Group buy proposal: VoltageStandard DMMCheck Plus

[tautech]

Similar has been proposed here:
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/metrology/dmm-voltsohm-calibration-club-anyone-interested/

[setu]

I would buy one too if it was available

[innkeeper]

i'd be in

[xrunner]

Any reply? 

Unfortunately no. Strange because he replied to my initial inquiry as well as my follow up email where he gave his reasons for discontinuing the product.

Well thanks for trying, but is there any reason to have any more people respond to the thread. If you can't get him to make any more, what are we doing here? 

[unimorpheus]

Any reply? 

Unfortunately no. Strange because he replied to my initial inquiry as well as my follow up email where he gave his reasons for discontinuing the product.

Well thanks for trying, but is there any reason to have any more people respond to the thread. If you can't get him to make any more, what are we doing here? 

Agreed.

[guenthert]

Well thanks for trying, but is there any reason to have any more people respond to the thread. If you can't get him to make any more, what are we doing here? 

Showing hands, so that the next guy who considers making a business selling voltage references gets an idea how much interest there might be.

[unimorpheus]

Any reply? 

Unfortunately no. Strange because he replied to my initial inquiry as well as my follow up email where he gave his reasons for discontinuing the product.

Well thanks for trying, but is there any reason to have any more people respond to the thread. If you can't get him to make any more, what are we doing here? 

Agreed.

Hi Anthony,

Sorry for the slow response.  I just went to the EEVBlog forum and read the thread.  User TiN is on the mark- it costs me $800/year to keep my 3458A calibrated.  I make daily measurements (manually) of all of the references that are aging and change the reference chip out if there is excessive temperature coefficient or drift with time- this procedure takes a lot of time and adds to the cost of parts.  If I raised the price to account for my time, nobody would buy the product.  I have enjoyed meeting a lot of interesting DMMCheck and DMMCheck Plus customers over the years but it is time for me to cut my losses and move on.  Thank you for your support.

Best regards,

Doug Malone


I ended up ordering Mr. Malone's 10v 0.003% reference to at least give me a baseline comparison. Nice guy, too bad we couldn't make it happen but the education I received while researching this idea has been enlightening.

[Kuro]

Is there any product on the market that can compare to DMMCheck Plus, and that is still available, and can be shipped to Europe? (Doug doesn't ship to Europe)

[CustomEngineerer]

Looks like Doug changed his mind and decided to do a limited run on the DMMCheckPlus. Those of you who were looking, nows your chance (if you live in US or Canada that is).

http://www.voltagestandard.com/Home_Page.php

[glarsson]

Not to Canada.

Cannot ship to: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom

Probably not RoHS compliant, but the selection of excluded countries are a bit odd.

[bicycleguy]

Probably should contact him on countries as there are conflicting pages:
http://shop.voltagestandard.com
http://shop.voltagestandard.com/product.sc?productId=5&categoryId=1

[chriswebb]

Thanks for the information! Just ordered one for myself.

[CustomEngineerer]

Probably should contact him on countries as there are conflicting pages:
http://shop.voltagestandard.com
http://shop.voltagestandard.com/product.sc?productId=5&categoryId=1

Also from the FAQ http://www.voltagestandard.com/Faq_Customer_Comments.html

5.  Do you ship to destinations outside of the USA?  We only ship to destinations within the USA and Canada.

I would also recommend contacting to know for sure.

[tautech]

Probably should contact him on countries as there are conflicting pages:
http://shop.voltagestandard.com
http://shop.voltagestandard.com/product.sc?productId=5&categoryId=1

Also from the FAQ http://www.voltagestandard.com/Faq_Customer_Comments.html

5.  Do you ship to destinations outside of the USA?  We only ship to destinations within the USA and Canada.

I would also recommend contacting to know for sure.

And maybe this is where we should remind ourselves of the thread title: Group buy !

Who in the US would be willing to arrange such a thing.....take orders and re-dispatch worldwide for a small fee of course.

[rbm]

If this idea of a group buy was to come to fruition, what would be the expected savings over ordering alone?

[CustomEngineerer]

And maybe this is where we should remind ourselves of the thread title: Group buy !

Who in the US would be willing to arrange such a thing.....take orders and re-dispatch worldwide for a small fee of course.

If this idea of a group buy was to come to fruition, what would be the expected savings over ordering alone?

In this context the idea isn't to get them cheaper, but to be able to get them in countries voltagestandard.com doesn't ship to.

Edit: Really the idea was never an attempt to get the DMMCheckPlus cheaper. By the time this thread had been started back in March 2017, the DMMCheckPlus had already been discontinued by voltagestandard.com and so the hope was if enough people wanted one they may be persuaded to start making and selling them again.

[Luap2]

Almost missed this, ordered one

[mcinque]

Is there any product on the market that can compare to DMMCheck Plus, and that is still available, and can be shipped to Europe?

No, nothing comparable. There are only DC voltage references (no AC, current, frequency or resistance) with less accuracy, more drift and no proper calibration

I'm in for the purchase!

[bicycleguy]

I wonder if VoltageStandard.com would consider selling kits or just bare pcbs to get around the import/export rules for you guys.  You could also age them yourselves to save him the effort.  Then get someone else to cal them or I imagine the silly import/export rules wouldn't apply to calibration so he could do that for you like he does now.

If I was a true TE addict and not in US I'd try it.

edit: added bare pcb

[Svgeesus]

I have a DMMCheck Plus bought December 2013 as a sanity check when my meter was a lowly UT71-C. The Plus model has ACV and also two frequency references. At the time he shipped to France, which at the time is where I was located.

I recently bought a  VREF10-003 (which works very nicely) after recently upgrading to a very nice (for me) Keysight 34465A (with cal+uncertainties) and inquired of Doug Malone whether he was still willing to re-cal my DMMCheck Plus (I'm now in the US). He replied (before the recent announcement of a new run) that he was; he quoted a good price for the service and alerted me that his 3458A was about to go out for cal. I plan to send mine in for re-cal next week. Since my 34465A is in recent calibration (28 Nov 2017) it will be interesting to compare my 6.5 digit readings (just before the re-cal) with his 8.5 digit ones. Also interesting to see the change in values over time from his measurements (Nov 2013 original cal, Feb 2018 re-cal).

On the original cal certificate for the DMMCheck Plus, a burn-in of 681 hours before final calibration was noted.

[Mr. Scram]

It looks like he isn't taking orders until March? I would be interested, depending on the price. It seems a very useful tool. What's the ballpark price for something like this?

[tautech]

It looks like he isn't taking orders until March? I would be interested, depending on the price. It seems a very useful tool. What's the ballpark price for something like this?

http://shop.voltagestandard.com/product.sc?productId=5&categoryId=1

Plus housing if required.

[Svgeesus]

You could also age them yourselves to save him the effort.  Then get someone else to cal them

I imagine that anyone who has available an in-cal 3458A or equivalent for daily monitoring during aging is not too interested in a REF5050-based board and is probably ageing their own LTZ1000 board instead. The value is in the preselection and monitoring before final cal.

[Mr. Scram]

It looks like he isn't taking orders until March? I would be interested, depending on the price. It seems a very useful tool. What's the ballpark price for something like this?

http://shop.voltagestandard.com/product.sc?productId=5&categoryId=1

Plus housing if required.

That seems doable. Yes, I would be interested.

[Ghislain]

Doug has updated his home page, he is compiling a pre-order list and will get back to everybody on the list as soon as new units are available 
Now all we have to do is sit back and wait