nice DVM

http://www.keithley.com/products/dmm/dmms?mn=2100120

Introductory price is $795 for another week or so. I just got a few,
one for each of my engineers. The packaging and display are beautiful,
and it seems to work nicely, once you figure out the menus, which are
obtuse at Agilent-like levels.

Comes with USB and a datalogger program, which I haven't tried yet.

The manual, pdf only and cleverly hidden on the terrible Flash
autostart CD, looks almost like it wasn't written in native English.
It has chapter headings like "How To Measure The Continuity."

It *is* made in Taiwan.

John

 

Maybe a re-branded local product from there?

I guess we'll all get used to "special English". When I come back from a
trip and forget to plug in the USB cable for my scope the PC says "DSO
not connect". But those instruments become quite international. Mine
came with UK and German power plus (no US plug...) and the screen was
set to Espanol.

 

Also interesting: it's not ROHS (has lead, mercury, cadmium, Cr4,
PBB's, and PBDE's) and uses old-fashioned AC votage jumpering, ie it
has a power transformer.

John

 

That really points to a re-brand. Maybe Spehro can pick up a gray market
version for half during his next trip to China

The DSO here is different. Taiwanese brand but all the modern things,
wide voltage supply, conformity declaration and so on. I just hope it's
not RoHS inside but I am afraid it might be since it was shipped from
Farnell in Europe.

 

Sounds like the same guys who did the on-screen display of one of our TVs...
if you change to, e.g., a component video input and there's nothing pumping
out video yet, the messgaes is, "Main no signal." Mmm... ok!

 

John -- for your own instruments, at one time weren't you planning to use
those switching wall-warts with the various "slide-on" plugs for
internationalization? Did you ever end up doing that?

---Joel

 

At least it has enough similarity to English. The real tough ones are
the more rare error messages in software where they didn't translate
them because "it'll never show". One beam field simulator showed those
in Swedish, an old layout viewer did it in French and so on. Just had
one pop up in German but that's my home turf.

 

We have one benchtop delay generator that uses 24 volt DC input, and
we furnish an external switching supply, the kind like printers use.

We are also doing a series of smaller boxes that look like

http://www.highlandtechnology.com/DSS/T560DS.html

that use 12 volts, and we supply a true wart, a universal switcher
that has interchangable plug adapters for different countries.
Phihong, I think.

Lately we avoid running AC into a box if we can help it. Everybody
seems used to external adapters thses days. Besides, they don't find
out until after they've bought it!

One of our newish Tek scopes has an external supply.

John

 

I don't think you want to use a switcher PS for a sensitive voltmeter.

 

the old TEK 555 and 556 scopes had externals supplies,too! Big 'uns.

 

The dual beams? That's what the bottom shelf of the cart was for!

John

 

I've seen a pretty much exact copy of the 34401A, maybe the same
company.

Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany

 

The Fluke 8845A does not cost a lot more, and has a much extended
range of capability...
You get what you pay for...

 

IIRC,the 8845a is ony 5.5 digits,and does not have the accuracy of this
meter,particularly on AC volts.(more AC bandwidth,too)

Keithley is a reputable company.

 

The Keithley benchtops, the 2001 and 2000, are excellent. We use them,
with scanner options, in test racks, interfaced to PCs. Their
real-life accuracy is boggling.

Fluke got out of the precision benchtop biz for so long that we
converted to Keithleys. The 8845/8846 look nice, but there's some spec
that made us still prefer the K's, AC bandwidth I think.

My old Fluke 8842 was wonderful. It was only 5 digits, but had solid
100 nV resolution anyhow, much more stable than any other benchtop
I've used. But it got old and flakey... I got tired of whacking it
when the display dimmed.

We have one HP 34401A, which is horrible. Maybe the new 'B' is better.

John

 

The Taiwan-designed scope I bought goes beyond. At least for what I need
it to do it works better than a similar Tektronix, for about 60% of the
cost. IMHO the controls feel more solid also, like the stick shift on
Japanese cars. The only weirdness besides a somewhat rocky English in
the menues is the bonbon-color of the traces, and the TFT is really
bright so when you turn off the lab lights it's like a night club.
Somehow they managed to illuminate the channel lights in the same bonbon
colors.

Didn't you buy one or more of the Atten 5501 spectrum analyzers? If so,
how do they behave? I couldn't find any reviews on the web so far.

[...]

 

The point is to avoid the tests for power line
connected equipment.


Rene

 

I always thought that was for the crate of beer.

 

Definitely not a switcher wall wart. Not in a lab where analog stuff
happens. I have a special mains connector box in the lab for cases where
I have no choice. Very heavily "toroided". One of the first questions I
want answered before buying anything is whether it has a built-in power
supply.

 

I loved the HP34401A I had on my bench.