EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
Products => Test Equipment => Topic started by: Faith on May 21, 2018, 01:06:42 am
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Hello everyone. So as per my subject; anyone here with an Agilent/Keysight OLED DMM still happy with the display after 5 or more years?
It seems that these models have been around for 8-9 years now (starting with the U1253A?); so I'd imagine there should be quite a lot of quality feedback about these displays by now.
And while yes I've seen a number of threads here complaining about the display going dark, I thought I'd just try and see if there's actually any happy users after this long (since people usually only post when something breaks, haha.)
The reason for asking is I'm shopping around for another DMM, and I'm down to the Keysight U1272A (LCD) or U1273A (OLED) again.
While I'd normally go LCD no questions asked, the reason I'm considering OLED this time is because I thought that it would be nice to have at least one meter that is super easy to read from a distance and angle.
My bench is extremely wide and there are two on opposite ends of my room; occasionally I'm sitting on one (where my PC is) while simultaneously doing measurements on the other (which would be at least 2 meters behind me (more if at an angle)), and with an OLED display I can easily read the display and thus not have to bother with remote access or whatever.
Having said that I'm not willing to make this commitment if the shelf life of the DMM is going to be crap due to the OLED display since they seem to degrade even when not in use.
So if it's really bad then I guess I can just buy the U1272A (LCD) with the U1117A Bluetooth module and use my phone as a remote display, lol.
Thank you everyone in advance for any feedback :D *hugs!!~*
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Whilst it's no secret I'm no fan of OLED displays :--
the owners of OLED meters that reply at this post should specify not only how many years ownership,
but how long the meter is on, whether continuously or many ON+OFF switching cycles, climate conditions etc
i.e. a casual monthly Arduino troubleshooting user reporting a crisp bright display 10 years later,
with the meter stored in a dry cupboard, tells us nothing...unless it failed under such conditions :-[
Good luck with the thread, let the games begin... :-+
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Haha yes good point. But OLED displays degrade even when switched off and all you're doing is staring at them stupid. So OLED displays have both a "storage life" and "use life."
Unfortunately Keysight don't seem too forthcoming with regards to either of those attributes for their OLED.
Also OLED displays don't like UV a lot, so I guess that could also contribute if the DMM is sitting by a window... if we really want to go there.
The only DMM I've ever owned that I could read from across my room was the Keysight 34465A.
Kinda miss that convenience sometimes haha.
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With all the OLED loaded meter owners here,
at the ready 24/7 :box: to defend their purchase against snickering old school LCD addicts sinking in the boots >:D
What an unbelievable 'no show' so far :o
If it doesn't get rocking soon, perhaps consider to modify the Post Title to something like this:
Anyone with an Agilent/Keysight OLED DMM still happy with the display >5 Months ?
consider further time reductions if no luck :-[
;D
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Hahaha! Well at least thank you Electro Detective for the laugh! I needed it >.<!~
Let’s see how it goes! But yes I am definitely leaning very heavily towards just sticking to LCD... since I really do like my stuff to last very long. But definitely surprised at the lack of responses so far considering all the OLED hype at some point and how long these meters have been in the market.
The Keysight app looks not bad so I can definitely use the Bluetooth adapter and my phone if I need a better display... and at least the DMM won’t beeak!
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I have a U1273A used almost daily for a few hours and it is holding pretty well. My experience is also mentioned in the thread quoted below
As another piece of anecdotal evidence, on the lab i work, several equipments have OLED displays running for quite a number of years without fading. My own 2014 manufactured (2017 purchased) U1273A is holding quite well. Also, as bluekull mentioned, it beats the crap of almost everything else indoors.
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I have a 2014-manufactured U1273A and have seen no degradation to the screen. It's on only a few hours a week, so it won't get killed from that, but no noticeable degradation due to old age.
This DMM is my go-to meter in my lab. It is the first meter I turn on when I need something measured. I have had a number of other DMMs (289, 87V, U1282A and a bunch of smaller ones) and this is the one I kept. Lots of useful functions and yes, the display beats the !@#$% out of LCDs indoor. This is a major reason for using this meter as my primary meter.
The U1273A display has two major issues for me:
* It is essentially unusable outdoor. It is supposed to be an industrial meter, so unless you need the U1273AX to work in freezing temps, the OLED is a fail for that application.
* The screen is soft and scratches easily. If you carry the meter around in a toolbox, the screen will look pretty bad pretty quickly.
Neither of these is an issue when used as a lab meter.
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I have been using a U1253B in an industrial environment since mid 2012. Never had any issue with the display, meter battery is a different story of course.
Amount of usage over the years would average out to 2 to 3 hours a week. It is always transported in its carry case from site to site in a boot of a car. Outside of its use, it lives in an office environment.
Kind regards
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I have had a number of other DMMs (289, 87V, U1282A and a bunch of smaller ones) and this is the one I kept.
Ahh the 289 is quite the handful. I borrowed one once and it's a massive brick! Atrocious battery life too (especially given that it's on 6xAA) and I didn't like the display much.
Found it kinda hard to read... much prefer 7 segment LCD's over the 1/4 VGA on the Fluke.
Anyway... I did some searching around Keysight's spare parts site and it seems that they do not sell replacement OLED display assemblies for the U1273A?
They do for the U1272A LCD though -_-"...
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So if it's really bad then I guess I can just buy the U1272A (LCD) with the U1117A Bluetooth module and use my phone as a remote display, lol.
Seems much more sensible.
My bench is extremely wide and there are two on opposite ends of my room; occasionally I'm sitting on one (where my PC is) while simultaneously doing measurements on the other (which would be at least 2 meters behind me (more if at an angle)), and with an OLED display I can easily read the display and thus not have to bother with remote access or whatever.
Sounds like a situation where you'd want decent battery life.
OLED fails there, too. Battery life on those meters is awful (about 8 hours I think) and you can't use it while it's charging.
PS: Fluke 233
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/anyone-with-an-agilentkeysight-oled-dmm-still-happy-with-the-display-gt5-years/?action=dlattach;attach=438730;image)
(actually more of an electrician's meter so may not be suitable, depending on what you measure...)
Or... get a $20 WiFi webcam. :popcorn:
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Ahh the 289 is quite the handful. I borrowed one once and it's a massive brick!
Atrocious battery life too (especially given that it's on 6xAA) and I didn't like the display much.
If you have to use one again, play around with the (MENU) contrast control outside in daylight, then go inside, switch on the backlight etc and repeat till you get a great compromise
and make a note of it for future use
I was frustrated with mine and I can assure you once you get that correct balance, the 289 is good viewing anywhere anytime
Too bad Fluke don't have that in the manual, might score more sales
The battery life and weight I'm still working on, perhaps a meter boot camp and diet regime? :-//
;D
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Funny that I just saw this pop up.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/142805012733? (https://www.ebay.com/itm/142805012733?)
The one in the middle looks a bit dimmer.
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I just remembered today that Keysight sent me a modified U1461A to try and resolve an issue I was having with mine and that had a seriously dim screen in comparison to mine.
Obviously I have no idea of the history of the unit Keysight sent to me, I think my unit is circa 2 years old but has had very little use since I found it didn't work properly on the apparatus I was testing.
First photo is the screen from my unit, second is the screen from the unit form Keysight.
Kind regards
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Funny that I just saw this pop up.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/142805012733? (https://www.ebay.com/itm/142805012733?)
The one in the middle looks a bit dimmer.
I was just thinking that when I saw your post: The second hand value of one of these things must be close to zero. Would you buy one of unknown age? Would you sell one to somebody if you knew it was four or five years old? :o
(that seller seems hopeful though...)
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I just remembered today that Keysight sent me a modified U1461A
Ah ha thank you for that! You actually also reminded me that I was given a U1461A demo unit a year or two ago and I remember thinking to myself “wow this screen looks really dim!” even on maximum brightness.
Also regarding your suggestion on the Fluke 233, yep seen that meter but doesn’t fit my needs.
Yeah I’m just going to stick with the U1272A (LCD) and save myself any potential headaches >,<“... will be buying the Bluetooth module and my iPhone 8 can act as its fancy display when desired :D
Base price aside I wouldn’t have been able to go OLED without extended warranty... so that just made matters worse. And even with extended warranty I would only have peace of mind during the warranty period since Keysight doesn’t sell replacement OLED assemblies for the U1273A. Blerh.
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I have had mine U1273A for around 5 years now and so far the display works as good as new.
Tho i did run mine on a lower brightness setting to make the batteries last longer. Indoors its just as well readable on lower settings and it makes the batteries last longer than some LCD multimeters.
Out of the 5 handheld DMMs that i have i end up using the OLED one the most just because of the convenience of the display. It also ends up coming with me if i go troubleshoot any mains wiring and similar because you often end up using it in some poorly lit corner (Well and half of my DMMs i wouldn't trust with there CAT rating)
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... since Keysight doesn’t sell replacement OLED assemblies for the U1273A. Blerh.
They should at least sell replacement screens for these. :palm:
I have had mine U1273A for around 5 years now and so far the display works as good as new.
Tho i did run mine on a lower brightness setting to make the batteries last longer. Indoors its just as well readable on lower settings and it makes the batteries last longer than some LCD multimeters.
It's luck. The screens fail almost as fast sitting in a shelf as if you use them 24/7. It all comes down to how well the individual screen is sealed against moisture.
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They should at least sell replacement screens for these. :palm:
Funnily enough they do actually sell replacement LCD's for the U1272A... https://www.keysight.com/my/faces/partDetail.jspx?partNumber=U1272-39300 (https://www.keysight.com/my/faces/partDetail.jspx?partNumber=U1272-39300) :scared:
It's luck. The screens fail almost as fast sitting in a shelf as if you use them 24/7.
Yep, really does seem like lottery! I think if they'd have made spares readily available I might've gone with the OLED model, but as it stands I will be ordering the LCD model instead. :-+
The backlight on the U1272A is pretty kickass too so I don't see it being an issue to use in low-light conditions.
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It's luck. The screens fail almost as fast sitting in a shelf as if you use them 24/7. It all comes down to how well the individual screen is sealed against moisture.
Its clear that this is their mistake on the decision to use an un-proven OLED technology, and looks like they're going to bury it deep and hopefully forgotten.
Also piling up this particular OLED screen as spare parts is also a suicidal as the aging & storing difficulties, a nightmare for sure.
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Its clear that this is their mistake on the decision to use an un-proven OLED technology, and looks like they're going to bury it deep and hopefully forgotten.
Also piling up this particular OLED screen as spare parts is also a suicidal as the aging & storing difficulties, a nightmare for sure.
Dunno, the U1461A (OLED) has only been released about three plus years ago I think? So Keysight does still seem to believe in OLED (granted it does seem to be a different display given the change in colour.)
Also they're still producing the U1273A (OLED) so surely if they're able to acquire stock they'd be able to sell us some? Unless they've already reached a point where they're just clearing inventory of the fully assembled DMM... but they do sell spares for the U1253B (OLED)... https://www.keysight.com/my/faces/partDetail.jspx?partNumber=U1253-66007 (https://www.keysight.com/my/faces/partDetail.jspx?partNumber=U1253-66007)
So what gives? :-//
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Also piling up this particular OLED screen as spare parts is also a suicidal as the aging & storing difficulties, a nightmare for sure.
Good point! Maybe that's the reason they don't.
(although if they're sealed in bags with desiccant...who knows? I'm not an expert.)
Ecology aside, there's nothing intrinsically WRONG with making fancy multimeters that only last about 5 years.
People have no problem accepting that $1000 smartphones aren't going to last 20 years and we all know somebody who very vocally and religiously upgrades to every new model.
If you're in that camp then maybe this is the multimeter for you. If not, get the LCD version.
You're not watching movies on it, you're reading a five digit number FFS.
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Dunno, the U1461A (OLED) has only been released about three plus years ago I think? So Keysight does still seem to believe in OLED (granted it does seem to be a different display given the change in colour.)
So what gives? :-//
The real question is: Whats wrong with TFT screens? What makes them unusable for Keysight multimeters?
Cheaper, less power, readable in bright light, lasts for decades... where's the problem?
(And the only possible answer to that is "marketing". These meters are aimed squarely at the "Ooooh, shiny!" and "Take my money!" demographics)
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Well I do honestly believe that I have a use-case scenario which sufficiently warrants OLED displays (due to my working habits, layout, and lighting conditions.)
I usually prefer to work in natural light (i.e. indirect sunlight) and I've got solar film on my windows which means I do actually have an extremely pleasant daytime light that's coming in from one side of my room.
Despite that though it's still a little on the dim side due to the film (especially from about 4PM onwards), but I love it.
I actually previously owned a pair of Keysight E36103A's which came with green OLED displays and it was absolutely perfect for my environment (I sold them for unrelated reasons, but I originally purchased them due to their tiny size).
So /: ... ugh!~
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Well I do honestly believe that I have a use-case scenario which sufficiently warrants OLED displays (due to my working habits, layout, and lighting conditions.)
Exactly this. The OLED display on my U1273A really has me grabbing it a lot more often than all the other meters I have due to readability indoors (outdoors it is terrible).
The real question is: Whats wrong with TFT screens? What makes them unusable for Keysight multimeters?
In my experience, any matrix display technology will definitely use more power than fixed-character LCD, given that the core processor will need to scan and activate much more pixels to build a character or symbol. This is valid for LCD (Fluke 28x is not a power savvy meter as well), OLED and TFT. In the case of TFT, the backlight tends to be quite power hungry as well.
If you're in that camp then maybe this is the multimeter for you. If not, get the LCD version.
(...)
You're not watching movies on it, you're reading a five digit number FFS.
(...)
(And the only possible answer to that is "marketing". These meters are aimed squarely at the "Ooooh, shiny!" and "Take my money!" demographics)
FFS, don't bundle up everyone in your presumption of naiveté or gullibility to feel superior. Not everyone that makes a decision to buy into this specific technology is thinking about bling or shiny or other idiocy like that. Besides, the OP was looking for data and not unfounded opinions.
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The real question is: Whats wrong with TFT screens? What makes them unusable for Keysight multimeters?
In my experience, any matrix display technology will definitely use more power than fixed-character LCD, given that the core processor will need to scan and activate much more pixels to build a character or symbol. This is valid for LCD (Fluke 28x is not a power savvy meter as well), OLED and TFT. In the case of TFT, the backlight tends to be quite power hungry as well.
Power is nowhere near as much as OLED.
Power is secondary though, the real point is that TFT doesn't die and the visible difference between TFT and OLED is minimal.
FFS, don't bundle up everyone in your presumption of naiveté or gullibility to feel superior. Not everyone that makes a decision to buy into this specific technology is thinking about bling or shiny or other idiocy like that. Besides, the OP was looking for data and not unfounded opinions.
I'm not saying people are gullible, Agilent's marketing division is. :popcorn:
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Just to update; I picked up the U1273A (OLED) a couple of hours ago.
Now before anyone smacks me (haha), part of the reason was that my dealer had one fresh out of the Keysight oven (cal'd two weeks ago.)
Obviously that doesn't mean the display is fresh too... but ah well.
What sold me over though was battery life (ironically enough)... it's a lot longer than the LCD equivalent with the backlight on (and I really do use backlights almost all the time with all my gear.)
U1271A/U1272A: 460 mVA maximum (with backlight enabled)
U1273A/U1273AX: 180 mVA maximum (with maximum brightness)
I've also set the meter to default to low brightness since it really is more than sufficient for my dim working condition and habits.
Only time will tell if I run into any display issues in the future, but I'll just ignore that thought for now :D
Thank you to everyone who contributed to this thread though!
Much appreciated *hugs!~*
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Just to update; I picked up the U1273A (OLED) a couple of hours ago.
Now before anyone smacks me (haha)...
No problem, just so long as you know/accept the problems with OLED.
The ones who get smacked are the ones who come in here whining about it afterwards.
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Yes of course (: that is always the important part.
And even then, no use complaining about it haha... better to accept and move on.
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Yep battery life is quite impressive on these OLEDs when turned down in brightness.
I just noticed one thing about my U1281A (LCD) meter that is another downside versus my U1273A (OLED). While they both have various dual measurement functions its only the OLED one that has the ability to measure AC and DC volts at the same time. I garbed the LCD one because it was handy but then upon not finding this feature i grabbed the OLED again and continued with it. (I was debugging a PSU where both mains AC and rectified DC was present in that part)
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Power is nowhere near as much as OLED.
CCFL backlight is quite power hungry - perhaps LED is lower power, but I didn't check. OLED consumption depends on what is displayed, thus it may be somewhat harder to estimate.
I'm not saying people are gullible, Agilent's marketing division is. :popcorn:
Ok, maybe I misread your previous post.
Just to update; I picked up the U1273A (OLED) a couple of hours ago.
Good to know you are happy, Faith. I don't dim mine but the battery life is still quite good - at least for my usage.
The U1273A has another feature which is the funny continuity mode (melody). I did a video of it: (I was told it is not present on the U1272A)
https://youtu.be/fH6rL2U2oAI
Now before anyone smacks me (haha)...
The ones who really should get smacked are the ones that keep trolling others who buy one or even consider buying one. :popcorn:
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I have always found the multitone beep kinda silly so i keep it off.
But the setup menu is quite nice since you don't need a manual to navigate it, its all written out in full text.
I looked trough the differences to the U1281A a bit and found even more missing features. There is no SmartOhm (Rejects DC or AC voltage on the DUT) and no auto diode test (Mesures a diode in both direction simultaneously) and no LowZ voltage mode (Useful for discharging caps), no low pass filter mode (Tho the more expensive U1282A has it)
That being said the U1273A is still not the perfect DMM, but its the closest i have gotten. My biggest gripe is the molasses speed auto ranging, but most Keysight DMMs seam to suffer from it. Go on take some inspiration from Keithley with there <500ms autorange from 20MOhm to 200 Ohm.
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Yep battery life is quite impressive on these OLEDs when turned down in brightness.
I just noticed one thing about my U1281A (LCD) meter that is another downside versus my U1273A (OLED). While they both have various dual measurement functions its only the OLED one that has the ability to measure AC and DC volts at the same time. I garbed the LCD one because it was handy but then upon not finding this feature i grabbed the OLED again and continued with it. (I was debugging a PSU where both mains AC and rectified DC was present in that part)
The U1282A can measure AC and DC at the same time - I would be surprised if the U1281A couldn't also do it.
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The U1282A can measure AC and DC at the same time - I would be surprised if the U1281A couldn't also do it.
This is what i was looking for where it shows the AC and DC component separately. I could not manage to get it to do this on a U1281A. The closest i could get is the combined AC+DC mode where it shows the true RMS value of a waveform including DC as one number (The U1273A does it too but can even do AC+DC with DC separately at the same time).
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As TheSteve said, the U1281/1282 family is capable of showing both components, but only on a specific arrangement of keys (check attached).
As you pointed out, the U1273A has more "industrial" features - the ones I use a lot are the autodiode and the LowZ, although the U1282A is IP67 rated and has the Vsense.
My biggest pet peeve of my U1282A is the much slower autorange, even when compared to the U1273A. One another annoyance is the input jack sense seems quite sensitive and seems to beep with apparent no reason. The ability to set 1G\$\Omega\$ of input impedance is very nice.
My biggest pet peeve of the U1273A is the inability to disable the beep without disabling the continuity beep as well.
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I own two U1253B, the first is about 7-8 yrs old, the second about 2-3 yrs old. They get used for 'enthusiastic hobby' use, perhaps 2 hrs total (actual on time) per week. I switch them off between measurements if more than 5mins. They live in a small lined shed, the climate here is hot-dry summers, ambient max 40C or so, cool wet winters temp 7 to 13C, inside the shed temp would vary perhaps 13 to 28C, as noted during volt-nuttery.
I have used them outdoors - not great contrast- but for a quick reasonable measurement I like the indoor contrast, display size and viewing angle - often there is stuff everywhere - and I have found the limitations of LCD a bit of a pain.
The displays seem to be doing ok to date.
A quick look at the web seems to show MTTF is worse than LCD, some figures I recall 10,000 vs 100,000hrs but I have had LCDs fail several times in my life.
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Ah the U1281/1282 does indeed have a simultaneous AC and DC component mode!
Here is the simplest and only button sequence i found to get into it:
1) Turn dial to DC Volts
2) Press Shift to turn it into AC Volts
3) Press and hold Dual
4) Press and hold Dual
5) Press and hold Dual
6) Press and hold Dual
Seriously?! :palm: This takes a long time to get trough, especially the 4 steps where you have to hold the button and wait for it to register as a long hold rather than a press.
Okay its not quite simple on the U1273A but here it is:
1) Turn dial to Volts
2) Press Dual
3) Press Dual
4) Press Dual
But the big difference is that it does not care if its in DC, AC or AC+DC. The second display simply displays the opposite one (For AC+DC it seams to regard AC as being oposite) In any of the modes quickly pressing Dual 3 times gets you in to this separate AC and DC component mode. I still think it should do this on the first press of the Dual button. The first press gets you Hz and that's kinda questionable if you are on DC Volts and second press gets you the voltage in dBm. Who the heck measures dBm with a multimeter?
But the point was likely to make that mode be 3 presses regardless of the mode so you can always find it in the same spot and i think you can set in the menus to replace the dBm mode with 0-10V industrial control voltage in % or 4-20mA as % if you are on amps. That i could see being useful for any industrial automation guys.
Or actually there is a even faster way. If you just turn the dial to LowZ Volts it goes into DC and AC dual display mode by default (Tho LowZ is not something you usually want). How did Keysight get the UI so much worse on a newer instrument.
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Yea the U1282A UI can be kinda crap... AutoHold being another beef of mine.
On the U1273A et al (heck and even the budget U1233A) you just press the "Hold" button down for >1 second and the meter goes into AutoHold mode and all is well.
For the U1282A you need to... go into the setup menu (which in itself isn't super intuitive), find the AutoHold setting, enable edit mode, enable AutoHold, exit edit mode, exit setup mode... wait for the DMM to reboot... and then repeat the entire process in reverse once you want to switch back to regular TrigHold. WTF? I'm quite fond of AutoHold so this kinda was a no-go for me.
(Disclaimer: don't actually own the U1282A, but did demo it briefly; so if there's actually a better way of doing this I'd love to know.)
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Ah the AutoHold function i just assumed that the U1281A didn't have as any combinations with the hold button didn't seam to get me into it.
Im starting to regret a little that on the U127x Series recall i chose to get the newer model, rather than choosing to get a new revision U1273A. (This was about the Amps function being very sensitive to common mode RF noise)
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I don't find TrigHold as useful, thus I just leave the setting on the AutoHold anyways. This actually trims one extra button press when compared to the U127xA series, although switching between the two is a pain.
I agree the AC / DC dual display setting is a PITA.
Im starting to regret a little that on the U127x Series recall i chose to get the newer model, rather than choosing to get a new revision U1273A. (This was about the Amps function being very sensitive to common mode RF noise)
I got my U1282A in the same conditions; if I have gotten the fixed U1273A I would forever second guess my decision as I wouldn't know what exactly I would be missing.
Despite the pet peeves, the 100mF capacitance meter is quite useful to me, as well as the USB interface cable. I saw the built-in square wave generator as a pure gimmick, but I saw myself using it a few times and it was quite useful, especially because you can have full control over it using very few keystrokes.
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For anyone who has a 127x Series DMM; do you have any issues with the DMM on DCV with auto-range enabled whereby the DMM takes a couple of seconds to reach the correct reading after the correct range has been found?
When auto-range is *disabled* the DMM reaches the correct reading pretty much instantly (e.g. on 30V manual when I stick the probes on a 5V source I get 5.000V instantly.)
But when auto-range is *enabled*, once the DMM finds the correct range (e.g. once it's reached the 30V range for measuring my 5V reference) it then takes about 2-3 seconds more to climb from 4.500V to 4.990V and then finally to 4.999V-5.000V.)
This only happens on DCV with auto-range enabled, and oddly enough it doesn't actually happen with the DMM on dual display mode (e.g. DCV+ACV.)
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I can't contribute to the OLED statistics as I intentionally got the LCD versions (U1252A, U1272A, U1282A). I agree that OLED has great contrast (had an OLED smartphone back in 2010), but I wanted longevity.
As for the 127x "upgrade" to 1282, ignoring the "recall" circumstances under which that occurred, I find that the 1282 is more like an upgrade from the 1252 (though I prefer the size of the 1252). I like the combination of functionality of the 1272 and 1282. If only all those features had been put into one device (future U1292A?).
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For anyone who has a 127x Series DMM; do you have any issues with the DMM on DCV with auto-range enabled whereby the DMM takes a couple of seconds to reach the correct reading after the correct range has been found?
When auto-range is *disabled* the DMM reaches the correct reading pretty much instantly (e.g. on 30V manual when I stick the probes on a 5V source I get 5.000V instantly.)
But when auto-range is *enabled*, once the DMM finds the correct range (e.g. once it's reached the 30V range for measuring my 5V reference) it then takes about 2-3 seconds more to climb from 4.500V to 4.990V and then finally to 4.999V-5.000V.)
This only happens on DCV with auto-range enabled, and oddly enough it doesn't actually happen with the DMM on dual display mode (e.g. DCV+ACV.)
Just to add onto the above post; I’ve disabled everything that isn’t necessary (namely the LPF) and the DMM still seems kinda slow on stabilising on a DCV reading. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated! This is my only DMM that behaves like this, so just wondering if it’s just a 127x thing.
Also the issue is greatly exasperated if the Smoothing function is turned on. In such a scenario it can take up to ten full seconds for the DMM to stabilise on a DCV reading (similar to the prior example, it’ll start at approximately 4.500V on a 5V source and then take 10-15 seconds before reaching 5.000V.)
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Faith, check my video about autoranging on a number of DMMs. Despite the Keysights are kinda on the slow side, I really don't see such large delays there. (the LPF is disabled)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWZ0OSjYnvg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWZ0OSjYnvg)
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Ohh perfect video! Thanks a lot!
Yeah you can definitely see that the U1273A is kinda pedestrian paced even once the range has been found; there’s a 2~ second “buildup” of the value before hitting the actual voltage of the PSU; whereas the U1282A snaps straight to the expected value instantly.
Oh well guess I’ll just get used to it then. It doesn’t have this problem on manual range.
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The first press gets you Hz and that's kinda questionable if you are on DC Volts and second press gets you the voltage in dBm. Who the heck measures dBm with a multimeter?
But the point was likely to make that mode be 3 presses regardless of the mode so you can always find it in the same spot and i think you can set in the menus to replace the dBm mode with 0-10V industrial control voltage in % or 4-20mA as % if you are on amps. That i could see being useful for any industrial automation.
Berni: I just found out that you can set “mA SCALE” & “dB” both to “OFF” in the DMM settings and once you’ve done that they’re completely skipped when pressing the “Dual” button. This is fantastic for me as I don’t use either of these features!
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For these dim OLED meters, has anyone checked that the DC/DC converter's output voltage is correct? Recently I found a display (U1273A) that had bad caps in the DC/DC converter; it's now nice 'n bright. :-+
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Oh, very interesting. It would be nice if that's all it was for the dimming meters. In a different thread, some folks documented their successful replacement of the OLED display in the U1253 to restore brightness. Good to know that there are other possibilities.
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For the U1253B, the OLED display is now an available part, number is U1253-66007 $146 AUS.
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Nice, it includes the PCB so you don't risk frying the flat-flex (US$109). https://www.keysight.com/my/faces/partDetail.jspx?partNumber=U1253-66007 (https://www.keysight.com/my/faces/partDetail.jspx?partNumber=U1253-66007)
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I bought a couple spare - that way I will guarantee the OLEDs will never fail !
PS Have been using a Hioki DT 4282 recently - despite trying to arc weld with a probe tip across a big DC cap :palm: - am a bit of a fan now as dual display DC volts with AC ripple is only one push button away from a switch position - I use it all the time.
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I occasionally use our keysight 1273 or something like that. It's about 5 years old, maybe a bit more. The screen is still looking like new. But besides that, I hate the thing. It's ok when it's standing still, but if it moves the screen flickers a lot. It sems to have a verry low refresh rate.
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I occasionally use our keysight 1273 or something like that. It's about 5 years old, maybe a bit more. The screen is still looking like new. But besides that, I hate the thing. It's ok when it's standing still, but if it moves the screen flickers a lot. It sems to have a verry low refresh rate.
That’s definitely not normal behaviour; the refresh rate is pretty good actually (even when I’m handling the meter) and so far I’ve only seen any flicker when viewed through a camera, which is normal.