Author Topic: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A  (Read 9711 times)

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Offline HighVoltageTopic starter

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FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« on: July 12, 2018, 10:22:00 am »
ALL SOLD !


I bought three (3) new VFD displays from China.
They work, but the brightness is low and I don't like them.

But on the other hand, they are too good for the trashcan.
So, if anyone in Germany wants them, you can have all three for free, including free shipping.
Outside of Germany, please pay shipping cost.

May be good for someone playing around with VFD's
Don't expect too much from this China product.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2018, 10:30:09 am by HighVoltage »
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Offline Zucca

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #1 on: July 12, 2018, 11:00:33 am »
Can't know what you don't love. St. Augustine
Can't love what you don't know. Zucca
 
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Offline HighVoltageTopic starter

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #2 on: July 12, 2018, 11:57:02 am »
Sold, pending shipping payment from another country

Zucca
That is very funny.
The products from China are getting better and better in general.
There are 3 kinds of people in this world, those who can count and those who can not.
 
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Offline CJay

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #3 on: July 12, 2018, 12:19:55 pm »
Sold, pending shipping payment from another country

Zucca
That is very funny.
The products from China are getting better and better in general.

Always makes me laugh, Japan used to have the reputation China has now, give it another 15-20 years and it'll be Vietnesium or some other developing country with China being the mark of quality.
 

Offline COSMOS2K

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #4 on: July 12, 2018, 01:11:49 pm »
Hello:
Chinese products while falsifying, stealing and cheating buyers as they are currently doing will never reach the scrap rating, they will remain garbage.

Greetings.
 

Offline CJay

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #5 on: July 12, 2018, 01:35:30 pm »
Hello:
Chinese products while falsifying, stealing and cheating buyers as they are currently doing will never reach the scrap rating, they will remain garbage.

Greetings.

Thing is, they don't have that reputation now, chances are you're using a Chinese made device to read this message on.
 

Offline Zucca

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #6 on: July 12, 2018, 01:51:45 pm »
No because of this:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/repair/vintage-parts-from-china/msg1609819/#msg1609819

I only buy from china if a friend tell me to buy it, or I read a good review from someone I trust.
For example, since the T12 iron crap clones OLED did not had nice reviews, I just went ahead and got a nice used PS-800 Metcal.
Between new fantastic on paper device made in chinesium and a good old used one, I chose the second even if it is more expensive.

I see that they are getting better, but you need to think triple times as much before pressing the button "buy" in china www
Can't know what you don't love. St. Augustine
Can't love what you don't know. Zucca
 

Offline HighVoltageTopic starter

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #7 on: July 12, 2018, 02:02:24 pm »
OK, sold and shipped to a nice forum member.

My first hand experience with China is, that they constantly increase quality
and one day in the not so far distance, they will be like western countries.

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Offline TiN

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #8 on: July 12, 2018, 04:56:12 pm »
Customers get what they want to pay for, no matter the country of the manufacture.  ;).
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Offline tszaboo

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #9 on: July 12, 2018, 04:59:54 pm »
They make replacement displays for the 34401A? Is there a market big enough for this. wow.
 

Offline PlainName

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #10 on: July 12, 2018, 05:07:01 pm »
Quote
I only buy from china if ...

So how do you know they are (still) crap?

 

Offline HighVoltageTopic starter

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #11 on: July 13, 2018, 08:56:35 am »
Yes, I was surprised too and that is why I did not hesitate to order 3 pieces.
But they also copied the Agilent GPIB to USB adapter and flooded the market.

I would think that there is a little bit more involved, making a working VFD.
May be development cost is low in China.

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Offline CJay

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #12 on: July 13, 2018, 10:17:11 am »
Custom VFDs aren't too big a deal if you need a few of them but wasn't there a Chinese lookalike of the 34401, a Victor or something, possibly that's where they're from?
 

Offline sn4k3

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #13 on: July 13, 2018, 05:36:55 pm »
Thats why price is cheap, almost everything is made in china, but used components or the quality is not china fault, that is a decision from the manufacture or from the design. The same factory can produce original grade products and crappy clones, they want profit not good stuff with low profit. They also degrade quality by steps so when you buy replacements of replacements you will not notice a big change, change from 9 to 1 is big change, but if they do that at steps like 9,8,7,6 and you itenerate all steps you won't notice that huge difference which become a good profit for them, this happen on copy phone LCDs for example where price go lower and lower with time
iPhone is made on a china factory with high grade components, still apple can decide to use low grade components instead, that's not a problem from China, the developer decide the product quality not china. That doesn't mean iPhone is good anyway  :-DD
Now things that are made in china from china requested by a bussiness man to make some sells still a problem from that guy who requested that stuff to be made and not from China (Country)
I bet any country can produce really crap stuff if they want as good stuff as well, is all a matter of money/profit or a end

PS: I buy lot of products from china, and i found some are really good, others are crap, still my experience is much more positive than otherwise.
« Last Edit: July 13, 2018, 05:48:13 pm by sn4k3 »
 

Offline janoc

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #14 on: July 13, 2018, 05:51:20 pm »
These VFDs are just fine, I have one in my meter for over a year now and no complaints (at least I assume that there aren't multiple versions of it).

I do love the clowns that jump into every thread mentioning China with "insightful" comments about counterfeiting, crap quality, IP theft and what not, even though they have obviously never seen or used the product in question. Especially when there is no other source for these displays apart from eBay or cannibalizing other meters because Keysight has stopped supporting these. They may still have a few of the complete display modules available but those are much more expensive - and the question is how much longer will they last, I don't think Keysight is making any more of those.

Guys, can you cut the BS out, please?
 
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Offline CJay

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #15 on: July 13, 2018, 06:54:26 pm »
These VFDs are just fine, I have one in my meter for over a year now and no complaints (at least I assume that there aren't multiple versions of it).

I do love the clowns that jump into every thread mentioning China with "insightful" comments about counterfeiting, crap quality, IP theft and what not, even though they have obviously never seen or used the product in question. Especially when there is no other source for these displays apart from eBay or cannibalizing other meters because Keysight has stopped supporting these. They may still have a few of the complete display modules available but those are much more expensive - and the question is how much longer will they last, I don't think Keysight is making any more of those.

Guys, can you cut the BS out, please?

It really pisses me off, there's always someone who pops up with the 'Chinesium' thing.

Get what you pay for, if you want quality, China will sell it to you, if you want crap, they'll sell you that too.

Guess why so many countries have a huge trade deficit with China...
 
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Offline Mr. Scram

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #16 on: July 13, 2018, 11:21:27 pm »
Highvoltage, how did you test the brightness? Did you do this in the device or in a test setup?
 

Offline HighVoltageTopic starter

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #17 on: July 14, 2018, 12:01:27 pm »
Highvoltage, how did you test the brightness? Did you do this in the device or in a test setup?
I installed 2 of the three VFDs in one 34401A that I had laying around.
The original display has really nicely and evenly distributed brightness
This particular China version had the brightness very unevenly distributed.

I bought other VFDs from China before and they were very good.

On ebay, I found another vendor in China and ordered a few more VFDs.

 

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Offline janoc

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #18 on: July 14, 2018, 06:10:22 pm »
That's sounds like you got unlucky and got a bad/poor specimen. Mine is fairly even.

Just make sure to tape over the exposed electrodes on the sides. The original Keysight VFD has them covered, these Chinese ones don't and it could cause shorts against the metal frame holding the VFD in place. That could theoretically cause the uneven brightness as well.
 

Online exe

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #19 on: July 16, 2018, 11:36:02 am »
Sorry for asking, but did you clear the flux?
 

Offline HighVoltageTopic starter

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #20 on: July 16, 2018, 12:23:18 pm »
Sorry for asking, but did you clear the flux?
Oh, yes, I did clear the flux.
This is not the first Agilent VFD I have installed.

Over the years I replaced a lot of VFD's on the 34401A and other Agilent instruments.
This was the first bad experience.
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Online exe

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #21 on: July 16, 2018, 03:04:42 pm »
Over the years I replaced a lot of VFD's on the 34401A and other Agilent instruments.
This was the first bad experience.

Was the VFD new? No traces of previous soldering? Is it possible the driver is bad? (I had a bad driver on my K2000, one segment was dead, but with uncleaned flux and wrong wiring I could get similar problems with uneven brightness).
 

Offline HighVoltageTopic starter

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #22 on: July 16, 2018, 07:00:31 pm »
Yes, the VFD'S were brand new with no previous soldering on the pins.
This was just a cheaply made copy.

I ordered a new VFD from China and when it is installed, I will post some pictures.
I am sure it will work perfectly.

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Offline macboy

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #23 on: July 17, 2018, 03:49:28 pm »
The dim display and especially the uneven brightness looks very much like the symptoms of an under-driven cathode filament. Perhaps the replacement display's filament wires have a higher resistance and therefore are not getting enough current to emit sufficient electrons. You could try measuring the current, and if it is lower than the original, boost it up (usually there are some resistors in series with the filament, making this easy to do). You'll be surprised what a difference that can make.
 

Offline floobydust

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Re: FREE: 3 China made VFD displays for the Agilent 34401A
« Reply #24 on: July 17, 2018, 04:06:35 pm »
Which vendor did you get the duds from?

The displays are made by Zhejiang Feida and should have a QC sticker on the back. P/N FD33-1201

I'd contacted Noritake iTron about the VFD and they had concerns because the VFD design is owned by HP/Agilent/Keysight.
The MOQ... and that idea stalled getting Keysight to release the datasheets or drawings.

Samsung made them next and that's probably where the design got into the hands of the chinese
 


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