All, it was never designed to support a power measurement. I know there are scripts, but the only clean way to do this is to have 2 simultaneous A/D conversions (one for I and one for V).
The hardware wasn't architect-ed to do this.
Every implementation tends to be a hack that have issues. We know its an important feature, but it never made the list of essential requirements.
That is fine, and certainly understandable. I really never took issue with it not working. I kind of take issue with the limitation not being documented, and both the user and reference manual both have pictures showing dual V/I measurement setups. I feel that it is still implied that it works (unless you stumble upon this thread).
So, I would just prefer to see it documented, and/or remove the ranges that cause issues if configured for dual V/I measurement. Either way, I'm more than over this issue and I still highly recommend the meter.
Edit: This now appears to be documented. DCV/DCI in a primary/secondary measurement pairing is not guaranteed to provide in spec measurements. Yes, I understand the frustrations with blue screens.. please try to find steps to reproduce and take a photo of the screen --then report it, I can have firmware engineers look at it - its the only way to solve these bugs.
If it ever happens again I will certainly try and take a screenshot. It really has been a while though since I've had one. Moving the graph around, pinch/zoom, etc was the area that it always seemed the most likely to occur in my experience.
Thank you for the candid responses, E-Design they are appreciated!
That is fine, and certainly understandable. I really never took issue with it not working. I kind of take issue with the limitation not being documented, and both the user and reference manual both have pictures showing dual V/I measurement setups. I feel that it is still implied that it works (unless you stumble upon this thread).
or this one:
https://forum.tek.com/viewtopic.php?f=617&t=141896 (you can also get there via youtube)
That is fine, and certainly understandable. I really never took issue with it not working. I kind of take issue with the limitation not being documented, and both the user and reference manual both have pictures showing dual V/I measurement setups. I feel that it is still implied that it works (unless you stumble upon this thread).
or this one: https://forum.tek.com/viewtopic.php?f=617&t=141896 (you can also get there via youtube)
Wow, forgot about that post and they even responded!
Of course the problem still exists even with their recommended pairing of Primary:DCV, Secondary: DCI. So the warning about specifications not being met doesn't cover that the primary measurement is the one that is actually wrong in this pairing when on the 100/1000V ranges.Double checked the linked post again: so DCV/DCI is not considered a valid pairing anymore. Well, it is documented now which is good enough for me. I don't want to beat this dead horse anymore.
With the shared terminal, there is no way that simultaneous I and V can be really accurate. There may be improvements in the HW, but this would not solve the limitation. It may still be acceptable, especially if the voltage range is suitable.
The power measurement script uses an external shunt. The accuracy of this measurement is quite high. Unfortunately, the biggest inconvenience is management and settings. Actually the main function performs very well.
I will try to contact the authors of these small programs.
In general, it is surprising to me why this script is not interesting to anyone.
I really hope they didn't need 8 months since 1.7.0 just to make the apps exit properly.(assuming it exits properly now)
Why label it noncritical if you are going to release a new firmware for it. (I must be missing something here)
edit: installed it without problem to the first one, I will update the other one tomorrow.
No need to only release firmware for crirical issues. Frequent release is a good thing. You're not obliged to update your instrument.
The problem is not so much that the update did (kind of) correct a minor bug. The problem is that there are other known bugs that are more critical (e.g. fast draining battery) that seem to be still here.
If there is nothing more fixed, this is more like a bad sign of currently not much support going on. This may be due to the special times we have - though fixing software is one of those things that might by done from the home office too. There could be other reasons (e.g. new HW coming, a mayor SW update in the making) for delays.
Noisy unit here as well both electrically (low level hum when in stand by) and fan wise.
How do u guys find the screen on 6500 ? Is it responsive or laggy? What do u clean it with ? I assume its some matte finish.
Also, how long are these supposed to last, before the screen goes crazy ? I few real buttons would be nice.
How do u guys find the screen on 6500 ? Is it responsive or laggy? What do u clean it with ? I assume its some matte finish.
Also, how long are these supposed to last, before the screen goes crazy ? I few real buttons would be nice.
It's surprisingly good. I was worried about it but it just works. It's not up to the 120 Hz goodness of modern smartphones but I never feel it's laggy.
The problem is not so much that the update did (kind of) correct a minor bug. The problem is that there are other known bugs that are more critical (e.g. fast draining battery) that seem to be still here.
If there is nothing more fixed, this is more like a bad sign of currently not much support going on. This may be due to the special times we have - though fixing software is one of those things that might by done from the home office too. There could be other reasons (e.g. new HW coming, a mayor SW update in the making) for delays.
The time to fix the battery problem is running out for many people so I hope that has some priority.
The problem is not so much that the update did (kind of) correct a minor bug. The problem is that there are other known bugs that are more critical (e.g. fast draining battery) that seem to be still here.
If there is nothing more fixed, this is more like a bad sign of currently not much support going on. This may be due to the special times we have - though fixing software is one of those things that might by done from the home office too. There could be other reasons (e.g. new HW coming, a mayor SW update in the making) for delays.
The time to fix the battery problem is running out for many people so I hope that has some priority.
I am going to ask about it / find out.
Hi. This will be my first EEVBLOG post. I have been lurking the YouTube channel for a while and enjoy it a lot. This is a great community!
I found this thread while searching the web to discover if anyone else has had a blue screen problem. I came across the HJK post here. Their Keithley DMM6500 may have been experiencing the blue screen because of old firmware issues, judging by the date of the post, but I wanted to see if the community has experienced more of these blue screens.
My Keithley DMM6500 has experienced blue screens twice now. This instrument was recieved in October of last year and I started to use it for the first time last month. I left it running in DCV mode while I pressed the graph button to enlarge the figure, it crashed unexpectedly without any connections. I proceded to update the firmware as technical support suggested. However, this did not fix the problem.
Again, I encounted a "fatal error" when I was browsing the menu while analysing a DCV of an op-amp output. A picture is attached. When this happened, I immediately sent it in for inspection to the distributor company that I purchased it from. They suggested I update the firmware, but they could not find anything wrong with it. They also recommended that I pay for a calibration. I told them that it was out of the question because the product is still under warranty and is not the customers problem that the product is defective -- I already paid good money to ship it with insurance. They are likely returning it to the factory for a "warranty repair evaluation."
Questions: What are my rights here as a consumer in Canada? Has anyone experienced this problem after firmware updates? Is this a software or hardware issue? Would it be typical in this situation to recieve a loner DMM while I wait for this repair?
Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you EEVBLOG.
Hi. This will be my first EEVBLOG post. I have been lurking the YouTube channel for a while and enjoy it a lot. This is a great community!
I found this thread while searching the web to discover if anyone else has had a blue screen problem. I came across the HJK post here. Their Keithley DMM6500 may have been experiencing the blue screen because of old firmware issues, judging by the date of the post, but I wanted to see if the community has experienced more of these blue screens.
My Keithley DMM6500 has experienced blue screens twice now. This instrument was recieved in October of last year and I started to use it for the first time last month. I left it running in DCV mode while I pressed the graph button to enlarge the figure, it crashed unexpectedly without any connections. I proceded to update the firmware as technical support suggested. However, this did not fix the problem.
Again, I encounted a "fatal error" when I was browsing the menu while analysing a DCV of an op-amp output. A picture is attached. When this happened, I immediately sent it in for inspection to the distributor company that I purchased it from. They suggested I update the firmware, but they could not find anything wrong with it. They also recommended that I pay for a calibration. I told them that it was out of the question because the product is still under warranty and is not the customers problem that the product is defective -- I already paid good money to ship it with insurance. They are likely returning it to the factory for a "warranty repair evaluation."
Questions: What are my rights here as a consumer in Canada? Has anyone experienced this problem after firmware updates? Is this a software or hardware issue? Would it be typical in this situation to recieve a loner DMM while I wait for this repair?
Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you EEVBLOG.
Did you update your firmware as the distributor recommended(it is not completely clear if you did this)? I haven't gotten a blue screen in a quite a while. Latest firmware is 1.72 I believe.
Welcome to the eevblog forum, leighcorrigall
I have been using my DMM6500 a lot and since one of these FW updates, I never had a blue screen again.
Maybe something else is wrong with your unit.
So, it seems to be a good idea to be checked out by the manufacturer.
Are you sure you didn't had some error/warning messages during the update?
I had it but reverting to the previous one fixed it, retrying the update fixed it.
You can try firmware 1.7.2 to see if that one updates without error.
Can you also give an idea how frequent you have these problems, many times a day?
It has been a while (months) since I had a blue screen.
Hi. This will be my first EEVBLOG post. I have been lurking the YouTube channel for a while and enjoy it a lot. This is a great community!
I found this thread while searching the web to discover if anyone else has had a blue screen problem. I came across the HJK post here. Their Keithley DMM6500 may have been experiencing the blue screen because of old firmware issues, judging by the date of the post, but I wanted to see if the community has experienced more of these blue screens.
My Keithley DMM6500 has experienced blue screens twice now. This instrument was recieved in October of last year and I started to use it for the first time last month. I left it running in DCV mode while I pressed the graph button to enlarge the figure, it crashed unexpectedly without any connections. I proceded to update the firmware as technical support suggested. However, this did not fix the problem.
Again, I encounted a "fatal error" when I was browsing the menu while analysing a DCV of an op-amp output. A picture is attached. When this happened, I immediately sent it in for inspection to the distributor company that I purchased it from. They suggested I update the firmware, but they could not find anything wrong with it. They also recommended that I pay for a calibration. I told them that it was out of the question because the product is still under warranty and is not the customers problem that the product is defective -- I already paid good money to ship it with insurance. They are likely returning it to the factory for a "warranty repair evaluation."
Questions: What are my rights here as a consumer in Canada? Has anyone experienced this problem after firmware updates? Is this a software or hardware issue? Would it be typical in this situation to recieve a loner DMM while I wait for this repair?
Any help would be most appreciated. Thank you EEVBLOG.
Did you update your firmware as the distributor recommended(it is not completely clear if you did this)? I haven't gotten a blue screen in a quite a while. Latest firmware is 1.72 I believe.
I am using the latest software. The Keithley DMM6500 experienced the blue screen before and after the firmware update.
Are you sure you didn't had some error/warning messages during the update?
I had it but reverting to the previous one fixed it, retrying the update fixed it.
You can try firmware 1.7.2 to see if that one updates without error.
Can you also give an idea how frequent you have these problems, many times a day?
It has been a while (months) since I had a blue screen.
Everytime I used the instrument I had an error in the first hour of use. Both instances were in VDC mode while I was using the touch screen. There might be a pattern here, but I didn't bother to check it out thoroughly. As soon as the second blue screen occurred I packed it up and sent it back for inspection. When a "fatal, unrecoverable error" occurs on something this expensive I send it in. This is my first Keithley purchase and it might be a lemon.
The first blue screen was with whatever firmware it was shipped with in October. The firmware was likely something recent because it was built and calibrated in the same month I purchased it. I updated the firmware to 1.7.2 and I received no error message when I uploaded it on a USB. I used Tera Copy to verify that the transfer to the USB was correct by performing a hash check. Other than the blue screens, this device seems to behave as intended. Blue screens don't give me much confidence in the designer.
Welcome to the eevblog forum, leighcorrigall
I have been using my DMM6500 a lot and since one of these FW updates, I never had a blue screen again.
Maybe something else is wrong with your unit.
So, it seems to be a good idea to be checked out by the manufacturer.
Yup. It is going overseas to be dismantled.
Also, thank you everyone for your fast replies. I was expecting at least a day before a response. This community is strong.
Sounds like you just got a dud. Mine is on 24/7 and has gone weeks without a reboot, and its been a good while since I've had a crash. I'm still on 1.71 firmware. I can't speak for the latest version, but it is a reliable meter in my experience. Good to hear your getting it straightened out with your distributor.
I asked this question on Teks forum, but I didn't get a response after my the replay. So I'll ask here in case anybody knows (maybe E-Design?)
I'm having trouble with "trigger.BLOCK_WAIT", it doesn't behave as I would expect, unless I'm missing something. Here is a piece of code that produces the unexpected behavior:
local function timerSetup()
trigger.timer[1].reset()
trigger.timer[1].delay = 1.
trigger.timer[1].start.stimulus = trigger.EVENT_NOTIFY1
trigger.timer[1].start.generate = trigger.OFF
trigger.timer[1].count = 0
trigger.timer[1].enable = trigger.ON
end
local function modelTiming()
timer.cleartime()
trigger.model.initiate()
waitcomplete()
print(timer.gettime())
end
reset()
timerSetup()
trigger.model.load("Empty")
trigger.model.setblock(1, trigger.BLOCK_NOTIFY, trigger.EVENT_NOTIFY1)
trigger.model.setblock(2, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
modelTiming()
timerSetup()
trigger.model.load("Empty")
trigger.model.setblock(1, trigger.BLOCK_NOTIFY, trigger.EVENT_NOTIFY1)
trigger.model.setblock(2, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
trigger.model.setblock(3, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
modelTiming()
timerSetup()
trigger.model.load("Empty")
trigger.model.setblock(1, trigger.BLOCK_NOTIFY, trigger.EVENT_NOTIFY1)
trigger.model.setblock(2, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
trigger.model.setblock(3, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
trigger.model.setblock(4, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
modelTiming()
timerSetup()
trigger.model.load("Empty")
trigger.model.setblock(1, trigger.BLOCK_NOTIFY, trigger.EVENT_NOTIFY1)
trigger.model.setblock(2, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
trigger.model.setblock(3, trigger.BLOCK_DELAY_CONSTANT, 0.2)
trigger.model.setblock(4, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
modelTiming()
timerSetup()
trigger.model.load("Empty")
trigger.model.setblock(1, trigger.BLOCK_NOTIFY, trigger.EVENT_NOTIFY1)
trigger.model.setblock(2, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
trigger.model.setblock(3, trigger.BLOCK_DELAY_CONSTANT, 0.3)
trigger.model.setblock(4, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1)
modelTiming()
That piece of code outputs:
1.000224076
1.000238197
2.00022641
1.200241196
2.000275546
while I was expecting instead to get:
1
2
3
2
2
Any ideas why this occurs?
Also, is there any way to restart the timer without having to "reset()" it (since reset() also clears all the timer parameters)?
Thanks
"Andreas C" from the tek forum replied to me:
Event detectors can latch events.
Since your event timer is essentially free running (count = 0), your BLOCK_WAIT is proceeding (too soon) due to a latched timer event from an "old" EVENT_TIMER1.
You can optionally clear as you enter wait blocks:
trigger.model.setblock(2, trigger.BLOCK_WAIT, trigger.EVENT_TIMER1, trigger.CLEAR_ENTER)
With that, you'll get your expected 1, 2, 3, 2, 2 reported duration.
To which I replied:
Thanks for the response!
Manual says "Set the count to zero (0) to cause the timer to generate trigger events indefinitely.", so the timer still needs a trigger.EVENT_NOTIFY1, to start. If I set "trigger.timer[1].count = 3" I get the exact same results. If an event detector had a latched event I would expect the first model not to ever wait, but instead it waits 1s, just like the second model (with 2 waits).
Yes, the "trigger.CLEAR_ENTER", fixes it, but I want to be able to check for events occurring before entering the wait block (not in this particular example model but in a real model). Now oddly enough a "trigger.CLEAR_ENTER" on the first wait block doesn't fix anything, but one on the second, it does.
It appears to me that the first wait delays the clearance of the event ~0.25 s after it detects it. So unless I add a 0.3 s delay after the first wait, the second wait will be bypassed as it detects the exact same event detected by the first wait.
And I didn't receive any further response (since 2 weeks)...
Are you sure you didn't had some error/warning messages during the update?
I had it but reverting to the previous one fixed it, retrying the update fixed it.
You can try firmware 1.7.2 to see if that one updates without error.
Can you also give an idea how frequent you have these problems, many times a day?
It has been a while (months) since I had a blue screen.
Everytime I used the instrument I had an error in the first hour of use. Both instances were in VDC mode while I was using the touch screen. There might be a pattern here, but I didn't bother to check it out thoroughly. As soon as the second blue screen occurred I packed it up and sent it back for inspection. When a "fatal, unrecoverable error" occurs on something this expensive I send it in. This is my first Keithley purchase and it might be a lemon.
The first blue screen was with whatever firmware it was shipped with in October. The firmware was likely something recent because it was built and calibrated in the same month I purchased it. I updated the firmware to 1.7.2 and I received no error message when I uploaded it on a USB. I used Tera Copy to verify that the transfer to the USB was correct by performing a hash check. Other than the blue screens, this device seems to behave as intended. Blue screens don't give me much confidence in the designer.
The blue screens you have unfortunately experienced, are almost certainly firmware bugs. The firmware team is continuously working on these problems and posting updates to the website/ You can certainly send your unit in for service if you think there is something wrong with the hardware operation. Since you are having these blue screens rather frequently, it would seem that its quite reproducible for you. If you are willing to share the steps / sequence or code you are running, those details can get logged with the issue and the team can easily resolve it. Unfortunately, many of the bugs that go unfixed for so long is due in a large part to being intermittent in nature (non-reproducible)
The problem is not so much that the update did (kind of) correct a minor bug. The problem is that there are other known bugs that are more critical (e.g. fast draining battery) that seem to be still here.
If there is nothing more fixed, this is more like a bad sign of currently not much support going on. This may be due to the special times we have - though fixing software is one of those things that might by done from the home office too. There could be other reasons (e.g. new HW coming, a mayor SW update in the making) for delays.
The time to fix the battery problem is running out for many people so I hope that has some priority.
I am going to ask about it / find out.
The battery fix will be released in v1.7.3. I am told it is in the testing stage.. nobody would give me a date though..
I have reminded the team of the urgency of draining batteries and the difficult workarounds.. so we'll see...