made
of money, but I am willing to pay for a trustworthy repair and
calibration. I am well aware that whatever route I end up taking will
not be cheap.
I figured this list would be the best place to request advice. What
would volt-nuts do?
Thanks,
-Dave
--
Best wishes,
Larry McDavid W6FUB
Anaheim, California (SE of Los Angeles, near Disneyland)
FWIW Dave McGuire is quite active on all the major T&M lists and a major contributor to many. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
https://www.largescalesystemsmuseum.org/
Wonderful person!
Reg
On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 at 23:59, Larry McDavid lmcdavid@lmceng.com wrote:
Dave, Volt-Nuts is really the wrong reflector to be effective in
pursuing this question. Far better that you join and ask on the
HP-Agilent-Keysight groups.io Group. The real HP experts reside there
and are better placed to address your question. Look here:
https://groups.io/g/HP-Agilent-Keysight-equipment
This is a very active Group, with many emails about HP equipment
operation and repair every day.
Larry
Dave McGuire is a joint *owner *(not just a moderator) of that group! I
set the group up, and invited Dave to be another owner so that;
a) If I die, the group can continue.
b) With me in the UK, and Dave in the USA, it makes it possible for posts
to be approved.
On Tue, 19 Oct 2021 at 00:30, Dr. David Kirkby <
drkirkby@kirkbymicrowave.co.uk> wrote:
On Mon, 18 Oct 2021 at 23:59, Larry McDavid lmcdavid@lmceng.com wrote:
Dave McGuire is a joint *owner *(not just a moderator) of that group! I
set the group up, and invited Dave to be another owner so that;
a) If I die, the group can continue.
b) With me in the UK, and Dave in the USA, it makes it possible for posts
to be approved.
I forgot to complete that last sentence. Essentially having two people in
different timezones makes the time for approving posts shorter.
On 10/18/21 7:15 PM, Reginald Beardsley via volt-nuts wrote:
FWIW Dave McGuire is quite active on all the major T&M lists and a major contributor to many. But that's just the tip of the iceberg.
https://www.largescalesystemsmuseum.org/
Wonderful person!
Haa, thank you Reg, I'll have that deposit made to your account
shortly. ;)
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
McGuire Scientific Services, LLC
New Kensington, PA